Possibly some of my readers have not yet quieted all their doubts
regarding the existence of real Love among the Greeks; for did they not
have special deities of love—Aphrodite and Eros, Venus and Cupid? Quite
so; but those familiar with Greek history know that the cult of Venus
had but a remote connection with imaginative or Romantic Love, which
alone is here under consideration. Yet our modern poets owe a vast debt
of gratitude to the ancient bards for these mythic deities, whom they
have simply taken and idealised, like Love itself. There is, especially,
the mischievous Dan Cupid, who, in his modern metamorphosis, is still
“the anointed sovereign of sighs and groans.” This little fellow seems
to have been taken very seriously indeed by the earliest Greeks. He has
one attribute—wings—which we readily understand, as Love is inconstant
ever; but another of his attributes would excite the greatest surprise
in our minds were we not so accustomed to it as to accept it as a matter
of course, namely, his arrows. It would seem more in accordance with
modern notions that he should produce his magic effects by means of
Love-potions or other Love-charms, rather than with such a warlike
weapon as an arrow.
A German feuilletonist, Dr. Michael Haberlandt, has lately advanced an
ingenious theory to account for this weapon. The ancient Greeks had the
peculiar belief that all diseases were caused by the invisible poisoned
arrows of evil or angry deities; as in the well-known case of the
offended Apollo sending his pest-laden arrows among the Hellenes. Now
love, in the irresistible and maddening, though primitive form known to
the early Greeks, was doubtless looked on as a real, mysterious
affliction, and not merely as love sickness in the figurative modern
sense: what more natural therefore than to attribute it to the arrows of
a mischievous deity?
In course of time poetic fancy added to the image of Cupid other
attributes that naturally suggested themselves: the wings to symbolise
fickleness; a bandage to indicate blindness; while the arrows were
represented as dipped in poison, gall, or honey. The curious fact may be
added that the ancient East Indians, whose deities numbered 330,000,000
(in round numbers), likewise had a god of love armed with bow and
arrows: a conception which they seem to have originated independently of
the Greeks.