Eros is often associated with romantic love, and that is an area I would like to explore later. Right now, I want to look at Eros as a creative power, as described in ancient cosmogonies, beginning with Hesiod's Theogony.
We are most familiar with Eros as the winged youth, targeting unsuspecting gods and mortals with his arrows, but earlier creation myths offer Eros as one of the primordial gods, who represented the core elements of the universe at the time of creation.
Hesiod first mentions Eros in the following lines from his Theogony:
ἦ τοι μὲν πρώτιστα Χάος γένετ᾽, αὐτὰρ ἔπειτα Γαῖ᾽ εὐρύστερνος, πάντων ἕδος ἀσφαλὲς αἰεὶ ἀθανάτων, οἳ ἔχουσι κάρη νιφόεντος Ὀλύμπου, Τάρταρά τ᾽ ἠερόεντα μυχῷ χθονὸς εὐρυοδείης, ἠδ᾽ Ἔρος, ὃς κάλλιστος ἐν ἀθανάτοισι θεοῖσι, [120] λυσιμελής, πάντων δὲ θεῶν πάντων τ᾽ ἀνθρώπων δάμναται ἐν στήθεσσι νόον καὶ ἐπίφρονα βουλήν. In truth at first Chaos came to be, but next wide-bosomed Earth, the ever-sure foundation of all the deathless ones who hold the peaks of snowy Olympus, and dim Tartarus in the depth of the wide-pathed Earth, and Eros (Love), fairest among the deathless gods, who unnerves the limbs and overcomes the mind and wise counsels of all gods and all men within them.
Barbara Breitenberger states in Aphrodite and Eros, "It has been acknowledged that a primeval element equivalent to Eros is a traditional feature in the cosmogonic genre, a power without which creation could not happen." With the appearance of Eros, the gods—Chaos and Earth—experienced feelings of attraction, leading to the expansion of the divine world through the next generation of gods. Eros is that driving force that draws two entities together to create what is not yet.
In "Eros in Hesiod," Glenn W. Most translates Χάος as Chasm. He explains:
How many primordial entities is Hesiod positing here? At least two, obviously: Chasm and Earth. These form a binary opposition: on the one hand Chasm, which designates not a jumble of disordered matter, as many since Ovid have thought, but a gap or opening; on the other hand Gaia, the Earth. The difference between the two is clear: Chasm provides no footing, no foundation with any kind of ontological stability, while Earth is said to be a firm basis for all the gods. . . . Chasm and Earth can indeed go on to become the progenitors of all the other gods—but only because Hesiod adds to the two of them a third force, Eros, which, he says, subdues the intelligence of all gods and humans. . . . Eros is, for Hesiod, not merely an emotion, still less a solely human emotion, a passion that we mortals feel often more strongly and sometimes less so, but is also, at least at this early stage of world history, a divine, and hence irresistible, force of cosmic stimulation and movement, one that compels other entities to depart from their ordinary complacent repose and to enter into relations with one another that will end up producing further entities.
So, how does that work for the creative? Well, think about it this way. You and your chosen medium, along with the necessary tools, come together to create art, art that did not exist before. In the past, I have emphasized eros as lack, and that idea still applies to an extent. Oftentimes, something is created because that thing is missing or not present. The art that you create is a product of your passion. Granted, we are not talking about sexual union here, but creating for the artist requires union with her medium.
I know it's a stretch, but it's still kind of cool to regard Eros as a force behind creation. Without that energy, life stagnates. Eros is what compels us to act. Breitenberger also wrote, "Whereas cosmogonic sources (including Orphic literature) display the reproductive aspect of desire, lyric and tragedy display the negative, destructive side of it, since it is often unfulfilled." I don't know about you, but I would prefer to see Eros as the former and fuel my art rather than live with regret.
Passing time caring for critters.
Creating while they nap.
