On Three Jealous Lovers

Oh! beware, my lord, of jealousy; it is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.-Othello, Act 3, Scene 3, by William Shakespeare

Shakespeare knew that jealous was powerful and hungry and often incredibly dangerous. We feel jealousy’s threat with the Bard’s warning to “beware.” And history is filled with stories of jilted lovers and of people who have almost literally lost their minds over love. More recent news stories tell us that nothing has changed much over the millennia. Here are three of the more odd and drastic examples of the green-eyed monster rearing its ugly head.

Take the story in 2013 of a man in Saudi Arabia who loved and married the woman of his dreams. Social media’s prevalence has given the public many more opportunities to find out about people cheating on their significant others. This man discovered what he thought was evidence of proof of his wife’s infidelity online. That’s when this Saudi man, as we say, “lost it.” He confronted his wife over the post online that showed her kissing the cheek of a rather handsome fellow. How dare she, he said, when had been completely faithful to him. Of course, the wife protested. In fact, she literally laughed off her husband’s accusations at first. How could he be so ridiculous, she asked. She didn’t deny the post and didn’t deny the kiss. However, she said it was obvious that the kiss meant nothing to her other than a sign of friendly affection. He was not to be daunted. He filed for divorce, citing the online photo as evidence. Even though the photo didn’t prove anything, the court granted the man a divorce. And, while the divorce was final, even the court also had to laugh at the man’s irrational jealousy. The ex-wife wasn’t sorry about the divorce, either. She felt that the man’s irrationality should have been something she saw earlier in the relationship. You see, the photo definitely showed the kiss. But the object of the wife’s kiss was a beautiful Arabian horse.

In 2012, Lowell Turpin of Tennessee flew into a rage over a photo on his wife’s computer. Lowell didn’t have the best judgement in the first place, and he had a history of violence and jealousy towards his wife. If any man spoke to his wife, even a cashier or checkout person, Lowell would threaten the man with revenge. The photo Lowell found on his wife’s laptop was of an attractive man, a bit older than she was, with a chiseled jawline and a full head of hair with a touch of gray at the temples. And he had a winning smile to boot. Right on cue, Lowell flew into a rage and snatched the laptop from his wife’s hands. “You slut!” he kept screaming, over and over. He threw the computer against the wall, shattering the machine into dozens of pieces. “Tell me who he is!” His brow-beaten wife, right before she called the police and had Lowell arrested, obliged him. “That man,” she explained calmly, “is Mitt Romney.”

The last tale is one you probably remember from the news at the time. Lisa Nowak lost her mind in 2005, at least temporarily. She left her husband for another man, a co-worker, a few years before. To Lisa, the new guy became her obsession. An old adage says that if he’ll do it with you, he’ll do it to you, and, in this case, it was true. The man she left her husband for left her for another woman. And that’s when Lisa lost it. She drove almost 1000 miles to confront the woman she’d lost her lover to. Tracking and stalking the woman to the airport in Orlando, Florida, Lisa first accosted and harassed the woman before pepper spraying her through her open car window. When she was arrested, Lisa’s car revealed that she had been shadowing the woman and the former boyfriend for some time. In her defense, Lisa claimed a temporary breakdown, but the obsessive behavior was shown to have gone on longer than “temporarily.” Thus, Lisa Nowak became the first active-duty astronaut to be charged with a felony and dismissed from NASA and received a less-than-honorable discharge from the US Navy.

We often associate colors with moods and emotions. Cowardice is yellow. Sadness is blue. Anger is red. But the green of envy, the monster of jealousy, can be the most irrational at times as these three stories prove.

On Love at First Sight

The Greeks referred to it as “madness from the gods” when a couple fell instantly and madly in love from the moment they first saw each other. The effect of this overwhelming sensation was like being pierced through the heart, and that’s where we begin to get the idea of this little cherub (or demon, depending on the outcome of the relationship, perhaps) with the bow and the quiver of love-tipped arrows. The afflicted would thus be stricken with “love sickness” that nothing but the object of the affection could begin to treat.

We are not talking about mere infatuation here. Rather, we are talking about the deep, abiding passion that arises when we first see the person we were meant to spend the rest of our lives with. And, since Valentine’s Day approaches, perhaps it’s a good time to examine this phenomenon.

The medievalists took the Greek and Roman notions of the love god and expanded upon it. By the time the concept got to Shakespeare, he, too, spoke of it, writing in in As You Like It, “Who ever loved that hath not loved at first sight?” His contemporary, Christopher Marlowe, used the same phrase in his writing as well. And modern psychologists continue to study the phenomenon, finding through extensive research that we humans make these type of love-in-an-instant decisions in less than 0.15 of a second. They have concluded that it is within these microseconds that we determine whether or not the relationship will last or not, even if we are not aware that is what we are doing. The strength, the intensity of that love at first sight thing is a greater predictor of relationship success than compatibility or any other single factor, the scientists say.

Romeo and Juliet, Sense and Sensibility, many stories in the Bible (father and son, Isaac and Jacob, feel this for their wives), and even the Hunger Games all feature this strong feeling of love between couples. Many (Most?) rock and popular music write about it. “Would you believe in a love at first sight?” Ringo’s friends seem to ask him in “A Little Help from My Friends,” to which the Beatles drummer answers, “Yes, I’m certain that it happens all the time.” Mozart, Wagner, several other classical composers created operas around the theme. And let’s not get into the love at first sight film canon.

So, here’s to instant and lasting love. It’s what makes the world go ’round. Or so they say.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

On a Nordic Legend

Scandinavia is an area filled with lore and legends. The Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian languages–and, by extension, the Icelandic language as well–boast a varied and fascinating mythology. Many of the stories from Scandinavian legends have been created from actual historical characters. These real people have had their lives changed, magnified, and transmogrified over time by singers, painters, and writers for reasons that range from the political to simply for fun.

One such legend that most likely has historical origins is the story of a Scandinavian lord named Amloda or Amleth (depending on the language used). In Old Norse, the name might have meant trickster, prankster, or even fool. Scholars aren’t sure if this was the lord’s name or if it more described his personality. Similar words/names such as amhlair can be found in old Gaelic and can mean stupid or mad–as in crazy.

12th Century Latin versions of Old Norse poems from two centuries earlier are among the first to mention this man. In these early stories, the lord was reported to be the grandson of the governor of Jutland. He was seen for some unknown reason to be a threat to the king, and his life was threatened. The story goes on to say that it was his madness or foolishness that ultimately saved him from the king’s paranoia. If he was this silly, this stupid-crazy, how much of a threat could he really be? This may be why scholars are confused about the name–was it actually the young man’s name or was it merely a description of his personality?

At any rate, the tale continues and includes murders, a love interest, faithful and faithless men and women, and all the swordplay that should be included in any good medieval legend. After he survives the jealousy of the king, the story ends with the lord marrying a nice princess and then dying heroically in battle. Was any of it true? Did this young lord actually live? Scholars believe so. The story is found across several cultures in Scandinavia, far too many for the tale to not have had its origins in truth.

By the 1500s, the popular story had made its way to France and then to England. A writer in Elizabethan times in England knew about this story, and he decided to use it as an inspiration for a new play he was working on. It’s a story that the world today knows well.

William Shakespeare’s Hamlet.