Damn, Valentine's Day Is A Big Ol' Mess

Turns out, St. Valentine was two, maybe three guys, unless they were the same guy?

The lovely Beaker, courtesy of our pal Barton!

Happy Weekend!

Today is Valentine’s Day, obviously, and I had originally wanted to celebrate a holiday other than Valentine’s Day, but there wasn’t anything too interesting. Valentine’s Day, however, is actually pretty interesting. For instance, there were actually like, three St. Valentines who all lived around the same time, two of whom died on February 14 (St. Valentine of Terni and St. Valentine of Roma). It is also possible that these two were the same guy, no one is 100 percent sure. None of them really had anything at all to do with love or romance. Like, the “real” St. Valentine of Terni is the patron saint of epilepsy and beekeepers. There are legends about him supposedly secretly marrying Christian couples (which was against the law at that time), but they’re not true and were all made up much later, probably to explain why Valentine’s Day is a thing.

The actual origin of Valentine’s Day as a day of romance comes from the Chaucer poem Parlement of Foules, which featured a plot point in which all of the birds choose their mate on St. Valentine’s Day — which had far more to do with the timing (almost spring) of the feast day than the actual saint.

For this was on Saint Valentine’s day,
When every fowl comes there his mate to take,
Of every species that men know, I say,
And then so huge a crowd did they make,
That earth and sea, and tree, and every lake
Was so full, that there was scarcely space
For me to stand, so full was all the place.

And as Alain, in his Complaint of Nature,
Describes her array and paints her face,
In such array might men there find her.
So this noble Empress, full of grace,
Bade every fowl to take its proper place
As they were wont to do from year to year,
On Saint Valentine’s day, standing there.

Semi-spooky coincidence, he supposedly wrote the poem for King Richard II of England to Anne of Bohemia, and King Richard II actually died on February 14.

By the time Shakespeare rolled around about 200 years later, Valentine’s Day was A Whole Thing. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, he directly referenced the Chaucer poem in the line "Saint Valentine is past. Begin these woodbirds but to couple now?." In Hamlet, Ophelia sings a weirdly slut-shamey song about a lady losing her virginity on Valentine’s Day.

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
all in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more. […]

By Gis and by Saint Charity,
Alack, and fie for shame!
Young men will do’t, if they come to’t;
By cock, they are to blame.
Quoth she, before you tumbled me,
You promised me to wed.
So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,
An thou hadst not come to my bed.

Is the song evidence that Hamlet and Ophelia banged? I vote yes ,largely because it makes everything more interesting that way.

I feel like ought to mention that, obviously, Shakespeare also wrote a play about Richard II. I’m not sure that has to do wth anything. I just think about Richard II a lot, largely because he was 10-years-old when he took the throne. I think about child rulers a lot these days. It’s nice to know that (some) nations survived that sort of thing.

Your present for this week is ROMANCE. Or, rather video titled Fabio: A Time For Romance. You are welcome.

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