Songs For Eros
“An anthropologist once asked a man from the Hopi tribe why so many of his people’s songs were about rain. The man replied, ‘Because water is so scarce. Is that why so many of your songs are about love?’” - Gila: The Life and Death of an American River by Gregory McNamee
Chapter one - Pharaoh
An untouchable lover
“The main condition for the achievement of love is the overcoming of one's narcissism.” - Eric Fromm, German psychoanalyst
"May he who loves not others love himself."
- The Myth of Narcissus
Narcissus by Caravaggio (1597)
Chapter two - bittersweet
A mercurial lover
“Let us not forget that Josephine had to deal with a conqueror and that love resembles war. She did not surrender, she let herself be conquered. Had she been more tender, more attentive, more loving, perhaps Bonaparte would have loved her less.”
- Imbert de Saint Amand, French Historian
“Never let go of that fiery sadness called desire,” Patti Smith, American musician
The Lovers by Rene Magritte
Chapter three - Lovergirl
A lover shared
“I was a young woman with an evolved mind who was not afraid of her beauty or her sexuality. For some people that’s uncomfortable. They didn’t understand how female and strong work together. Or young and wise. Or Black and divine.” - Lauryn Hill, American musician
“Always have the courage to trust love one more time and always one more time.” - Maya Angelou, American writer
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1949)
Chapter four - XO
A seductive lover
“Your next encounter will be with the Sirens, who bewitch every man that approaches them… For with the music of their song the Sirens cast their spell upon him, as they sit there in a meadow piled high with the moldering skeletons of men…” - The Odyssey, Homer
“As for me, I have the gift of electrifying men.”
-Napoleon Bonaparte, French emperor
“Adoration” by Stephan Sindling
Chapter five - Cure It!
A lover captured
“My love is as a fever, longing still For that which longer nurseth the disease,” - William Shakespeare, English playwright and poet
A Love-Sick Man Taking Some of Doctor Hymen's Pills to Try and Cure Himself
“I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.” - John Green, American writer
Chapter six - Kiss
A lover overcome
“I don’t love you with my heart and mind. I love you with my soul, in case my mind forgets and my heart stops.” - Rumi, Sufi mystic
Romeo & Juliet (1996)
“Whatever souls are made of, his and mine are the same,” Emily Bronte, English writer
Chapter Seven - For You
A devoted lover
“One of the things that you do learn is that falling in love and being in love with someone is a rarity. That you don't fall in love as many times as you think you're going to. And then when you do, it's really special; it's really important.” - Julianne Moore, American actress
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018)
“Love brought you here. If you trusted love this far, don't panic now.” - James Baldwin, American writer
Chapter eight - Covet
A possessive lover
“I don’t know what it means to love people halfway, it’s not in my nature. My affections are always excessive.” - Jane Austen, English writer
The Bolt by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1777)
“I knew no end to desiring you,” - Roland Barthes, French philosopher
Chapter nine - Gimme
A ravenous lover
“I want to fill my mouth with your name. I want to eat you whole.” - Pablo Neruda, Chilean poet-politician
The Bolt by Jean-Honore Fragonard (1777)
“Don't expect me to be sane anymore.… Here I am back and still smoldering with passion, like wine smoking. Not a passion any longer for flesh, but a complete hunger for you, a devouring hunger.” - Henry Miller, American writer
Chapter ten - Weeds
An imperfect lover
“Tell me every terrible thing you ever did, and let me love you anyway.” - Edgar Allen Poe, American writer
Scissors by Vladimir Kush
“I can imagine no other peace than that of our two bodies bound together, of our gaze given over to each other. I have no other homeland but you.” - Albert Camus, French philosopher
The Story of Eros and Psyche
Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss by Antonio Canova, 1787-1793
Widely known as one of the few Greek love stories with a happy ending, the story of Eros and Psyche is the story of Desire and the Soul’s quest for it. Psyche is the Greek word for Soul, and Eros is the Greek word for Desire. My first mixtape PSYCHE was an exploration of identity. Since this album is about love and desire, it was only right to name it Songs for Eros.
There once was a most beautiful princess, named Psyche, but her beauty only brought her woe. Her sisters were jealous of her; no suitor dared to approach her, and the people of her kingdom soon began to worship her instead of the goddess Aphrodite. Furious, Aphrodite ordered her son, the god Eros, to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows so that she would fall in love with the most vile creature in the world.
Meanwhile, Psyche’s father sought the oracle for advice on how to help his beautiful daughter find a husband. The oracle foretold that Psyche was destined to marry a terrible monster with power even the gods feared. Then the oracle told the king to send Psyche to the top of the mountain to be claimed by the monster.
Heartbroken, the king brought Psyche to the mountaintop as the oracle bade. There on the mountaintop, Eros waited, invisible, preparing to shoot Psyche, but he pricked himself with his own arrow, and when he looked upon her, he fell deeply in love with her. He asked the god of the wind to carry her away to his palace. The wind god did, and Psyche arrived in a grand palace where she was waited on by invisible servants. The servants told her that she would meet her that evening.
When Psyche went to bed, she was visited by Eros in complete darkness. She asked to see his face, but Eros refused and forbade her to look upon him. He could not risk Aphrodite learning that he’d taken Psyche as his wife, and he wanted Psyche to love him without being enchanted by his godly powers. Though she couldn’t see him, she knew he was not the monster she feared, and she fell in love with him.
For a while, Psyche was happy, and she became pregnant. But she began to miss her family and asked her husband to allow her sisters to visit. Eros agreed but warned her to be cautious of her sisters. When her sisters arrived at the palace, they were overcome with envy. They convinced Psyche that her husband must truly be a monster who intended to kill her and her child. They told her that she ought to see his face and slay him.
That night, after Eros fell asleep, Psyche lit a candle to look upon his face. But when she did, she realized her husband was not a monster but the gorgeous god of love and desire. In her surprise, wax from the candle fell onto Eros, burning him. He awakened, realized Psyche’s betrayal, and fled.
Desperately, Psyche began to search for her husband. Unable to find him, she decided to pray to Aphrodite to help her. But Aphrodite was even angrier at Psyche now, and ordered her to prove her love for her son. She gave Psyche several impossible quests, but Psyche completed them all. Finally, Aphrodite ordered her to go to the underworld and retrieve a box with a bit of the goddess Persephone’s beauty.
Though it seemed impossible, with some help, Psyche completed the quest and retrieved the box, though with a warning not to open it. As she left the underworld, prepared to be reunited with her husband, the temptation of the box grew. The urge to use Persephone’s beauty to make Eros love her again became too great. Psyche opened the box, just a little, but instead of becoming more beautiful, fell into a death-like sleep.
When Eros learned what happened to Psyche, he rushed to her aid. He carried Psyche out of Hades, up to Mount Olympus, and begged Zeus to wake her. Zeus agreed, and when she woke, he turned her into an immortal goddess so that she and Eros could be together forever as equals. Even Aphrodite accepted that Psyche truly loved her son, and the couple lived happily ever after with their daughter, Hedone, the goddess of pleasure.