Kinds of Love
"Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty; Greek three; and English simply one."
- Robert Johnson, The Fisher King and The Handless Maiden.
Let's use amazon.com's Look Inside feature to examine the context:
from amazon.com's amazing Look Inside! feature
“Sanskrit has ninety-six words for love; ancient Persian has eighty, Greek three, and English only one. This is indicative of the poverty of awareness or emphasis that we give to that tremendously important realm of feeling. Eskimos have thirty words for snow, because it is a life-and death matter to them to have exact information about the element they live with so intimately. If we had a vocabulary of thirty words for love ... we would immediately be richer and more intelligent in this human element so close to our heart. An Eskimo probably would die of clumsiness if he had only one word for snow; we are close to dying of loneliness because we have only one word for love. Of all the Western languages, English may be the most lacking when it come to feeling.” - Robert Johnson, Fisher King, p. 6.
Lust, Desire, Adoration, Longing, Admiration, Reverence!
I love (admire, enjoy, respect, appreciate) Robert Johnson's work – he takes complex Jungian concepts and makes them simple and accessible. I am not sure he is correct here. In English we have many words for kinds of love: lust, desire, affection, adore, longing, respect, admiration. We say, "I adore him," or "I am hot for her," or "I totally respect you," or "I am fond of you." People also say things such as, "You are like family to me."
Think about all the kinds of love you have known. How many words would you need to describe all the different realms of feeling you have experienced? You can develop a profound meditation practice for yourself by writing about all the different experiences you have had with love and describing the sensations you experienced with each. Your mom, your dad, your dog, your doll or toys, your bike, childhood friends, first teenage attraction, first romantic relationship, first "serious" relationship.
Our word, love, by the way, is thought to come to us from Sanskrit lubh, and/or the Persian luvu.
Ancient Greek had a nifty love triangle: three words for love: eros, agape, and philia.
Eros is erotic love, a passionate and intense desire for something. Eros can be sexual desire, and is often used to refer to "simple" sexual desire or "just sex." Eros is much more and has a transcendental aspect – if we follow the current of sexual desire into its essence, we find we are loving the divine forms of things, and being carried toward union with the divine.
Agape is compassion, a spiritual love, love for all humanity.
Philia or philos is movement toward and attraction to, as in audiophile (someone who loves high-quality music). Francophile is someone who loves all things French.
I find it amusing that the English word agape, which means, "with the mouth wide open," and "in a state of wonder or amazement," has the same spelling as agape, spiritual love.
About.com has a good little essay about love magic in ancient Greece. Link.
From The American Heritage Dictionary:
Eros
NOUN: 1. Greek Mythology The god of love, son of Aphrodite. 2. often eros Creative, often sexual yearning, love, or desire: “The new playful eros means that impulses and modes from other spheres enter the relations between men and women” (Herbert Gold). 3a. Psychiatry Sexual drive; libido. b. The sum of all instincts for self-preservation.
ETYMOLOGY: Latin Ers, from Greek, from ers, sexual love.
agape
SYLLABICATION: a·ga·pe
PRONUNCIATION: ä-gäp, äg-p
NOUN: 1. Christianity Love as revealed in Jesus, seen as spiritual and selfless and a model for humanity. 2. Love that is spiritual, not sexual, in its nature. 3. Christianity In the early Christian Church, the love feast accompanied by Eucharistic celebration.
ETYMOLOGY: Greek agap, love.
Philia
–philia
SUFFIX: Tendency toward: audiophile.
ETYMOLOGY: New Latin, from Greek -phili : -philos, -phile + -i, -ia.
“Eros is acquisitive, egocentric or even selfish; agape is a giving love. Eros is an unconstant, unfaithful love, while agape is unwavering and continues to give despite ingratitude. Eros is a love that responds to the merit or value of its object; while agape creates value in its object as a result of loving it... Finally, eros is an ascending love, the human’s route to God; agape is a descending love, God’s route to humans... Philia is caught between eros and agape.”–From the Introduction to Eros, Agape and Philia
- Eros, Agape, and Philia: Readings in the Philosophy of Love, by Soble, Alan. ISBN: 1557782784, Paper, 330 pages.