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Euripides 'Symptoms Of Love In Longus' Works

Decent Essays

In calling love “a serious mental disease,” Plato inspired centuries of authors, doctors, and philosophers. Unlike romantic comedy movies and the Top 40 pop songs chart, which idolize love, literature frequently portrays it as a sickness. Both love and mental illness affect brain chemistry, mood, and behavior. In pieces such as Euripides’ Medea, symptoms of love range from mental illness-like ailments to physical manifestations such as a vanishing appetite, concentration, and apparent sanity. In Longus’ work, love is described as having similar traits. Throughout the story of Daphnis and Chloe’s pastoral romance, love drives both of them mad with longing. Love amplifies their innocent feelings for each other, resulting in a disorienting combination of depression and mania. The affliction goes deeper; their total devotion to each other and pastoral …show more content…

Heart on fire, Daphnis “suddenly looked almost indignant and shivered several times and tried to control his pounding heart; he wanted to look at Chloe, but when he did so he blushed all over” after Chloe kisses him for the first time (Longus 30). On a diagnosis chart, Daphnis’ symptoms are worrisome; he is hot and inflamed, yet shivers as if frozen in fear. Love is being used as a disease and Daphnis’ case is only special in that he does not understand what is happening to him. He even ponders whether Chloe poisoned him with her kiss, so odd is his behavior and feeling. After speaking with Philetas, Daphnis and Chloe reason the pain they feel is the pain of love, and they fervently and amateurishly grab at each other to try Philetas’ “remedies (Longus 49).” By calling their embraces “remedies,” Longus keeps up the pastoral appearance of the relationship, since Daphnis and Chloe are innocent of lust and cuddle solely to temporarily quell the discomfort caused by love, while continuing to refer to love as a

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