Page 40 - the NOISE February 2016

ye oLde st. vaLentIne's day
40 • february 2016 • the NOISE arts & news • thenoise.us
story By CLaIr anna rose
Ihave always loved Valentine’s Day and look forward to it with the same out-of-proportion expectations and excitement I do birthdays and every other holiday on the calendar. I started to wonder how traditions originated, and in some cases, wondered what exactly was the original cause for celebration? What started out as a Saint’s Feast Day is now a romantic occasion when the average American spends $142 on Valentine’s related paraphernalia and 131 million greeting cards are exchanged (according to Hallmark research). But does anyone think about St. Valentine on St. Valentine’s day? Here’s a few tidbits of unearthed history, legend and tradition.
I just Can’t Get enouGh
If you’re like me and you just love Valentine’s Day and all the doily-inspired romance it
brings, it may come as a relief to know Valentine’s Day can be celebrated on various days throughout the year due to the amount of canonized St. Valentines. St. Valentine of Rome is the Saint who gets the credit for the big day on February 14, though little is really known about him. The romantic legend tells of Emperor Claudius the II of Rome who decided young men performed better on the battlefield if they weren’t performing husbandly duties, and young men were forbidden to marry. St. Valentine married young lovers in secret and when he was found out he met his untimely end.
Other St. Valentines are St. Valentine of Rhaetia (January 7), Bishop of Genoa (May 2), Bishop of Trier (July 16), St. Valentina — a female virgin martyred in Palestine (July 25), Bishop of Strasbourg (September 2), St. Valentine Berrio-Ochoa (November 1), St. Valentine of Viterbo (November 3), and the St. Valentine who was martyred along with St. Dubatatius at Carthage (November 17).
hIt on her, LIteraLLy
Whether or not the stories around St. Valentine of Rome were accurate or not, his feast
day was set on February 14 — perhaps to try to bring a Christian sway to the Roman Fertility Festival Lupercalia on February 15.
The festival began with the sacrifice of a dog and a goat, and after some of the less romantic and bloody details of the ritual, strips of the hide of the sacrificed animals would be cut, and used to slap women. A slap with a slice of dead dog or goat was believed to endow a woman with fertility, and according to some sources women would line up for a whack.
The festival would end with all the women of the city placing their names in a “lottery” from which all the bachelors would draw a name — and the woman they drew was their designated sexual partner for the year (which would, for you romantic souls out there, often end in matrimony).
Change was inevitable. Pope Gelasius I refurbished the lottery game, filling the urn with the names of Saints. When the name of a saint was drawn, the person who drew it would aim to emulate the qualities of that Saint for the year. The tradition took a more romantic lean later on, when the names of Saints were replaced with the names of young women and the young men would devote themselves to their “Valentine” for the year.
a LoCk of Love
The Victorian age was big on Valentine’s Day and all things romance. One token of undying love and remembrance was hair jewelry — a lock of your lover’s hair would often be given and made into a ring or placed in a locket. The tradition of making jewelry from a lock of your beloved’s hair was quite the fashion, until it became so popular it suddenly was not. It was still acceptable for a time to have a locket or a ring made from a deceased loved one’s hair.
CupId’s forGotten Brother
Cupid (Eros to the Greek) appears on paper valentines as a cherubic version of the Roman
god — a blindfolded, winged boy who flies willy-nilly around, firing arrows wherever he
pleases, causing people who are struck to fall in love with the first person they see. But “love” is loosely used here, for Eros’ love is of the lustful, carnal nature. Somehow Cupid made it into the mainstream Valentine’s Day iconography, however it’s his brother Anteros who is actually the God of requited love, lasting love and love transcending the impulses of lust. He’s also known to punish those who reject love or who can’t be troubled with the
fancifulness true love may entail.
Happy Valentine’s Day to all, whether you choose to celebrate it by dropping $142, slapping a girl with a strip of bloody hide, or giving someone a lock of your hair.
| Clair Anna Rose is a hopeful romantic. clair@thenoise.us thenoise.us • the NOISE arts & news • febRUARY 2016 • 19