What Is Love

Love is a powerful emotion. Throughout history couples in love have caused wars and
controversy, created masterpieces in writing, music, and art, and have captured the
hearts of the public with the power of their bonds. From the allure of Cleopatra to the
magnetism of the Kennedy's, these love affairs have stood as markers in history.
Prepare to swoon over these love stories of the centuries.

For some people, love can be used to describe almost

anything. OMG, I love this iced latte! This sweater is amazing,
I love it. But, what about romantic relationships? For couples
in long-term relationships, love means loyalty and
commitment but for college students in the center of their first
real relationship, love may feel messy and complicated.
It doesn’t matter where you fall on the spectrum, whether
your love life is blissful or nonexistent, it’s clear that everyone
has an opinion on love and what it means in a healthy
relationship.
In the hopes of coming to a more collective understanding of
love, we asked 10 people in different stages of their
relationship to explain what love means to them. Here’s what
they had to say (their answers may surprise you).
Paris and Helen
She was another man's wife, but when Paris, the "handsome, woman-mad" prince of
Troy, saw Helen, the woman whom Aphrodite proclaimed the most beautiful in the
world, he had to have her. Helen and Paris ran off together, setting in motion the
decade-long Trojan War. According to myth, Helen was half-divine, the daughter of
Queen Leda and the God Zeus, who transformed into a swan to seduce the queen.
Whether Helen actually existed, we'll never know, but her romantic part in the
greatest epic of all time can never be forgotten. She will forever be "the face that
launched a thousand ships."

More: 15+ Classic Romantic Movies to Watch On Valentine's Day

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Cleopatra and Mark Antony

"Brilliant to look upon and to listen to, with the power to subjugate everyone." That
was the description of Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. She could have had anything or
anyone she wanted, but she fell passionately in love with the Roman General Mark
Antony. As Shakespeare depicts it, their relationship was volatile ("Fool! Don't you
see now that I could have poisoned you a hundred times had I been able to live
without you," Cleopatra said) but after they risked all in a war on Rome and lost, they
chose to die together in 30 BC. "I will be a bridegroom in my death, and run into it as
to a lover's bed," said Antony. And Cleopatra followed, by clasping a poisonous asp to
her breast.

Hadrian and Antinous

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We've heard of the Wall—no, not that one, the 2nd Century AD one stretching across
England—but what about Emperor Hadrian's heart? He lost it to Antinous (far left),
an intelligent and sports-loving Greek student. The emperor displayed "an obsessive
craving for his presence." The two traveled together, pursuing their love of hunting;
Hadrian once saved his lover's life during a lion hunt. The emperor even wrote erotic
poetry. While visiting the Nile, Antinous drowned mysteriously, but some say he was
murdered by those jealous of the emperor's devotion. The devastated Hadrian
proclaimed Antinous a deity, ordered a city be built in his honor, and named a star
after him, between the Eagle and the Zodiac.

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Henry II and Rosamund Clifford

The first Plantagenet king of England had a rich, royal wife in Eleanor of Aquitaine
and mistresses galore, but the love of his life was "Fair Rosamund," also called the
"Rose of the World." To conceal their affair, Henry built a love nest in the innermost
recesses of a maze in his park at Woodstock. Nonetheless, the story has it that Queen
Eleanor did not rest until she found the labyrinth and traced it to the center, where
she uncovered her ravishing rival. The queen offered her death by blade or poison.
Rosamund chose the poison. Perhaps not coincidentally, Henry kept Eleanor
confined in prison for 16 years of their marriage.

Dante and Beatrice

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Rarely has a woman served as such profound inspiration for a writer—and yet he
barely knew her. The Italian poet Dante Alighieri wrote passionately of Beatrice in
the Divine Comedy and other poems, but only met the object of his affection twice.
The first time, he was nine years old and she was eight. The second time, they were
adults, and while walking on the street in Florence, Beatrice, an emerald-eyed
beauty, turned and greeted Dante before continuing on her way. Beatrice died at age
24 in 1290 without Dante ever seeing her again. Nonetheless, she was "the glorious
lady of my mind," he wrote, and "she is my beatitude, the destroyer of all vices and
the queen of virtue, salvation."
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Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII

When the Tudor king fell for a young lady-in-waiting, Anne Boleyn, who possessed
eyes "black and beautiful," he was long married to a Spanish princess. But Anne
refused to be a royal mistress, and the king rocked the Western world to win his
divorce and make Anne queen. Ambassadors could not believe how enslaved the king
was by his love for Anne. "This accursed Anne has her foot in the stirrup,"
complained the Spanish emissary. To comprehend the king's passion, one need only
read his 16th century love letters, revealing his torment over how elusive she
remained: "I beg to know expressly your intention touching the love between
us…having been more than a year wounded by the dart of love, and not yet sure
whether I shall fail or find a place in your affection." (Their love affair ended when he
had her beheaded.)

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Louis XV of France and Madame de Pompadour

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In 1730, a Parisian prophetess told a nine-year-old girl she would rule the heart of a
king. Years later, at a masked ball, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, dressed as a domino,
danced with King Louis XV, dressed as a tree. Within weeks, the delicate beauty
was maîtresse-en-titre, given the title Marquise de Pompadour. "Any man would
have wanted her as his mistress," said another male admirer. The couple indulged in
their love of art, furniture, and porcelain, with Madame de Pompadour arranging for
her jaded royal lover small dinner parties and amateur theatricals in which she would
star (of course). While watching one play, Louis XV declared, "You are the most
delicious woman in France," before sweeping her out of the room.

John and Abigail Adams

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Abigail Smith married the Founding Father at age 20, gave birth to five children
(including America's fifth president, John Quincy Adams), and was John Adams's
confidante, political advisor, and First Lady. The more than 1,000 letters they wrote
to each other offer a window into John and Abigail's mutual devotion and abiding
friendship. It was more than revolutionary political ideals that kept them so united;
they shared a trust and abiding tenderness. Abigail wrote: "There is a tye more
binding than Humanity, and stronger than Friendship ... and by this chord I am not
ashamed to say that I am bound, nor do I [believe] that you are wholly free from it."
As for John, he wrote: "I want to hear you think, or see your Thoughts. The
Conclusion of your Letter makes my Heart throb, more than a Cannonade would.
You bid me burn your Letters. But I must forget you first."

Mary Godwin Shelley and Percy Shelley

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When the young Romantic poet Percy Shelley met Mary Godwin, she was the teenage
daughter of a famous trailblazing feminist, the long-dead Mary Wollstonecraft. The
two of them shared a love of the mind—"Soul meets soul on lovers' lips," he wrote—
but physical desire swept them away too, consummated near the grave of Mary's
mother. When they ran away to Europe, it caused a major scandal, but the couple
proclaimed themselves indifferent to judgment. "It was acting in a novel, being an
incarnate romance," she later said. They traveled together to visit the debauched
Lord Byron, and Mary wrote Frankenstein during two weeks in Switzerland. After
Percy died in a boating accident in 1822, Mary never remarried. She said having been
married to a genius, she could not marry a man who wasn't one.