Greek words for ‘Love’
The Greek language has four words for “love”:
1. Agápe – undeserved love. In Latin, it is c(h)aritas. As English has the verb “cherish” from this Latin noun, the correct noun in English would be ‘cherishing.’ It is unselfish love as taught by Christ in the Sermon on the Mount and summed up by St. Paul the Apostle in 1 Corinthians 13.
2. Philía or the love between friends.
3. Storgé or familial love, especially between parents and their children and also with close relatives.
4. Éros, which has a pagan sexual sense, a Platonic philosophical sense and a religious sense. The basic meaning is attraction. It is also used for a person being ‘pulled’ towards God.
Sonnet 116 (The Marriage of True Minds) is a declaration, an idealistic manifesto. “Love,” as Shakespeare defines it, is not some shallow self-serving physical attraction, a James Bond style seduction that is really only about bolstering one’s own ego, but rather a “marriage of true minds.” It is reliable and constant (“an ever-fixed mark”) rather than an ephemeral fancy that fades with the beloved’s looks or youthfulness. Thus, it is clear that he is not talking of ‘romantic’ love or physical attraction at all – as the term “of true minds” implies, this is a wider and more lofty ‘love’ that is irrespective of gender or appearances. It encompasses friends (perhaps more so than lovers). It survives arguments and trying times (“looks on tempests and is never shaken”). Shakespeare is so certain of his belief that he states that if he is proved wrong, then he “never writ, nor no man ever lov’d.”
No, it’s not this.
…and certainly not this either.
It’s more like this.
…and this.
