Love affects the lives of everyone,
which is why I decided to write about it. Each individual has their own
experiences with the topic, but not everyone has encountered the
various experiences surrounding love. I feel that no matter who you
are, you can always use some advice about love. Whether one is talking
about losing love or finding love, a person can learn from the
experiences of others.
In order to present multiple cases
of love, I have included the stories from four different divinities,
each having intimate knowledge on the subject of love. The four
love experts consist of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love; Ishtar,
the Babylonian goddess of love; Freyja, the Norse goddess of love; and
Urvashi, an apsara (also known as a "celestial maiden") of
Hindu mythology. The four divinities have been placed at a heavenly
slumber party, staying the night together in a palace among the clouds.
As wine continuously refills in their golden wine glasses, the four
goddesses begin to feel the wine's effects and enter into an
all-night discussion of their love lives over the years. I gave
each goddess a unique personality and physical appearance. Although the
goddesses are all friends, they have very different personalities and
views of love. I depicted the goddesses as having normal, humanly
characteristics. Gods and goddesses are beautiful and powerful,
but they still feel the same things that humans feel. Their stories are
similar to love stories of everyday people.
At the beginning of each story, I included a small conversation
between the four goddesses. The dialog shows the true personalities of
each goddess. Each goddess makes a comment about the story that was
just told. This way, the stories each flow into each other.
Aphrodite describes her love
affair
with Ares, the Greek god of war, to the four other goddesses. She tries
to advise them on the secret life of an adulterous relationship. By
explaining why her husband Hephiastus was able to catch the two lovers
in the midst of their affair, Aphrodite tells how to avoid getting
caught in an affair. When Aphrodite finishes her tale, Ishtar begins a
merciless story of how she lost her husband Tammuz and resorted to
killing many of her mates. Ishtar advises the goddesses of a different,
darker side of love that is not often seen.
Though Ishtar, like Aphrodite, had many lovers throughout the years,
her affairs were usually detrimental to her lovers. Next,
Freyja contributes to the conversation by detailing her experience
being a goddess of love. She tells the other three divinities how
bringing love to others sometimes causes others to despise her, and she
explains how she dealt with the malicious actions toward her by
the other gods. Freyja appeals to the reader by being an innocent
goddess stuck in the middle of godly drama. She tells how goddesses
have humanly feelings too. Urvashi then chooses to tell the story of
how the
apsaras live in a stifling and confined heaven. Although the apsaras
are godly beings, Urvashi does not enjoy the heavenly life. She would
rather spend her time in love in the mortal world. Urvashi advises the
goddesses on choosing love over the godly life.
Each goddess of love explains a
different view of love. Although the goddesses each demonstrate their
expertise on the subject, they each learn something new from the other
three stories told. Love encompasses such a wide range of emotions and
experiences that it is impossible for one person to know all there is
to know about love.