2000 Years of Odi et Amo
Odi et amo. Quare id faciam fortasse requiris. Nescio, sed fieri sentio et excrucior. - Catullus #85
With some editing above, I have created full sentences for those who wish to try and translate. However, I shall also give you a head start (because my Latin has also become horrible):
I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.
Someone should have welcomed Catullus to the world of relationships. And while I understand that Lesbia (his real and fictitious girlfriend) is a dangerous and powerful woman in her femininity and her sexuality, she is not much different from many women of the world today. We often forget that relationships are filled with hate, because we begin to remember or miss the love that we receive and give. Relationships are always work. One cannot have a compassionate relationship without first having achieved attraction, passion, and compassionate relationships. [So says my old sociology and human sexuality books, that are in a box somewhere in America.]
To assume that all is happy would be an idealism. But to be an idealist in a world were reality rules in harsh conditions and has become so wide spread as love would just be another form of insanity. And while there was a time that I could have spoken for the idealist, now is not that time. After leaving the castle and seeing the peasants starving and defecating on themselves, reality is all that is left to experience. When your friends die because their are a different race or from a different country or even religion, reality can be a harsh slap in the face.
Yet I digress. My point remains. Of course, Catullus hates, he is in love with Lesbia. To love the woman who takes all of his friends, society, and their children to her bed would be a torture enough. Though his complaint here is not that she has been adulterous to their relationship, although they are the reasons for his discontent. Catullus just says that he 'hates and [he] loves'. That he does. He hates Lesbia, and still loves here. His complaint is about his own stupidity, not hers.
This is our problem. Our hate and loathing are a form of self-loathing. There may be hate for the other person, as we love them, but it is the knowledge that we must blame ourselves for our choices and feelings towards someone else.
So we all feel it happening, Catullus, even 2000 years later, and we remain tortured. That's just how life can be in a relationship. Our only option is that we find a situation where the hate is minimized and the love is maximized. Most important may be that we are happy and that we know that we are not torturing ourselves in our choices.
Quare id faciam? Nescio.
With some editing above, I have created full sentences for those who wish to try and translate. However, I shall also give you a head start (because my Latin has also become horrible):
I hate and I love. Why do I do this, perhaps you ask. I know not, but I feel it happening and I am tortured.
Someone should have welcomed Catullus to the world of relationships. And while I understand that Lesbia (his real and fictitious girlfriend) is a dangerous and powerful woman in her femininity and her sexuality, she is not much different from many women of the world today. We often forget that relationships are filled with hate, because we begin to remember or miss the love that we receive and give. Relationships are always work. One cannot have a compassionate relationship without first having achieved attraction, passion, and compassionate relationships. [So says my old sociology and human sexuality books, that are in a box somewhere in America.]
To assume that all is happy would be an idealism. But to be an idealist in a world were reality rules in harsh conditions and has become so wide spread as love would just be another form of insanity. And while there was a time that I could have spoken for the idealist, now is not that time. After leaving the castle and seeing the peasants starving and defecating on themselves, reality is all that is left to experience. When your friends die because their are a different race or from a different country or even religion, reality can be a harsh slap in the face.
Yet I digress. My point remains. Of course, Catullus hates, he is in love with Lesbia. To love the woman who takes all of his friends, society, and their children to her bed would be a torture enough. Though his complaint here is not that she has been adulterous to their relationship, although they are the reasons for his discontent. Catullus just says that he 'hates and [he] loves'. That he does. He hates Lesbia, and still loves here. His complaint is about his own stupidity, not hers.
This is our problem. Our hate and loathing are a form of self-loathing. There may be hate for the other person, as we love them, but it is the knowledge that we must blame ourselves for our choices and feelings towards someone else.
So we all feel it happening, Catullus, even 2000 years later, and we remain tortured. That's just how life can be in a relationship. Our only option is that we find a situation where the hate is minimized and the love is maximized. Most important may be that we are happy and that we know that we are not torturing ourselves in our choices.
Quare id faciam? Nescio.