Love in a Warm Climate

As we might have mentioned (!) many of the die-hard romantics amongst us in the international community may well be celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day on February 14th. It has to be said that up until recently this occasion was not a particularly Greek (love?) affair - the customs associated with this day actually stem from the Roman era. However, as with the Christmas celebrations in Greece, influences from Western Europe and the US have changed this to a certain extent. Here in Rethymnon you will find plenty of Greek Valentine’s Day cards on sale in the shops, along with flowers, chocolates and sexy underwear…. And many restaurants in town will be offering special Valentine’s Day menus (no excuses then!).

After carrying out a little bit of research in the library of the Bugle Love Shack (OK, let’s be honest, ‘googling’ on the internet) we found that there are several Saint Valentines, which is a bit confusing. The ‘Valentine’ most associated with the love legend seems to be the Saint Valentine who was martyred in Rome in 269 AD—apparently on the same day that was set aside for ‘love lotteries’. It is said that before he died, Valentine left a love note for his jailer’s daughter, and so a grand tradition was born. So why was Valentine martyred? Well, he lived during the reign of Claudius the Cruel, a warmongering emperor. Claudius was having problems recruiting soldiers for his armies—he believed that this was because Roman men didn’t want to leave their partners. Claudius banned all weddings and engagement ceremonies in Rome. Despite this ban, Valentine continued to conduct Christian marriage ceremonies in secret. Eventually he was caught, and ordered to be beaten to death and decapitated. That’s enough of the gory details for now!

Greek Love Gods

It could be argued that the ancient Greeks had no need to create a special saint with all those love Gods floating around. After all, Cupid himself is derived from the Greek God Eros. Here on Crete, which is, as everyone knows, the island of romance, our very own Zeus (who as some of you will recall from our September issue was raised in the Ideon Cave in the Rethymnon region and ended up being King of the Gods and in charge of the world’s weather) had a love life that some would say makes the ‘permissive society’ look like the era of Puritans.
Zeus married his sister Hera. He was very fond of her, but monogamy just wasn’t his thing. He dallied in the heavens and he dallied down on earth. His countless mortal and immortal offspring included Helen of Troy — it is said that Zeus produced Helen in order to kick start the Trojan wars as a means of solving the problem of overpopulation in the world (a problem he had helped to cause in the first place!)
Hera, understandably enough, wasn’t incredibly impressed with her husband’s philandering antics. In fact, she used to get very cross indeed and took revenge in all manner of unpleasant ways. She turned her rivals into animals, she had them struck down with thunderbolts, she forced them to endlessly wander the earth….she was definitely not a Goddess to get on the wrong side of!

Aphrodite, Goddess of love was a whole heap of trouble, too. This little minx caused loads of problems as a result of her amorous adventures and machinations. Because of her irresistible beauty, Zeus was worried that she would be the cause of conflict between the other Gods. So, he arranged to get Aphrodite married off to the spectacularly ugly God Hephaestos. This didn’t stop the rot, and Aphrodite went off to have numerous affairs. She didn’t have it all her own way, though. Hephaestos caught her at it with Ares, the God of War. Hephaestos humiliated the lovers by binding them with chains.
Aphrodite may have been the most beautiful of Goddesses, but the legend surrounding her birth could hardly be described as a pretty tale. In fact, if you’re a little bit squeamish, look away now. The story goes that Cronus cut off the genitals of his father Uranos and flung them into the sea. The genitals caused a foam, and it was from this foam that Aphrodite emerged. Nice!

Greek, The Language of Love

And so as we move to modern times, Crete still has an abundance of seductive Gods and Goddesses. You may fall in love with Rethymnon, you may fall in love in Rethymnon, too!

In terms of communication, body language is all well and good as a starting point, but eventually you may actually have to talk to each other (you can only get so far by staring lovingly into each other’s eyes). So here is the Bugle team’s (somewhat irreverent) collection of words and phrases that we think may help to smooth the path of true love.

Love = ο έρωτας, η αγάπη, I love you = σ’αγαπώ
Kiss = το φιλί, Give me a kiss = δώσε μου ένα φιλί
Are you married? - though no guarantees of a truthful answer = είσαι παντρεμένος/παντρεμένη;
Have you been eating garlic? = έφαγες σκόρδο;

GOOD LUCK YOUNG LOVERS!