Eternal Love Symbols
(An excerpt from Translation 3000 Newsletter, February 2007)
Love is in the air! And translators — like all humans — (or even more) are susceptible to Cupid's arrows.
February 14 is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each
other; sending Valentine's cards or candy, often anonymously. Approximately one billion
valentines are sent each year worldwide, making the day the second largest card-sending
holiday of the year after Christmas. It is very common to present flowers
on Valentine's Day. The day became associated with romantic love in the
High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline and the figure of the winged
Cupid.
 The heart has long been used as a symbol
to refer to the spiritual, emotional, moral, and in the past also intellectual
core of a human being. Many classical and medieval philosophers and scientists,
including Aristotle, considered the heart the center of thought, reason or emotion,
often rejecting the value of the brain.
 Cupid was a mischievous, winged child, whose arrows would pierce the
hearts of his victims causing them to fall deeply in love. In ancient
Greece he was known as Eros, the young son of Aphrodite. To the Romans
he was Cupid, and his mother Venus.
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