Annotations
Love: Meaning platonic love rather than romantic or sexual. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines
platonic love as "love conceived by Plato as ascending from passion for the individual to contemplation of
the universal and ideal" as well as "a close relationship between two persons in which sexual desire is
nonexistent or has been suppressed or sublimated" (Merriam-Webster, 2010). The reflections of critic John Butler
reflect this definition: "modern feminist critics have extolled Orinda because of her praise of female Platonic
friendship and the interest aroused in scholars by female coteries in the seventeenth century, although some
denigrate her because she did not encourage her relationships to go beyond the intellectual level" (Butler, 2007).
FRIENDSHIP'S MYSTERYS:
TO MY DEAREST LUCASIA
Come, my
Lucasia, since we see
That
miracles men's faith do move,
By wonder and by prodigy
To the dull, angry world let's prove
There's a
religion in our
Love.
5
For though we were design'd t'agree,
That fate no liberty destroys,
But our
election is as free
As
Angells, who with greedy choice
Are yet determin'd to their
Joys.
10
Our hearts are
doubled by their loss,
Here mixture is addition grown;
We both
diffuse and both
engross:
And we, whose minds are so much one,
Never, yet ever, are alone.
We court our own captivity,
Then
Thrones more great and innocent:
`
Twere banishment to be set free,
Since we weare
fetters whose intent
Not bondage is, but Ornament.
20
Divided Joys are tedious found,
And griefs united easyer grow:
We are our selves but by rebound,
And all our
titles shuffled so,
Both Princes, and both subjects too.
Our hearts are
mutuall victims lay'd,
While they (such power in friendship ly's)
Are
Altars, Priests, and off'rings made,
And each heart which thus kindly dy's,
Grows deathless by the sacrifise.
30