About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the twenty-first century.
Some claim St. Valentine’s Day was derived from an ancient pastoral holiday associated with the Greek god Pan. It was adopted by the Romans who called it Lupercalia. Whether in Greece or Rome the central purpose of the celebration was to insure health and fertility.
How you ask? Well…
Young men of upper class families stripped naked and ran through the streets carrying switches. With the switches they hit any girls or women who came close enough. Far from avoiding the runners, females purposefully threw themselves in their path.
Centuries later, in his play Julius Caesar, Shakespeare explained. On the eve of Lupercalia, Caesar instructs Mark Antony and his wife Calpurnia:
“CAESAR (to Calpurnia)
Stand you directly in Antonius’ way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius!
ANTONY
Caesar, my lord?
CAESAR
Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.”
Disregarding how efficacious being hit with a switch by a naked boy might be in warding off infertility, the Church condemned the practice in the 5th century.
Some Romans, even some Christian Romans, continued to celebrate Lupercalia but in a more modest fashion. They relinquished running through the streets and sat down to a feast to mark the day.
Though some historians cling to the notion, there is no proof that this mad dash was the precursor of St. Valentine’s Day. More probably Valentine’s Day is traced to saints’ days without reference to fertility rites.
Valentine means worthy, strong, and powerful so it is not surprising that many saints chose the name. There were at least a dozen St. Valentines. Which was the one celebrated by lovers? One saint was a female who died a virgin — not the one. Two others protected against epilepsy and the plague — not very romantic. One was the patron saint of beekeepers – probably not the one.
Most believe it was a priest in the third century who defied a Roman law that forbade soldiers to marry. Valentine agreed to marry soldiers who claimed they found true love. He was the patron saint of engaged couples and happy marriages – the very one.
Credit for introducing Valentine’s Day to the western world is given to Geoffrey Chaucer. In 1375, to celebrate a wedding, he wrote a poem called “Parliament of Foules”. Apparently once a year, on a date certain, birds and humans come together and find a mate.
“For this was sent on Saint Valentine’s day
When every foul cometh there to choose his mate.”
From publication of the poem, Valentine’s Day was recognized as a day to celebrate love.
In 1797, for those young men unable to find words adequate to the occasion, a book was published called “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer: Verses for Young Lovers”.
The first valentine was mailed in 1806. It was decorated with birds and hearts, and a man and woman toasting one another. It was sent by a sailor to his wife and signed, “Your most humble and obedient servant.” Twenty-nine years later, in 1835, 60,000 valentines were mailed.
Mass produced valentines appeared in 1847. The business was started founded by a woman, Esther Howland, in Worchester, Massachusetts. An original investment of $200 returned $5,000 in the first year. The business was a huge success, but the doyen of valentines lived and died a spinster.
Mass produced valentines replaced handwritten notes, and “The Young Man’s Valentine Writer” went out of print.
In 1910, apparently to save postage, the valentine postcard was created. Also in the 20th century roses and chocolates rather than verses were favored as the way to salute a beloved. Rendered wordless in the modern age, lovers were wordy enough in nineteenth century Berkshire.
Henry Ward Beecher wrote: “Young love is a flame; very pretty, often very hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. The love of the older and disciplined heart is as coals, deep-burning, unquenchable.”
Perhaps true but also dangerous: old Henry lost his Berkshire property, Blossom Farm, and his New York pulpit due to “coals deep-burning and unquenchable”.
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his wife Sophia: “Dearest…there is poetry in my head and heart since I have been in love with you. You are a poem…a sort of sweet, simple, gay, pathetic ballad which Nature is singing…” In Berkshire his dwelling was small and his purse empty but Hawthorne’s home was a happy one.
In “Monument Mountain” William Cullen Bryant wrote not of his own love but of another’s:
“There is a tale about these revered rocks,
A sad tradition of unhappy love…
There was a maid,
The fairest of the Indian maids, bright-eyed,
With wealth of raven tresses, a light form,
And a gay heart…
She loved her cousin; such a love was deemed,
By the morality of those stern tribes,
Incestuous, and she struggled hard and long
Against her love and reasoned with her heart,”
The Indian maid lost the struggle and in grief threw herself off the side of the mountain. As they passed the spot, tribe members marked it. Each placed a stone until there were so many that, according to Bryant, the “revered rocks” formed the distinctive monument that gave the mountain its name.
Finally, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who called Berkshire home, wrote: “Where we love is home – home that our feet may leave but not our hearts.”
