boté

Notes

Short letters on the great queer love stories: Achilles and Patroclus, the Sacred Band of Thebes, Sappho, Hadrian and Antinous, Michelangelo, Oscar Wilde, and the philosophy of love in Plato’s Symposium.

Achilles and Patroclus: the love Homer never named: The greatest warrior of the Iliad could survive any enemy but one loss. A letter on grief, friendship and the word nobody wrote down.
The Sacred Band of Thebes: an army of lovers: 150 pairs of male lovers formed the most feared unit in Greece. A letter on courage, and on what a king said when he saw them fall.
The other half: what Plato’s Symposium says about love: Once, the story goes, we were whole, and the gods cut us in two. A letter on the oldest myth about why we fall in love.
Sappho: the poet who gave love between women its name: Most of her nine books are lost. What survives in fragments still burns. A letter on the poet of Lesbos, and on what remains.
Hadrian and Antinous: the emperor who made his lover a god: When a young man drowned in the Nile, the most powerful man in the world filled an empire with his face. A letter on grief carved in marble.
Harmodius and Aristogeiton: the lovers who became a symbol of democracy: Athens honoured two men with the first public statues of real citizens. They were a couple. A letter on love, courage and politics.
Michelangelo and Tommaso dei Cavalieri: sonnets with the pronouns changed: The greatest sculptor of the Renaissance wrote love poems to a young Roman nobleman. A century later, someone edited the love out.
Oscar Wilde and “the love that dare not speak its name”: In a London courtroom, the wittiest man of his age was asked to explain a line of poetry. A letter on the answer that cost him everything.
On holding hands: two men in suits: Notes on No. 07, Let’s Do Business Together, and the most formal clothes around the most private gesture.

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