Things people do for love

Saturday, February 11, 2012

VALENTINE’S Day is fast approaching – and the male halves of couples are scrambling to find something romantic to do for their female counterparts. It would be wise to avoid the cliché romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day – all the restaurants are taking the opportunity to literally cash in on the holiday and offer meals that will blow a metaphorical hole in your wallet with a metaphorical cannonball.

The best (and probably cheaper) alternative to a romantic dinner on Valentine’s Day is to wow your significant other with a trip to the Government Center and a nice outdoor picnic, or go on a long drive and get lost on purpose, or have an adventure – just the two of you… or you could do something gloriously outlandish and make your lover a six-foot-tall Valentine’s Day card, or proclaim your love to her from the top of the as-yet-unfinished 2 Sanparq building.

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People do weird stuff for love – all the time. I just thought I’d make a compilation of the greatest displays of love and affection throughout history.

One famous example is the case of Marc Anthony and Cleopatra. He was a Roman leader, she was the Queen of Egypt. He had a wife in Rome, and she was married to Julius Caesar himself. The two thought they could come together and make an empire that would rival that of Rome – but Caesar’s heir, Octavian, wouldn’t have it. He launched a fleet against them and soundly thrashed their combined forces. It is said that Marc Anthony heard a rumor that Cleopatra killed herself and committed suicide. When Cleopatra found out about this, she killed herself – for real this time – with the bite of a poisonous snake.

Another ancient love story comes from the land of Babylon – King Nebuchadnezzar II married a Median woman named Amytis, who longed for the lush plants and flowing waters of her homeland. Since there was none of that in Babylon (modern Iraq), the king decided that he’d make an artificial oasis in the middle of the desert. The structure was made of stone and had water running through aqueducts which moisturized the soil where imported Median and Persian plants were planted. Babylonian engineers saw to it that the structure was made in such a way that it would not erode, and for its sheer scale, it was considered to be one of the seven wonders of the ancient world. Nebuchadnezzar did all this for a homesick wife. The gardens, however, were destroyed by a series of earthquakes 200 years before Christ was born.

Another famous landmark made out of love is the Taj Mahal – the humongous temple was built by Shah Jahan for his third wife, Mumtaz Mahal. I don’t need to describe it to you since I assume you know what it looks like – it’s that huge white building with a “swimming pool” that you see in your head whenever you think of “India.” Anyway, the Shah didn’t build this mega structure as a present for his wife – no, he built it as a memorial. Mumtaz Mahal died while giving birth to his son, so he was so devastated that he dedicated most of his days to making this glorious tomb to house her remains – and later his own, when he died.

And finally, our most recent example of the extreme things a person will do for love comes from England, from the time Prince Edward married Wallis Simpson. The prince fell in love with Mrs. Simpson – yes, Mrs. with an ‘s’. Wallis Simpson was a married American woman – and what’s more she was a commoner. Prince Edward was… well, a prince. Anyhow, Wallis divorced her husband and the two began living together. The problem was that Edward was next in line to the throne – and he didn’t want any other woman but Wallis Simpson to be by his side. The British government simply wouldn’t have it, so Edward abdicated the throne and the two of them lived out the rest of their lives as common people – but hey, at least they had love.