Could the fervent passion depicted in the tragic tales of Quasimodo and Esmeralda be present in our real-life love stories? This episode, with special guest Luke Travers from touchingtheart.com, delves into the enduring enigma of undying love as seen through the prisms of literature, art, and our everyday experiences. We struggle with the question of whether romantic love can truly be eternal, examining the reflective journey of Michael Corleone in "Godfather Part Three," and how the internal battles and societal pressures challenge the notion of everlasting affection.
Art has long been a canvas for the complexities of love, and we bring this to life by dissecting a poignant portrait that tells a story without words. The image of a tearful yet composed woman, potentially a figure from Greek mythology, invites us into a narrative steeped in love's bittersweet farewells, reminiscent of the emotional odysseys found in Homer's epic poetry. Our discussion intertwines with musings on how past relationships shape our creative impulses and the eternal search for a connection that resonates on spiritual, intellectual, and physical planes, much like the ill-fated romance of Tristan and Isolde.
As we wrap up, our conversation takes a poetic turn, immersing ourselves in the nuanced portrayal of love that seeks both eternal and sensual fulfillment. We're transported by the mesmerizing verses of poets who have likened undying love to the constancy of a star, while also acknowledging the enduring ache for a love that can transcend even death, as expressed in Longfellow's "The Cross of Snow." Join us on this heart-stirring journey that celebrates the art of love and the love of art, inviting you to reflect on the depth and longevity of your own romantic bonds.
Could the fervent passion depicted in the tragic tales of Quasimodo and Esmeralda be present in our real-life love stories? This episode, with special guest Luke Travers from touchingtheart.com, delves into the enduring enigma of undying love as seen through the prisms of literature, art, and our everyday experiences. We struggle with the question of whether romantic love can truly be eternal, examining the reflective journey of Michael Corleone in "Godfather Part Three," and how the internal battles and societal pressures challenge the notion of everlasting affection.
Art has long been a canvas for the complexities of love, and we bring this to life by dissecting a poignant portrait that tells a story without words. The image of a tearful yet composed woman, potentially a figure from Greek mythology, invites us into a narrative steeped in love's bittersweet farewells, reminiscent of the emotional odysseys found in Homer's epic poetry. Our discussion intertwines with musings on how past relationships shape our creative impulses and the eternal search for a connection that resonates on spiritual, intellectual, and physical planes, much like the ill-fated romance of Tristan and Isolde.
As we wrap up, our conversation takes a poetic turn, immersing ourselves in the nuanced portrayal of love that seeks both eternal and sensual fulfillment. We're transported by the mesmerizing verses of poets who have likened undying love to the constancy of a star, while also acknowledging the enduring ache for a love that can transcend even death, as expressed in Longfellow's "The Cross of Snow." Join us on this heart-stirring journey that celebrates the art of love and the love of art, inviting you to reflect on the depth and longevity of your own romantic bonds.
I have met with women who I really think would like to be married to a poem and to be given away by a novel. Today, we're going to be talking about undying love in literature, painting and real life. Welcome to Surprise by Art. My name is Kirk Barbera and I'm joined, as always, with Luke Travers from touchingtheartcom, where you can find out more about his book, his tours in paint and museums and all the great stuff that he's doing, including Euro salons and salons that he does online, which are great. So welcome Luke.
Speaker 2:Good to be here and good to be thinking about romantic love.
Speaker 1:Romantic love and undying romantic love. I guess that's part of the question, yeah.
Speaker 2:So when you said, you told me the topic on dying love, so I've got a lot of questions. First of all, are we talking specifically about romantic love?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that is the question. I think it's, you know, like can you have undying love without romantic love? Probably not. But can you have romantic love without undying love, like, in other words, the love can die and you know that. So you can feel romantic love for someone on a high level, and it's something real and beautiful and you're in a you know great feelings of, you know connection, but then it somehow goes away, that love is transferred to somebody else or something else happens. Is that, you know? Is that undying or romantic love? Are they, you know? Do they have to be fused? Is it? Is it one or the other? In other words, okay.
Speaker 2:So you're asking is does romantic love have to be forever and undying?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't, you know that's so. I have my views, and we're going to be surprising each other with paintings and poems. Each of us, and each of us brought a couple this time, so this is a special episode, and yeah. So when I brought up that topic undying love, luke, I'm curious because I came up with it. I've thought about it. I'm sure you've thought about it, though. So what came to your mind?
Speaker 2:Well, first of all, what is undying love? And I've got kind of two different ideas about what undying means. So obviously it's not love that's quick and you forget about the person the next day, or it's something temporarily emotional, it's something that's long lasting. But even when it's this long lasting feeling, I'm seeing it kind of go into two different directions and I'm curious to see what you think.
Speaker 2:One is a kind of devotion, that this is a love that you are devoted to, that you continuously kindle, whether you are in the relationship or not, whether you're Quasimodo who is, who has this undying love for Esmeralda, no matter what. Or it's something that is more about a relationship and continuing the relationship over time. So there's that part. And then there's another part. When I think undying, I think of maybe the relationship is over, maybe that person is gone from your life, whether they've separated or you they've, they've passed away, but something about the feelings that you had stay with you and remain there even as you move on with your life, and there's OK. So I don't know how many people have seen the movie Godfather Part Three, with the long time, not the best of the Godfathers, and I'm going to spoil the ending of Godfather.
Speaker 1:Staircase.
Speaker 2:No, no, not that part, not the staircase thing at the opera. No, at the very, very end, michael Corleone, old man in a chair, that's right, and he starts to have flashbacks.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And the flashbacks he has are to the three women in his life, his first love that he married, apollonia, his wife Kay, and then his daughter, and it's just though, like he's imagining the dancing with each of them, the good time he had with each of them, and each of them remain with him, even though at different points in his life he move on, he separated Things happened. There is something about his affection for each of them that has remained, and so I'm kind of seeing those two sides One, I'm constantly, I am completely devoted, it's there with me. And then the other side, it's still a part of me, in spite of me moving away, not being devoted to the partner, to the love.
Speaker 1:That's a really good example. I definitely think that at the end of people's lives you know they say that the number one thing that you learn from people is their regrets, and often what you hear about regrets is like who they didn't go spend their life with who they like. It's about what they didn't do. Because you're at the end of your life, you're reflecting back. It's like I should have stayed with that person.
Speaker 1:That was the best that I ever had, or whatever, and so that, to me, indicates that there is a romantic love, that is an undying love possible. But the challenge is all the chaos of life and all the chaos of our internal turmoil, of the external choices or the external things that occur in our lives that tear us apart, bring us together, separate all those types of things. And now the reason that I'm thinking about undying love is, as you're mentioning it is. I think we've all dealt with breakups and it's to me it's been very interesting when that happens, seeing all the advice that's given, and you know, because it seems like we all know that social media seems to know everything that's going on in your life, and then you start getting bombarded with here's advice from Huberman, here's Jocko.
Speaker 2:Do you have your?
Speaker 1:AI love consultant. Yet oh yeah, I've definitely talked to chat GPT about, you know, hope and love and like that stuff, and the advice is always is very I mean, there's some good stuff to it, but I think overall it's really bad, like it's not super helpful. It doesn't, you know, and it definitely doesn't lean toward undying love. In my view. It definitely leans more toward what I would call a more disconnected from any kind of romantic, idealized version of love and just like more of a. You know, well, your goal is like, you know, getting a woman and getting this and like what I would.
Speaker 1:I don't like to use the term practical necessarily in this sense, because it seems like the romantic version is not practical, but I think it actually is, but like it kind of, you know, getting the notches on the bed post, getting a wife and kids, like that is the ultimate and idealized version that everybody is trying to strive for. And all the advice that you hear, all the, even the psychotherapy and all those types of things, are all geared toward that kind of thing. Often, very rarely does anybody recommend undying love. Very rarely does anybody recommend the kind of devotion to a love. Now I want to preface or say it a little bit here real quick about when I say undying love and this kind of thing, I do mean a kind of actualized love, not a you know I try to separate this from like a fantasy love, where it's like you fall in love with, you know, a girl in school that you've never talked to and you paint a picture of her. That's not real.
Speaker 2:Like Cyrano and Roxanne.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in a sense, although they had some interactions at least. But yeah, I think that's part of what Cyrano definitely, definitely does. And now, by the way, I'm not saying never do that. I don't want to, you know, make those kind of proclamations, but what I'm saying is, I mean, I think a better example would be like falling in love with a movie star that you're never going to interact with. You're never going to be loving things for some of the attributes and characteristics you see in them.
Speaker 1:But that's very different than you know, really loving a specific human being that you're dedicated and devoted to. And you're choosing to be dedicated, devoted to, through all the trials and tribulations, even separation, even, you know, even past death, or things like that. Like you're saying, like this is my North Star, I'm selecting, and there's just no, nobody ever talks about that. That's if that's valuable or if we should do that, or if that's just something for fantasy stories and romance novels and you know, romance movies and things like that. So that's why I wanted to talk about the concept of undying love through literature, because it's it's heavy in literature, obviously. We get a lot of examples, we get a lot of, we get a lot of great poetry from it. We have great movies from this. You know, there's, there's, I think basically the whole romantic romance genre, the romantic comedy genre, is this idea of you know there's, there's usually a mismatched pair of some sort, or like the woman is with some the wrong man and the man is with the wrong woman or something, and it's about them.
Speaker 1:You know all the things that finding true love and connecting with the right person is a common trope right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the before the relationship type of thing. But it sounds like when you're thinking of undying love, you're thinking after you've, you're in the relationship and that you're keeping that romance alive in spite of the chaos of life.
Speaker 1:Give you the yeah like well, is it valuable and should you keep it alive in yourself, given all the chaos, right? Like that's kind of the deeper question I see I'm thinking about because, yeah, sometimes you may not be with that person, sometimes there may be separation, sometimes whatever, I don't know. So that that's the issue to think about. Obviously, if you're married to somebody and you're having kids and everything there's, hopefully you. The same thing applies where you are still feeling that romantic love, although again I this, I hear this from married couples all the time like that same type of thing happens where the ups and downs and you maybe don't love that person as much one year or something, and you know that's so to me the change, and I mean then you could validly ask the question should love be undying?
Speaker 1:Yes, I think that's the other question. It's like does it make sense to have that undying ideal of love that I think has been so prominent in literature, at least since?
Speaker 2:the 12th century, and in this podcast we will answer that question once and for all. All right, what do you say? I think we're going to be extrapolate more on all these different tangled lines of love as we go along. You want to get started?
Speaker 1:Yeah, let's do it. Let's do a painting to discuss this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and.
Speaker 1:I'd love for you to start, because you had a painting for me, right?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do, and full disclosure. I thought you might have seen this painting before. So, right before we started airing, I briefly showed it to you and asked you if you knew the title of this painting. You said no. And that's the important part for me, because I, even if you're kind of, you've seen it before and I think you'll still kind of read it to us and piece together what's going on. I think it will reveal, I think, one thing that I think of very powerfully about what Undying Love is All right. So are you ready? Yes, and, of course, an initial title for the painting. Ok, for this painting, what's your initial title? Uplift, uplift. So what do you see going on?
Speaker 1:I see a young lady with purple wreath in her hair, white flowing dress, standing in a meadow on a cloudy slash sunny, nice day, it looks like, and she's looking up with her eyes closed, or her head is kind of tilted back with her eyes closed, you know. It's almost like she's, although I guess the breeze is coming from behind her. So she's not looking up at the sun, she's not basking in the sun, she's just kind of looking up and then there's this purple ribbon around her waist that's being blown in the wind. So there's purple, there's a lot of purple and a lot, and again I see her looking up.
Speaker 2:That's the main thing I'm seeing, and it's a kind of her chin lifted but her eyes closed.
Speaker 1:Yeah, chin lifted but eyes closed. It's not like you know the generic or not generic, but when we hear a lot in our circles of like the hero worship, where it's like the upward glance, there's some of that going on, but she's not looking at it, her eyes are closed.
Speaker 2:What is she doing?
Speaker 1:out here. It's a good question, I think. I think she's just going for a stroll, I mean what a stroll.
Speaker 2:This is right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like she's going to stroll with a beautiful dress, a beautiful flowing gown.
Speaker 2:essentially Doesn't look like a wedding dress. And the place she is. And the place she is. Look at this place.
Speaker 1:It's gorgeous. Yeah, I mean it looks like it's in Austria or something.
Speaker 2:Right and, like in the mountains, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in the mountains of Austria and she's just like in a meadow, Like in Texas we have every boyfriend has to take a picture for his girlfriend's slaying in a field of bluebonnets. Yeah, and that's kind of what this is like, except this is probably even a little bit more beautiful than the bluebonnets. Oh, those are beautiful too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right. So she's in the field of quote unquote, bluebonnets, but there's no boyfriend around.
Speaker 1:Unless he's painting.
Speaker 2:We don't consider that word immersed into the world. Yeah, what's her expression on her face.
Speaker 1:I mean I the first thought that came to my head when I saw it was exalted, but it's not quite matching up with what I'm seeing now. That's not the feeling I'm getting.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:There's a. I want to say that someone the word that came to my mind was morose, not exactly morose there's a, there's a tinge of sadness that I'm seeing in her, maybe of loss of something, not you know, like like she's not smiling, she's not like there's, like it's it's contemplative reflective.
Speaker 1:I can imagine she was maybe crying a moment to go or maybe she's not bawling, but it's kind of that crying of you know. You start thinking about something and just like a like the cliche single tear type thing comes down where it's not a heavy crime.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's what I'm seeing with her. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Now I don't have the best image quality here and then when you go to the Indianapolis Museum of Art and you see this painting in person, the a certain detail is so much more stark. And when I saw this painting for the first time, I start off farther back right in the whole scene. You know, okay, here's this beautiful woman taking in the fresh blossom air on this and this beautiful hillside. And then I got up close and what I saw on her face and on her cheek?
Speaker 1:those tear streaks, tear streaks, yeah, okay, so you can kind of see it. Yeah, that's what I was thinking of is. It seemed like like almost her mascara is running, type thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Right, like I don't know if what she's wearing, it seemed kind of black line coming down.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so this is a painting that's in my book Stories and Paint, and maybe a lot of folks who are watching this podcast might remember it, but I did really want to bring this up as one of romantic love. And, kirk, you don't happen to remember the title or the backstory, do you?
Speaker 1:I don't remember the title or backstory.
Speaker 2:So to sum up what we're seeing so far beautiful young woman out in nature in a beautiful world, lives her head maybe to take and descend, but also starts to cry. So something is there that's not making this the perfect moment. It's casting a shadow and we can maybe guess it's got to do with romantic love, and it does. The story here is background.
Speaker 2:Story now is of someone who's just had to say goodbye to the one they love because they need to move on, and she is a character from Greek mythology, and specifically the Odyssey.
Speaker 1:This is Penelope.
Speaker 2:No, not Penelope.
Speaker 1:Was it Cersei? Not Cersei, the one that Odysseus was with oh, oh, my God, this is not Sica.
Speaker 2:This is Calypso Well you know, what it's interesting that you're going through like a checklist of all the women that Odysseus has been around with yes in particular it's Calypso, oh, not She'd offered him a mortality and he said no, I've got to go back to my life.
Speaker 1:Why is it Calypso from? Ok, so I don't remember this at all now, so I'm glad you picked this one. So why is this Calypso?
Speaker 2:Look what is Calypso when, after she has to leave, or let Odysseus go, when she's told by maybe Zeus or yeah, it was.
Speaker 1:it was Hermes through Zeus, but yeah.
Speaker 2:You got to let him go. He's got to go back and she's like I don't want to let him go and I think he was there for maybe seven years, Seven years.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, calypso's Island, that's, that's how we meet him. He's kind of Odysseus is crying on her island because he wants to go home.
Speaker 2:So I picked this one as an instance of undying love, not because there's anything that she's trying to do to preserve the love, but because it's still there in her. This is something that's going to remain with her, this love she has for Odysseus. He's gone. He's gone back to his wife, but she can't go out and enjoy a beautiful day without thinking about what it'd be like to be with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a really good facet of undying romantic love is the, because this one is a temporary version of love, right? So this is. They were together for a short period of time. Short period, seven years. Well, I mean, for her she's immortal, but I think, whatever you want to say, they were together temporarily, in a kind of oasis of this love, although he was trapped, and so, you know, it's always the question of did he really love her?
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, this is he. I think he was into the affairs, you think he was. Oh yeah, oh yeah. I mean that's a long discussion.
Speaker 1:Because yeah, part of the. I'm sorry I interrupted your point about no, it's fine because I'm glad you did, because one of the points in One of the examples I would use for undying love is Penelope and Odysseus, Because in that example it's all like he literally goes to war, they're separated for 20 years and then they go together right, and he fights to get back with her. She has all these suitors, he kills them.
Speaker 2:I'll pause you right there. Can I pause you right there? Yeah, can I show you another painting real quick? Yeah, let's do it. Let's show all those paintings.
Speaker 1:We don't have to spend hours, you know, analyzing each one.
Speaker 2:No, just very quickly, because yeah, yeah, here it is. You'll recognize this.
Speaker 1:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. This is obviously Penelope in this case, so the story of Penelope is she's. This is a great one. I've seen this before, but I haven't really, like, really examined it.
Speaker 2:But yeah. So what are you seeing going on, yeah.
Speaker 1:Weaving the mat. What is the funeral? Shroud, oh Shroud, thank you for Odysseus' father. And she keeps unraveling it every night. So that's how she says I will marry when this is done, you know, because that will be my saying goodbye to Odysseus and moving on.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you know, all these suitors are there to try to take her away and yeah, so, like part of it is, like you know, obviously this is not, this is not in modern feminism era, but part of her fight is to keep off all these men so that she could stay true to her real man, her king, the, you know, great Odysseus. Now, odysseus does not necessarily, you know, do the same thing physically, but I do think this is why I would disagree. I guess I do think he does always love her at the most. Oh, of course.
Speaker 2:Of course I do.
Speaker 1:He has different connections with other women, but he really only loves, in my view, the undying, romantic, lifelong love of Penelope, which is why I'm always interested in Tennyson's take on this, because it starts matched with an aged. Wait, Tennyson's Odysseus, oh, his poor Odysseus, so Odysseus yeah, is matched with an aged wife, which to me kind of takes away the romantic love that is at the core of the Odyssey, which is like the Nostoi is that story? It's about homecoming, so it's about what draws you to homecoming.
Speaker 2:You're undercutting your own points. No, so that's Tennyson's view there. So I mean just to kind of wrap up the comparison between these two. Yeah, here this I was thinking of that second strand of romantic love, and I think of undying love and I think the one that you're really focusing on, which is you care about someone deeply and you're going to do whatever you can to preserve that relationship. And this is Penelope taking action, ignoring those suitors constantly working on this ploy to ward off. I mean, those suitors are just so funny.
Speaker 2:They're just standing flowers and jewels and playing the harp and they look so dejected. This is, if you want an image of dejected lovers, there they are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean that's, and I love how he's got like his jewelry box.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like look, look, he's like dangling in front of her. She's a cat or something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like oh my God, shoot, come on. This other guy's playing music and he's like I was saying, but really she just wants her one man, right, yeah? And I think this is more, in my view, of a depiction of romantic love, of undying love. And I say romantic love is tied to this because I do think there are times in your life when you feel heightened sense of love for a variety of people. But I do so, I am a believer in the overarching.
Speaker 1:Undying romantic love is a real thing that you can choose to experience in life. But that doesn't mean you're not going to have these connections with other people that are very intense, very real. And that's where it gets complicated, I think, is that that doesn't mean you have to physicalize it or anything like that, but you are, I think, going to make those connections and the question is which one do you select as the undying romantic love of all time and which one is just a kind of the temporary, fleeting, wonderful love that is, there is connection. So, again, bringing you back to Nasika, I want to just real quick, just end on this. One of the things that's so interesting when you read the Odyssey on Nasika is that she is a real match for Odysseus in the way she uses language, she thinks like him a little bit, and I think Homer does that on purpose is there are these people in your life where you're going to connect with them? But who is your penelope, who is your Odysseus? Like it's a complete match together, undying forever. Sorry, I interrupted you.
Speaker 2:No, that's that's. I think that's that's clearly put, and I like the way that you're explaining how this undying love you're saying sometimes you've got to make a choice about who that person is going to be, because that's the person that you're going to be acting for.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I think that there there can be two elements of that.
Speaker 2:There can be that person to the undying love, there can be that person that you make a choice about, and then there can be also the person that imprints on your subconscious, on your soul, that stays with you.
Speaker 2:I'll give you just a brief example From the TV show Mad Men. There's one kind of episode where Don Draper, the head of an ad agency, kind of, I think he takes some drugs one weekend and goes on this quest to solve this problem about this woman that he thought he knew, and he keeps going through this, all these ads that he did for soup, for coffee, whatever it is, and he keeps seeing the same kind of female figure there. And at the end of the episode what he starts to realize is all these women had a similar kind of look to them and they were all the same look of a woman that he first fell in love with when he was a teenager, an older woman, and so that this image of this woman imprinted Herself on his psyche and stayed with him and his relationships from that point forward, and his imagery and his advertising reflected that initial kind of Feeling, image, vibe, that this woman from his teenage days imprinted upon him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean this. This to me almost touches on Freudian thought in a sense, where you know the first woman you really love is your mother, and so everyone else is kind of a reflection of that, the edipist complex type. Yeah, yeah, and I, you know, I I'm definitely sympathetic to this a little bit. I will say that in my view, you have more choice and free will and abilities than you think you do, and the question is, how do you exercise that in terms of choosing who you're going to do this with? Now, that doesn't mean that the affection and the feeling isn't real when you feel it, because it is. I think emotions are real and they are to be Experience as like, as facts of reality.
Speaker 1:But I still think you can kind of almost choose the characteristics over time that you're falling in love with, and some love, and some love, like you don't have complete control.
Speaker 1:You have some control and you need to fix that, you know, or work on that. And then I think the other thing you need to keep to mind is again that it is, it is free will. So that means that you really are making a choice to do that, that this is the person, and the reason I stress this is because I think that a lot of the thought today is like you're going to get struck by lightning and it's going to be magic and it just all works out somehow, which is really bad advice, because really you have to take the actions and work to better yourself. But then also, you know, finding the person that actually feels something similar to you and there's, you know, and that you actually work together. Well, you have, you know, good spiritual connection, conscious connection, you know intellectual connection and physical, and that they're all there. And that's why it's so rare is because to get a uniting of all those things in one person and one relationship seems, and then and then the timing has to be right.
Speaker 2:There's a lot. There's a lot. Are you ready? Sure, wait. Well, ok, speaking of timing, you want to go ahead and share a poem?
Speaker 1:Yes, so I was going to share a painting first.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, Am I going to be on this.
Speaker 1:Be surprised by art and because this is very similar to what I just said about the all the ups and downs separation go for it.
Speaker 2:Go for it.
Speaker 1:And I'm sure you've seen it. So I don't know, but have you seen this one?
Speaker 2:Yeah, OK, all right, so I'm going to call this what are they doing? So I've seen a couple, maybe he's just been playing his lute and it looks like they're kind of in a secluded area and he's finished playing a pretty big harp actually, and he's starting to lean over. She's pulled up her knee and bent over her head and joined the words that he's whispering to her. There is a little bit of kind of space between them, like six inches. Like you know, don't broach this little space, but he is starting to broach that space and she seems to be rather pleased. And in the background, walking up the steps to their little comfy, little veranda seat, is an older man with a crown on a big, big beard, questioning eyes and his hand on his chin, wondering what are they doing there? So, if I'm not mistaken, this is, I think it says at the top- I didn't do it.
Speaker 2:Tristan and Esoldt.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so this is one of the most famous Silver Rick stories, next to probably, lancelot and Guinevere. Right Is this story which is essentially, do you know the story?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but go for it, go for it Just real, briefly, just the idea is Tristan is injured in battle, with a wound that is poisoned, and the only one that can save him is this queen of Ireland, essentially. And so he goes, he travels there, is fixed and he falls in love. You know, kind of it's a very, there's a lot of different talents, but he basically falls in love with the fair is old, which is this young lady here, but he has to go home because he's actually just a knight so he can't marry her because she's a princess. So this is courtly love where you have a very common with the knight. You know, falls in love with a royal, but they can't be together but they feel that they have the emotion but not the ability. And then he goes home and he tells his his uncle, the king King of King Mark, I believe and he's like, oh, I want that lady, she sounds beautiful and wonderful. And then so he sends Tristan back to win her hand.
Speaker 1:He and Tristan fights a dragon and does all this stuff and wins the hand of you sold for his uncle, king of Mark, because they can get married, and on the way there they drink a love potion. You sold interest in fall in love like for reals and intensely. They make love and they go, and then you know she goes back. And then you know there's a lot more that happens throughout, because you know he eventually marries someone else and they're separated for decades. He's like on his dying bed. I want to see her. She's going to come back and you know, if she, if she's, if she loves him, she'll have white sales versus black sales, and then she puts up the white sales but his wife lies to him, and you know. But then they end up dying together at the end. That's.
Speaker 2:OK, ok, all right. So this all right. So the moment in this painting is the one where oh, I did skip that whole moment.
Speaker 1:Go ahead. What are you going to say?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, but what is, what is the moment in this painting?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so when, when he so, this is, she is now King. That's King, mark. Yeah, that's the uncle. She is married to him, so Tristan won her for the king. Yeah, but they love each other. They drank the potion, they made love on the boat, and so he's seducing in this scene. I think he's just seducing her is you know, is what's going on.
Speaker 1:And he's trying to make love in the king is contemplating like wait, is this a love affair? Are they cheating on me? And he's? And that's kind of the question, because eventually Tristan gets banned from the kingdom and wanders around and then finds himself a new wife and so on, and then again they get back together. But that story is about them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the story is about undying love and, if I remember correctly, the maybe one version and they're in there, when their graves are bound together by a single tree.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:That that merge together. So that's that's kind of the epitome of undying, undying love.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I look at this this particular painting.
Speaker 2:Here I'm seeing more Romeo and Juliet.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think you're this is your let's while it's getting on, let's get it on you know, yeah, this is. This is them reading me, reading the whole story into the painting. You're right, the painting is a depiction of why I think it's kind of forbidden love, because they're obviously not supposed to be together. There's that king is like wait, what are they doing? Yeah, and so I think that's what this is a depiction of. But again, I brought it up just because of the overarching story.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1:You know, so sold.
Speaker 2:Now you got a poem.
Speaker 1:I do have a poem. Yeah, this is one that I've recently memorized, but I'll bring it up on. Oh, you know this one, right it's been a bright star when you read it this is John Keats. I will read it. This is John Keats, and we could talk a little about this one, but to me this is as I've memorized it. I'll tell you afterwards, actually, so I'll keep you in suspense.
Speaker 2:OK, good I like suspense?
Speaker 1:You do like suspense, bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art, not in lone splendor on the loft the night and watching with eternal lids apart, like nature's patient, sleepless Aramite, the moving waters at their priestlike task of pure ablution around Earth's human shores, or gazing on the new soft fallen mask of snow upon the mountains and the moors. No Yet, still steadfast, still unchangeable, pillowed upon my love, my fair love's ripening breast, to feel forever its soft fall and swell awake forever in a sweet unrest, still still to hear her tender, taken breath and so live ever, or else swoon to death.
Speaker 2:All right.
Speaker 1:You're going to have to look at your face while you're listening to that one. That was perfect, but yeah, so I mean you've heard this one.
Speaker 2:It's been a long time and this is there. I mean, the metaphor is involved in the and I don't know if there are period in this poem at all. I don't think there's a period in this poem.
Speaker 1:It just keeps going and going.
Speaker 2:One sentence yeah, oh, what's. What is your one sentence summary for this poem, kirk?
Speaker 1:I mean one sentence, I mean this is an image of One sentence. Summary I love, you know, having undying romantic love forever, but sensual, that's what I would say. Like he wants it sensual, he wants the feeling, the tenderness, the, the, the actual you know physicalization of it, but he wants it eternal, like a bright star, like light, you know bright stars. Obviously eternal is there forever, it's the guiding light of everyone and everything and that's what he wants. But what I really like about this is that he, you know, he wants to be steadfast, he wants it to have undying love, romantic love forever, which we all know, you know that that's hard, but he doesn't want it in loans, loan splendor, on the law. Like a star he wants it.
Speaker 2:He wants it, pillowed upon my fair love's ripening breast.
Speaker 1:Yes, and to feel forever. It's soft, fall and swell, awake forever in a sweet unrest which is, you know, if you've ever been in the first, you know boils of love. That's what it feels like. It's a sweet unrest is my favorite line for like that first boiling.
Speaker 2:I like that you're telling Luke if you've ever been in the first boils of love. No, I'm saying to the audience, I'm sure you have.
Speaker 1:I'm sure everybody has. Yeah, like, and then and then like the connection between love and death is all is a common one that we like it's either I'm going to have this love or I'm going to die. I'm going to die without you. And part of that is because it that's what it feels like, like when you aren't with the person you love. It does feel like I don't want to live anymore without this person. Like it feels like that, and so you get that depicted in poetry and painting and literature. Ok, ok.
Speaker 2:So I like your, your summation I want, I want eternal love, but I don't want it to be virginal. I want.
Speaker 1:I want on it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a good word. I don't want it to put tonic. I want sensual eternal love. So that might be, that might be the theme the desire for sensual eternal love. Eternal love that is sensual.
Speaker 1:I like it. I like it. I would definitely recommend people spend a little bit of time with it. Think about, you know, the loans, the watching eternal lids apart, like nature's patient. Aramite, by the way, is a hermit, that's a poetic term.
Speaker 2:That's what I was wondering about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so the moving waters that their priests like, so like, just as an image, it's think of a star from the perspective of the star, looking down at all the splendor and love of the world and all the greatness of the beautiful water, the soft, new soft fall and mask of snow. If you've ever seen the movie and it's our dust.
Speaker 2:No, I haven't. Well, a long time ago you got to watch Neil.
Speaker 1:Gaiman, it's a great it's. You know it's over the top cheesy fantasy romance, but it's pretty sweet I think.
Speaker 2:So I guess my question to this person I'm no, I like that you get. You get the the distance of the star versus the real sensuality of your head on your lover's chest. I'm wondering what point in the process of a romantic relationship this poem is a part of.
Speaker 1:What do you think?
Speaker 2:It sounds to me like it's towards the beginning. It's like a little bit like gather your rose buds while you may. Well, time is still flying like let's, let's seize the day and make a with our love. But the twist is that you know what. We're not just season a day. What we're doing is this is what I want. That's eternal, yeah, but still it's. I think at the beginning it's like a declaration of my, my passion for you. My lust for you is not something that's temporary, it's something that is also the, what the stars would look down upon. It's also a bright star. So I still think it's kind of like at the beginning and rather than after a long period of time. Now I've got a poem for you.
Speaker 1:OK, and I would agree with that. I'll just add that I think what this character is trying to say is that, through all the the changeableness of nature, I hope that this element will be able to stay steadfast.
Speaker 2:That's what I, you know and I think that's something to.
Speaker 1:I idealize and to strive for. So that's part of my overarching point about.
Speaker 2:I'm going to share with you a poem that I think captures maybe even better what you call, and I love OK you ready. Fair enough. Cross of snow by Henry Wattsworth Longfellow.
Speaker 1:Read it.
Speaker 2:OK, the long, sleepless watches of the night. A gentle face, the face of one long dead, looks at me from the wall. Around its head, the night lamp casts a halo of pale light here in this room. She died and soul more white. Never through martyrdom of fire was led to its repose, nor can in books be read the legend of a life more. Benedict, thank you. There is a mountain in a distant west that sun-define, and its deeper veins displays a cross of snow upon its side. Such is a cross I wear upon my breast these eighteen years, through all the changing scenes and seasons, changeless since the day she died.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's beautiful. That's definitely more literally, undying love in the sense of the person has died, but the love for that person has not died, and I do think that that is a really important element of undying love is that it's alive so long as one of the two people is alive, right, it only dies, in a sense, when they both die. And I think that's a really you know, and this good imagery the face of one long dead looks at me from the wall, right, that's that imagery of, and I don't even think the person has to be dead for you to know and have experienced that.
Speaker 2:Oh no, I think that's what Calypso, the painting of Calypso, comes in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly when it's like. You see that person's face everywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's right, like you see them everywhere, and yeah, and nor can in books be read the legend of a life more.
Speaker 2:No, and you were saying that. It's making me think of someone I knew whose wife and their older couple, whose wife had passed away, and I heard that he said that he would still hear her speaking at home. They've been married for decades, I think, and he would still be able, even though she passed, he would still be able to hear her speaking to him at home. And this is not somebody who's delusional or mystical, but the presence of that person was so much a part of their life that subconsciously you just kind of conjure their presence, even when they're gone.
Speaker 1:Yes, and I mean I think this is a common phenomenon in this. There's a poem, surprised by joy by Wordsworth that I recommend everybody read.
Speaker 2:That's a good connection. That's a good connection.
Speaker 1:Like the feeling of you know, like, especially if you're living with somebody or you spent a lot of time, you talk to them every single day, they've become intertwined, like those two trees intertwined, where your daily life is embedded in, literally with that person. So like when you see something, when you see a bird in nature. Well, in the past you had seen that bird, or bird like it, with that person and you had to have a conversation or a moment with that person, and I think love and life is made up of those moments. And so what ends up happening when that person is gone is that feeling like a limb that's been removed. You still feel that feeling and it's still there and it's you still. You know. The surprise by joy poem is about like wanting to turn and share this moment with somebody and forgetting for a moment that they're dead. I'm watching the TV show the Bear. I don't know if you've seen that. It's on Hulu.
Speaker 2:I haven't. Please don't spoil anything, because it's on my docket, all right.
Speaker 1:Well, I'll just say that that moment happens in the Bear, so or not the moment, but that's a big. I think that's a part of it, is that show in a sense, and that's so, it's an important part of the relationship because, again, these are the daily hours. I would say that the idea of undying love is a little different though than in terms of what I'm trying to grasp, because that's about the connection you had with somebody. I think you could have that connection with a good companion.
Speaker 1:I mean love is, I think, for me it's on a continuum, yeah, exactly, and I guess for me what I maybe should have said like undying romantic love of the highest order type thing, right, like that, I think, is almost slightly different. And that's not to say you can't have this with your romantic partner. Of course you should, but romantic love is like to me, this, this ideal that you're striving to achieve. That's very difficult. It's your North Star amidst all these different, difficult, you know, tribulations in life and, yeah, that's it.
Speaker 1:It's an ever-fix it mark, and so yeah, that's yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:that's like the go to sonnet one 16.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, love is not love. Yeah, yeah, love is not love which alters what it finds or bends with the remover to remove.
Speaker 1:And yeah, oh no and that's but again. So to me it's like, yeah, I think it's like the guiding light, because the thing that I was, you know, thinking about through any type of breakup I've ever had is all the advice that you get, which never tells you or advises to have or seek that kind of eternal striving for that. You know, devotion to like an actual person. So people might say you should love your values, and that's true, you should understand what your values are. But if you find that person, there is a value, I think, to the devotion itself.
Speaker 2:Oh, so I would say this that in the act and the process of finding that person because I think once you decide on a person, you can make a decision, like you know, this is the person that I want to work at being in a relationship, a long-term relationship with, and I might even argue, a long-term relationship that ends is not, is not a sign that the love was not undying.
Speaker 2:But I would say, in the process of searching for the one and deciding upon somebody, don't just look at them or outwards, but introspect and find out what it is that is a part of what has been a part of your romantic affections throughout your life, to give you a clear sense of yes, this is from an early age, or, as I've made choices and I've formed myself throughout my life, this is what I've been genuinely attracted to, and so you come away with more of a confidence that your side of the feelings, of the love chemistry, is coming from a place that is rich and deep.
Speaker 1:I would agree that that's probably my most important point actually is that what you just said is perfect, because the danger of this kind of you know, striving after this romantic love is that it is pure fantasy, it is purely disconnected from reality and that is the danger. You see this in Flo Baer's, Madame Bovery right, you see this in certain stories and poems and things where a man or woman falls in love, but it's not the real thing. They're deceived.
Speaker 2:As Meralda, the hunchback of Notre Dame.
Speaker 1:Yeah, a hunchback in Notre Dame. I think it's a common theme that you see a lot where one side is deceived in some way and it's not real and they think it's real, and that is the challenge. But what I've seen and what I'm seeing in our modern, what I, you know, what I ran called the age of envy, and is this that, and I would call it even deeper or not deeper. But another thing is this age of, like behavioral psychology and the age of determinism, where there's it's all about all the advice on love and romance from men to men, I would say, or from two men. So I don't know what it is to women as much, I'll be honest, but just as a man to two men is, it is much more.
Speaker 1:The ideal seems to be getting the highest value woman according to society, right, according to what is best for society, based on things like well, here's the reality of hypergamy, here's the reality of what women are attracted to.
Speaker 1:So this is why you got to make more money to attract this kind of, and it's like, what kind of woman are you attracted to?
Speaker 1:Like you're attracting a woman who just looks for that kind of money and you're you're that like that's really the only thing you think is possible, and I think there's some truth to what they say, because we, we do have an animal side to us. But what they always ignore, in my view, is the free will, consciousness, higher, higher levels of concepts and abstractions and will that we can choose to have. In other words, the ideal that we can strive to achieve, and that, to me, is the deep value of having the ideal in literature, painting and poetry that you're striving for. Even though it's never probably going to look exactly like that, it's representational, but in real life you still need that ideal and you know, I would definitely advocate for finding someone where there's reality and you know, even if you can't be together all the time, or whatever happens in the trials and tribulations of life, like devoting, and, you know, being in love with that person. Well, kirk, romantic love.
Speaker 2:May our, may our conversations about art be undying and eternal, and let's keep doing this. That's always a joy doing this with you, kirk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's fun, I'll. I'll share some of this stuff in the show notes. So go to Troubadourmagcom, make sure you check out. Touching the artcom with Luke Travers and Luke, did you have something coming up, by the way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, if anybody, I've got a course coming up. I'm called Touching the Art 201. For those of you who want to get fully immersed into art appreciation, I've got I've got some. If you're interested in the course, you can find the website and if you are contact me, I might have a deal for you.
Speaker 1:Oh, nice, ok, so do it quickly. I this, you know this video. We're going to get this out. What is this? January 2024?. So I don't know how long this deal will last when you see this. And then I have something called the Literary Canon Club, where if you've ever picked up a great, you know work of literature and you put it down because there's too much, you lost motivation, then this is the book club for you. You can go to Troubadourmagcom and go to Literary Canon Club and we read from Homer to Homer to Melville and you can go at your own pace, you can go with us, you can go anywhere you want fast, slow, whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2:So we're here to make it Homer to Herman.
Speaker 1:Homer to Herman.
Speaker 2:Herman Melville. That's the alliteration, homer to.
Speaker 1:Herman, that's true, I guess. Yeah, I should do that. Ok, so thank you everybody, and I hope you will seek romantic love.
Speaker 2:Thanks, kirk.