Eoin Sansevero
Musical Parallel #2
Lucretius – Aerosmith
The explicit nature of Lucretius’ De Rerum Natura was initially surprising to me. I haven’t ever read a piece of literature that had that much sexual description in it. This is why it came as a complete shock to me that I thought of a song by one of my favorite bands, Aerosmith, while reading Lucretius’ poem. However, it was not the detailed and raunchy language that triggered this connection, but rather the sentiment expressed between the descriptions. His gross descriptions give me a more negative and disgusting view of sex and love, and he follows this up by describing women as “images”. He makes the point that men should turn from these images and stop falling into the trap of love of an individual. He goes on to say that one who loves is “consumed by his strength”, that his “life is ruled by another”, that “his reputation totters and dwindles”, and that “his fortune melts away”. This sequence of descriptions in Book 4 lines 1122-1126 are what made me immediately think of a single line in the song Crazy by Aerosmith. The phrase of being “brought to the grave” is almost exactly what I picture upon reading the description in De Rerum Natura. I also thought this was kind of strange because the theme in the rest of the song is not that one should completely turn away from love, but rather that love is hard and has a lot of ups and downs that make people feel like they are going insane. However, Aerosmith still uses the phrase “to his grave” when depicting the result of the woman on the man in the relationship, which is a very negative depiction and makes me think about the destruction of someone’s life. It is interesting to see how two very different takes on love describe it to be so destructive in nature. Lucretius also depicts men who are transfixed by love as being hit by the “darts of Venus”. This depiction is similar to the classical way of describing love as an infatuation or complete takeover of the lover’s mind by the beloved. Other examples include being struck by Cupid’s arrow. This power and control of Love is expressed in lines 1058 – 1062, where Lucretius discusses the source of this infatuation. The sentiment is that the lover has no control whatsoever and is completely obsessed and manipulated by the one he loves. This kind of sentiment is similarly expressed by Aerosmith in their lyrics, “That kind of lovin’ turns a man to a slave”. The idea of being a slave to love implies the lover has no control over his feelings and almost puts blame on the women for infatuating him. It is this lack of control that makes these two very different works seem alike.
“On the Nature of Things” or “De Rerum Natura”, Book 4
lines 1058-1062: This is what we call Venus. This is also what gives us our name for love; this is that source of that honeyed drop of Venus’ sweetness that is first distilled into our heart, to be followed by chilling care. For even if your loved one is absent, images of her are with you and the darling name keeps ringing in your ears.
lines 1122-1126: Remember too that the lover consumes his strength and is exhausted by the strain; remember that his life is ruled by another. His duties are neglected; his reputation totters and dwindles. Meanwhile, the hard-earned family fortune melts away, transformed into Babylonian perfumes.