- Every February, across the country, candy, flowers and gifts are exchanged between loved ones, all in the name of St Valentine.
- The Story of Valentine’s Day – and its patron saint – is shrouded in mystery. But we know that February has long been one month romance.
- Valentine’s Day, as we know it today, contains remnants of both Christian and accident Roman tradition.
- Today recognizes the Catholic Church at least three different saints named or Valentines, all of whom were martyred.
- One legend claims that Valentine was a priest who served during the third century in Rome.
- When Emperor Claudius II decided that single men made better soldiers than those with wives and families, he outlawed marriage for young men – his crop of potential soldiers.
- Valentine, understood the injustice of the decree, defied Claudius and continued to perform marriages for young lovers in secret.
- When Valentine’s actions were discovered, Claudius ordered that he should be killed.
- The day is most closely associated with the mutual exchange of love notes in the form of “Valentines”.
- Modern Valentine symbols include the heart-shaped outline, doves, and the figure of the winged Cupid.
- Since the 19 century, handwritten notes largely given way to mass-produced greeting cards.
Sappho:
Considerable uncertainty around the life story of the famous Greek poet Sappho, a woman Plato called “the tenth Muse. Born around 610 BC on the island of Lesbos, now part of Greece, she was said to have been married Circles, a rich man. Many legends has long existed about her life, including a comprehensive one – now believed to be true – that she jumped into the sea to her death because she was unhappy in love with a younger man, the sailor Phaon. It is not known how much work she published in During his life, but of the 8 or 9 centuries Sappho’s famous work was limited to quotations from other writers. In most of her poems, Sappho wrote about love - and their feelings of hatred, danger and jealousy – aiming the members of her mostly young and female circle. Sappho gave her female acolytes educational and religious training as part of preparation for marriage, and the group was dedicated to and inspired by Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Her focus on the relationship between women and girls have led many to assume that Sappho was a lesbian – a word derived from the island, and the community of women who lived there – but it is also true that the existence of strong feelings and attractions between the members of the same sex was considered far more common and less taboo than in recent years.
hai good morning