Valentine’s Day and Cupid’s Story

Love is in the air. Today is Valentine’s Day, when sweethearts celebrate by giving their lovers flowers, balloons, chocolates or lace trimmed cards with heart felt verses expressing their love. But where did it start? Why do we celebrate love on February 14?

From the Sheridan post February 13, 1914 – February, probably because it is the shortest month of the twelve, the “little one,.” has been given special favors in the way of holidays. It has Lincoln’s birthday, Washington’s birthday, and Valentine’s Day. But the greatest of these is Valentine’s Day, for it is the day of hearts. Valentine’s Day is not really a holiday, but if the matter were left to the vote of the young ladies between the ages of fourteen and—well, whenever ladies cease to be young, there is no doubt that Valentine’s Day would win over the other holidays by as big a margin as Teddy Roosevelt would beat Eugene Debs in a race for the presidency.

Simply because it is the day of hearts. Valentine, according to the dictionary, was an ecclesiastical martyr of Rome, living about the third century of the Christian era. Just what he did 10 deserve to be patron saint of the day of lovers is not made clear, but he got the job and is in a class by himself, St. Patrick of Ireland being the closest competitor. Valentine’s day is celebrated in two ways.

The first way is to send richly embossed and gilt-embroidered cards. bearing the picture of an arrow-pierced heart, to one’s best girl. The cards repose under the pillow for seven nights, then are carefully laid away in a sachet.

The second manner of celebrating the day is Valentine parties. These are very popular among the younger set because they provide an excuse for playing hearts and kissing games, says a well-known authority; Forfeits and kissing games are only permissible on this true lover’s day, it is also required that day. The scene of the party shall be decorated with red paper hearts. Mistletoe has never been adopted for valentine parties because it is not needed.

February 14 became associated with romantic love during the 14th and 15th centuries, it was associated with the “lovebirds” of early spring, and it was believed to be the day that birds choose their mates.

In England during the 18th-century, when notions of courtly love flourished, Valentine’s Day grew into an occasion in which couples expressed their love with flowers, candy and hand made cards, which became known as valentines.

Since that time, handwritten valentines have given way to mass-produced greeting cards. One tradition in Italy, Saint Valentine’s Keys are given to lovers “as a romantic symbol and an invitation to unlock the giver’s heart.”

One source said we get the tradition of sending cards on Valentine’s Day from 1415 when Charles the Duke of Orleans wrote a poem for his wife while imprisoned in the Tower of London on Valentine’s Day. By the 16th century, cards became common and by the early 19th century, it was the most popular way to show one’s love.

However, if you mail a Valentine to your sweetie, make sure the address is correct. From the Wheatland Times on February 9, 1916. – The failure to dot an “I” or cross a “t” helps to fill “Cupid’s morgue” and often places in jeopardy the real romance of many a man and maid who go through life thinking that the anonymous outpourings of their hearts were not appreciated, or that the intended recipient lacked intuition. Thousands of these votaries of St. Valentine lose out every fourteenth day of February and wonder why, little thinking it was only the slip of the pen in addressing the valentine to the chosen one that caused it to go astray and finally reach “Cupid’s morgue,” as it is called at the dead letter office at Washington.

In many schools throughout the country elementary children cut out paper valentines, decorate them with doilies in place of lace, and write their heart-felt poems to mothers and fathers; grandmother’s and grandfathers and other favorite people on Valentine’s Day. These are treasured for years by the recipients.

As well as the classic red heart, and red roses, Cupid is an endearing symbol of Valentine’s Day. In mythology, Cupid is the god of desire, love and affection. He was considered to be the son of the goddess Venus and Mars, the god of war. He is often portrayed as a naked winged youth with a bow and arrow. The bow and arrow represent his source of power, any person, shot by Cupid’s arrow is filled with uncontrollable desire.

From The Wyoming Press, Evanston, February 16, 1907 – The Story of Cupid – Valentine’s Day is perhaps the least understood of all the days of the year that have special significance. It is popular, it is observed. Swains a legion make it the occasion for sending tokens to their lady loves, yet not many know why. Everybody known what Christmas means, or Independence Day Thanksgiving Day, Easter but the origin of St. Valentine’s Day, or even its meaning. Is a riddle but few have solved.

It is one of the oldest of the holidays. Only Christmas and Easter go further back into antiquity. These days have been observed ever since there was religion. But all the rest of the holidays are but Infants beside tho February occasion when be-laced. be-fringed and be-flowered love tokens are sent on their sentimental journeys.

St. Valentine’s Day began somewhere about the opening of the third century. It is a quaint combination of religion and sentiment. It represents the dual worship of a great man of the church and Cupid the mischievous patron and saint of love.

It was a queer beginning for a great holiday that people should have united on the same day to honor St. Valentine and Cupid. No more dissimilar deities could be found. St. Valentine was an early day martyr. He died for the church, and in commemoration of his goodness and piety the Holy See set aside February 14 as the day on which the faithful should do honor to his memory.

On this day it became the custom to hold a love feast which became known as the Feast of Lupercalia. It was at first a peculiarly religious observance modeled somewhat on the love feasts that are still held in many churches, in which members of the congregation break bread with each other, us a sign of peace and good fellowship. Eventually the young folks passed from the purely religious feature of the holiday, and began to give it a somewhat secular tone. From loving your sister as a fellow believer in the tenets of the church was not a far step from loving her with the sort of sentiment that usually leads to the altar.

So in place of merely breaking bread together the young men inaugurated the custom of sending beautiful gifts to the women of their hearts. It was easy to do this without fear of reproof, for custom prescribed that no one could of right refuse that which came on St. Valentine’s day, with all the gentle sentiments of love and Christian brotherhood that, the festival inspired.

Thus in a gradual way Cupid had come to usurp the place that St. Valentine had once held all alone, and what was originally a time of prayer gradually transformed itself into the season when love sent out its messengers and pleas. The wise old fathers of the church fought this merging of the religious with the secular, but the idea had taken a firm hold on the people, and was not to be easily abolished.

For a long time the worship of the day was fairly divided between St Valentine and Cupid. First, the people would send up a prayer for the martyr. Then, this duty discharged, they would assemble in the public squares, the maids forming in line, and youths standing by in laughing eagerness. One by one the girls would file up to a huge wooden box affixed to a pole and drop in the opening a slip of paper with her name written thereon.

When every girl had deposited her slip, the youths would file up and draw each one a slip. With palpitating hearts would they read the names drawn, for to the maiden thus given to them by good St. Valentine they must be faithful for one year. Frequently the girl thus drawn, known as a Valentine, became the wife of the man to whose lot she had fallen before the expiration of the year of service. The custom lasted through many centuries.

St. Valentine gave the excuse for these sentimental exchanges, but Cupid reaped the actual profit. In point of antiquity, Cupid was far the senior of St. Valentine, though the latter is also pictured in the dignity of a gray board, while Cupid is a mere sprite of a boy, with bow and arrows. St. Valentine’s era was some 20 centuries back. Cupid reaches into the dimmest mist of the antiquities. In fact, there never was time when Cupid did not exist. The little god himself sent the first valentine of which there is any record, though it wasn’t the kind of missive that now comes through the malls in a big square envelope.

The first valentine was a rather crude sort of love message, for it gave pain, but Cupid had an excuse. He lacked other means of reaching the affections of the obdurate Psyche, and when maidens resist a zealous suitor, they must expect summary treatment. Cupid was the son of Venus, herself the goddess of love; hence by inheritance he had the right to expect to know all about the tender passions. But while Venus was queen of love, she also had all the power of expert experiencing the full that other passion that so frequently comes with love – Jealousy.

According to the story, Venus became jealous of a human woman, Psyche, and sent her son, Cupid to get revenge by causing her to fall in love with him and suffer from unrequited love. In a strange turn of events, so the story goes, Cupid wounded himself with his own arrow and fell in love with Psyche.

After many trials and tribulations, which caused Psyche to wander alone and forlorn for a long time, eventually Jupiter made her immortal, and she was united to Cupid for all time.

Flowers are a popular way for Americans to celebrate the holiday and Valentine’s Day flowers began as a tradition in the 17th century. The rose was supposed to be the favorite flower of Venus, and as a result, lovers began giving flowers to those they cared about to show their love.

Even the colors have meaning. A red rose is a time-honored way to say “I love you.” They convey passion and a strong romantic love; a white rose is a way to honor a friend or loved one, often after they are gone; a yellow rose means friendship, and a lavender rose represents love at first sight.

And, what would Valentine’s Day be without chocolate? Spanish explorers brought chocolate back to the Old World in the 17th century. Chocolate, which is considered to be an aphrodisiac, soon became the candy of choice for the lover’s holiday.

Eating chocolate may be a sensual experience, and it can be good for your health as well. The right type of chocolate contains antioxidants, and can be beneficial for your heart, the organ we associate with love, caring, bonding, and intimacy.

So, no matter what one does for their lover, flowers, balloons chocolate and/or a beautiful card, have a happyValentine’s Day, whatever your langage de l’amour may be.