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This is the work of love, which disturbs the soul and does not allow it to rest. Schopenhauer imagines it in less sublime terms. For him, love is nothing but “sexual impulse” (Geschlechtstrieb). (Schopenhauer 1958.p.533., Schopenhauer 1844. p.626.)? How beautiful and uplifting. From Schopenhauer’s point of view, to hell with you if you fall in love instead of reading philosophical tracts. According to Plato, love is the thing that triggers remembering (Plato 1972. 249.d.), which simultaneously separates and reunites. Love is the type of discord that ends in reconciliation, through unifying or in death. There are countless examples of death (the story of Hero and Leander or of Laodamia), fewer of unification. Yet the most beautiful story about this that ever existed was the tale of Philemon and Baucis, and it does not come to us from Plato. Zeus and Hermes, in disguise, visit a place where ask for shelter but are refused everywhere. There is a swamp not far from there, once habitable land but now the haunt of diving-birds and marsh-loving coots. Jupiter went there, disguised as a mortal, and Mercury, the descendant of Atlas, setting aside his wings, went with his father, carrying the caduceus. A thousand houses they approached, looking for a place to rest: a thousand houses were locked and bolted. But one received them: it was humble it is true, roofed with reeds and stems from the marsh, but godly Baucis and the equally aged Philemon, had been wedded in that cottage in their younger years, and there had grown old together. They made light of poverty by acknowledging it and bearing it without discontent of mind. It was no matter if you asked for owner or servant there: those two were the whole household: they gave orders and carried them out equally. They greet the gods and offer them a dinner according to their modest means, until they discover who is hiding under those pauper’s clothes: 23 Cf. Metaphysik der Geschlechtslehre.
