The grey eyed Cinderella – Epilogue

Eros (Love)

Here the story could have been completed with the standard phrase: “they lived happily ever after”. But neither the stories, nor the fairy tales simply present moments from the endless cycles of life, which are lost in time. Instead, they are captures of these moments and their projection into eternity.

Eros (Love) is a form of human expression that has been studied, praised, mocked, cursed since the beginning of human civilization, and remains a cause of controversy to this day. But uninfluenced he determines the relationships of people and despite the laws and restrictions that societies and religions put in place from time to time to rein him in, he always found a way to come out victorious.

In our time, when at least Western societies tend to liberate him, while at the same time degrading him, he regulates, in his own way, the flow and quality of human relationships.

Throughout the course of civilization there have always been people who had enough wisdom and insight to understand the source and meaning of such fundamental principles as Love. They may be great philosophers, they may be poets, they may be writers. They leave signs on their way, that if we follow them, we can trace the truth that is hidden behind this important expression of human behavior.

Plato with his work “Symposium” examines Eros extensively and reaches specific conclusions that are still studied and analyzed by intellectuals and lovers of wisdom to better understand the projection of his words in the field of worldly knowledge. The Symposium is basically a conversation about Eros, which takes place between the participants of a gathering, with Socrates, Plato’s teacher, as the main speaker.

But among those present who develop their own theory about Eros is the comic poet Aristophanes, who gives his own opinion. Certainly, this is not the view that Plato supports in his work, but the interpretation given can be better identified with the way people experience love. A summary of what he says is the following text:

Before starting his monologue, Aristophanes warns that what he will say is more strange than funny. His reason is an explanation for the phenomenon of lovers who say they feel “whole” when they find their partner. He first explains that you must understand human nature before trying to express the origin of love and how it affects us. Love stems from the fact that people once had double bodies with two faces and instead of two sexes there were three: men, women and androgynous (man and woman). The first two had the same gender on both sides of their form, while the androgynous had a man’s body on one side and a woman’s on the other. Men originated from the sun, women from the Earth and androgynous from the Moon. These people were particularly strong and because of their great strength they tried to conquer Olympus and the gods themselves. Zeus initially thought of smashing, but he did not want the gods to lose the sacrifices they offered, so he decided to cut them in two, resulting in the separation of the two bodies. Since then, people have been looking for their other half or basically their match. Men who were separated from another man are the homosexuals. While the women are the lesbians. Heterosexuals are the result of the intersection of “androgynous”. According to Aristophanes, the intense desire felt by the sexes for reunion is called Eros. Love has the power to unite human beings, not only to survive and multiply but also to reproduce morally. Aristophanes also mentions that when two soul mates find each other they never wish to be separated again.

Let us keep the last sentence and refer to what another great Greek, the Nobel prize-winning poet Odysseus Elytis, says about Love, through a poem set to music by Linos Kokotos and sung by Rena Koumiotis in 1972.

Thus, Elytis says among other things:

Once in a thousand years

the nightingales chirp otherwise.

They neither laugh nor cry,

they only say they only say.

Once in a thousand years

love becomes eternal.

Be lucky, be lucky

and may this year be for you.

If we accept what Elytis says as a fact, that is “once in a thousand years, love becomes eternal”, it seems that people compromise in life with something less than their “other half”, as they did in our story Katerina and Elpida. The first one to keep up with the accepted society values and the second to have children. And since according to Elytis eternal love is something very rare, almost all people settle in one way or another, without having met the real Eros. Is this bad? Probably not. It is a way for society to evolve.

Almost all writers from ancient times to today have written about Eros. We will refer to a very great writer, the Nobel laureate for literature Colombian – Gabriel García Márquez, and his novel “Love in the years of cholera”. In this novel, the two protagonists come together to enjoy their love fifty years after they fell in love. About the same age as Kalliroe and Diego Gonzales. Is it possible for a love to last fifty years? It seems to be holding up. The mystics of mankind say so.

This realization of love in a bygone age certainly did not give the lovers a previous happy life. They lived with the absence of their “other half”. But it seems that this luck, which occurs “every thousand years” has its price, which is very expensive. Maybe because nothing in life is free.

On the other hand, there is the tale of Cinderella. A classic tale that has been repeated many times in world literature in one way or another. In our time, we might call these reruns cheaply romantic, but we watch them because through their plot we somehow find the vindication and happiness of the wronged. And this satisfies our own tired mental world.

But what does this fairy tale tell us? It begins with a happy family, then comes the death of the mother, the marriage of the father to the evil stepmother and the fall of the daughter into a servant of her house, living in the kitchen and collecting the ashes from the fireplace. When the local prince invites all the maidens to a ball to choose his bride-to-be, Cinderella is ordered by her stepmother not to go. Besides, she does not have the right clothes. Only the stepmother’s two daughters will attend the dance.

A scene of gross injustice, which is repeated in the daily life of many people in one way or another. And here is the time of choice. Cinderella dares, despite the facts of her life, to wish to go to the ball. And then the whole creation advocates for her to get the right dress, and the right means of transport to look like a princess. On one condition: To return before 12 midnight. Otherwise, the magic will be lost, and everyone will see her misery. Cinderella obeys but as she leaves she loses her glass slipper, which is collected by the prince, who has already fallen in love with her.

When he starts going around the houses in the area to find the girl who wore the slipper and marry her, Cinderella dares again. Despite her wretched appearance and her stepmother’s threats she appears before the prince again and tries on the shoe. The prince recognizes her, marries her and they live happily ever after.

It is important to realize that the prince chooses her even when she appears before him in the wretched clothes of a maid. He had truly grown to love the person behind the beautiful princess image. Nevertheless, we cannot overlook the fact that he initially noticed her because he was attracted by her image. Otherwise, he might never have fallen in love with her. This is also part of the game of attraction between the two sexes.

Many messages in this fairy tale: we must follow our dreams and desires even when everything around us says otherwise. We must dare and we must claim happiness. Otherwise, it will pass us by, and we will be left forever to collect the ashes of our lives.

The story does not tell us how Kalliroe and Diego Gonzales got on. It does not matter. The plot of this story brought them together and it will be their decision whether they continue to exist in the world of ideas or fade into non-existence. The feelings of the readers of the story may empower them to exist as powerful spirits that will inspire people to love eternally, or they will dissolve into the infinite universe as if they never existed. But whatever happens Gabriel García Márquez’s conclusion will give hope to all people:

Because they had lived long enough to understand that love is love at any time and in any place, but it became more intense when they were close to death.

THE END

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