What Is the True Nature of Love?
What do you think love is? Is it self‑less devotion? Physical attraction? Or the resonance of souls?
It is hard for us to define it simply. As one of humanity’s most complex and enduring topics, love encompasses spiritual affinity, emotional bonding, physical desire, value alignment and more. Even the wisest philosophers have failed to reach a unified conclusion over thousands of years.
Plato viewed love as an elevation of the soul: rising from the beauty of the flesh to the beauty of the spirit, and ultimately toward eternal truth and goodness.
Schopenhauer regarded love as an illusion of the Will‑to‑Live, an intense emotional delusion crafted by nature for the sake of species reproduction.
For Hegel, love represents the spiritual and moral unity of two free‑willed individuals, through which people achieve self‑completion by recognising one another.
From the essence of existence, human relations, to values and meaning, they have probed into the nature of love. Yet debates over what love truly is persist to this day.
A story may shed light on our views of love.
In ancient Rome, there lived Herod, king of the Jews. Cruel and ruthless, he committed countless misdeeds, leaving his people trapped in constant fear. Then he met Mariamne — a woman of indescribable beauty and serene grace. Herod fell for her instantly. Powerful as this allure was, it still ranked below his grip on power. Mariamne descended from the Maccabean dynasty, the very house Herod had overthrown.
Desire and torment gnawed at the tyrant’s heart. When Herod saw Mariamne again, her gentle, breeze‑like composure stirred faint sparks of tenderness within his barren, desolate soul. He proposed to her. After several encounters, Mariamne sensed the influence she wielded over him, and they were married.
After marriage, Herod began to change. He grew more tolerant and even showed clumsy attempts to please Mariamne. Moved by her pleas, he reined in his tyranny, freed prisoners from dungeons, and spared a twelve‑year‑old boy who had tried to assassinate his guards out of revenge — for the boy was one of Mariamne’s last surviving kin. He remodelled his palace to suit his wife’s tastes, and conditions in the kingdom improved.
This was no fairy‑tale romance between a king and his beloved. Deep down, Mariamne did not love Herod. His innate coldness and paranoia could never nurture affection. Still, she tried to convince herself to accept and love him, becoming adept at wearing a mask in his presence.
Gradually, however, Herod sensed from her cold reserve that he had never truly won her heart. Rage consumed him, like desert winds whipping up a deadly storm. A tragic end awaited them both.
This narrative comes from the late work of Pär Lagerkvist, the Swedish Nobel laureate in Literature of 1951. Drawing on real‑life historical figures, he wove fiction into their story. The real‑world fate of Herod and Mariamne is heart‑wrenching.
Having offended Augustus Caesar, Herod was summoned to Rome. Fearing he might not return alive, he gave his men a cruel order: should he perish on the journey, Mariamne must be put to death. He could not bear the thought of another man possessing her after his passing, and he feared the political threat posed by her Maccabean bloodline.
Herod was gone for so long that everyone assumed he had been executed. His soldiers pitied Mariamne and delayed carrying out the execution. Amid the chaos and power struggles inside the palace, Herod returned safely. Overcome with grief, he believed Mariamne was dead — until she stood before him. Rage flared once more. He suspected her of an affair with his officers. Learning that the Maccabeans had plotted amid rumours of his death, he ordered Mariamne and every member of the Maccabean house executed, to eliminate all threats forever.
History unfolds in chilling irony: one may profess great love for you, yet hand you a cup of poison.
Can a person’s true nature be transformed by falling in love?
This is where Lagerkvist’s genius lies. Far more than a romance, his tale explores whether love can redeem and reshape human beings. Even the most wicked soul may briefly taste love’s softening power, yet in the end be swallowed by its own inherent nature.
Was there love between Herod and Mariamne? Perhaps fragments of it existed, yet it was never equal or healthy. Herod’s passion was obsessive, comparable to the illusory, cruel romance celebrated in Song of Everlasting Sorrow as depicted in The Legend of the Demon Cat. Both Yang Guifei and Mariamne became victims of power. Their beauty served as glittering decoration for imperial glory; yet when power demanded sacrifice, they were dismissed as sources of ruin.
Mariamne’s feelings for Herod consisted largely of sympathy, pity and resignation. Misaligned in temperament and affection, they lacked any channel for genuine communication. Herod’s love was self‑centered, steeped in power and oppression; Mariamne responded through self‑sacrifice and wishful redemption. Unequal status and conflicting needs sealed their relationship’s tragic fate.
Though the story cannot define love for us, it reveals what love is not. A bond built without equality and respect — one marked by control or condescending favours from one party to another — can never be true love. Unchecked possessiveness warps affection and leads only to destruction. Even when Mariamne sacrificed herself to accommodate Herod, she could not escape death.
Sacrifice within love must have boundaries. If one person keeps draining themselves through compromise while the other shows no reflection or willingness to change, such sacrifice becomes nothing more than self‑delusion. That is not what love is meant to be.
Herod and Mariamne may have shared moments of apparent happiness, yet their bond never included deep understanding or listening. Even inside an intimate relationship, fundamental emotional divides drive people apart, turning love into chains for both sides.
Through this story, Lagerkvist delves profoundly into themes of love and redemption, offering much food for thought for readers.
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