WEBVTT - Cupid’s Leaden Arrow 0:00:01.120 --> 0:00:04.200 They're from his quiver full of shafts, two arrows? Did 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.119 he take of sundry works? To one causes love? The 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.400 other doth H's slake. That causes love is all of 0:00:12.520 --> 0:00:16.599 gold with point, full, sharp and bright. That chase is 0:00:16.760 --> 0:00:26.560 love is blunt who steal with leaden head? Is Dight. 0:00:26.720 --> 0:00:29.560 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:29.600 --> 0:00:38.200 Works dot Com. Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow 0:00:38.240 --> 0:00:41.480 your mind. My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. 0:00:41.760 --> 0:00:44.639 And so obviously we're talking about Cupid today. That's right, 0:00:44.720 --> 0:00:48.440 it's Valentine's Day? Is it? Yes? Is it actually Valentine's Yes, 0:00:48.680 --> 0:00:51.640 actual Valentine's Day. Okay, Yeah, so we figured what we 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:53.559 gotta we gotta do some sort of Valentine's episode. We 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:57.640 had the the episode where we talked to Tomorrow Heart previously, 0:00:57.680 --> 0:01:01.160 but this is the day itself Towers of Ale sex. Yeah, 0:01:01.200 --> 0:01:05.040 so it seemed proper to get a little mythological here 0:01:05.240 --> 0:01:07.480 as we kick off this episode, and to turn to 0:01:07.560 --> 0:01:12.800 that mythological figure that got of romantic love, Cupid, the 0:01:12.880 --> 0:01:16.480 creepy smooth baby who shoots arrows with heart tips. Yes, 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:18.759 now that the reading at the top of the episode 0:01:18.880 --> 0:01:23.400 was was ovid that was from the Metamorphosis the Golden Translation, 0:01:24.120 --> 0:01:27.240 So that was how you get words like dit Yeah, 0:01:27.440 --> 0:01:30.319 which means clothed or equipped. I had to look that 0:01:30.360 --> 0:01:33.479 one up. Yeah, it might be not be completely clear, 0:01:33.520 --> 0:01:37.399 but what Ovid is basically saying is, hey, Cupid has 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.199 two different arrows that he may pull from his quiver. 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:43.039 You often forget this, or maybe he never even learned 0:01:43.040 --> 0:01:44.600 it in the first place. Well, right, if you're just 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:47.319 going off of cheesy Valentine staate cards, you just think 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.000 of that cartoon baby, and like you said, the arrows 0:01:50.040 --> 0:01:52.960 have just kind of a goofy cartoon heart at the end, 0:01:53.080 --> 0:01:55.800 and cupids launch and those at people and making them 0:01:56.480 --> 0:01:59.360 falling cartoon love with people. Yeah, well, you tend to 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:03.000 not think cupids arrows literally being an arrow that strikes 0:02:03.000 --> 0:02:07.240 with force and penetrates the flesh. I guess we're to 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:09.920 understand it that way, at least the ancients did. Like 0:02:09.960 --> 0:02:12.560 there's this poem by Anna Creon that Robert and I 0:02:12.600 --> 0:02:15.200 were talking about before the episode, where it's not actually 0:02:15.200 --> 0:02:16.560 that great of a poem. I don't know if it's 0:02:16.600 --> 0:02:19.320 worth reading, but it makes this joke about cupid gets 0:02:19.320 --> 0:02:21.959 stung by a bee and he starts crying, and his mother, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:24.800 I guess this would be Aphrodite or Venus maybe comes 0:02:24.840 --> 0:02:27.760 to him and is trying to console him and says, uh, 0:02:27.800 --> 0:02:29.720 you know, you're crying about being stung by a bee, 0:02:29.800 --> 0:02:32.800 but you shoot people with arrows all the time. That 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:37.160 must hurt more shot through the heart. Um. Yeah, And 0:02:37.520 --> 0:02:39.840 so he so he has two different arrows that he 0:02:39.840 --> 0:02:44.280 he chooses from when he decides to nail somebody. One 0:02:44.320 --> 0:02:47.360 of these arrows, as the as Ovid says, is tipped 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:50.480 in gold with a sharp point and bright right, and 0:02:50.520 --> 0:02:53.520 so that's the that's the love arrow, that is the 0:02:53.520 --> 0:02:57.480 the romantic love arrow. But then he has this leaden 0:02:57.760 --> 0:03:01.400 arrow which it sounds like it's it's probably not an 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:06.040 arrowhead composed entirely of lad for reasons will explain, but 0:03:06.160 --> 0:03:09.120 it is at least coded or tipped in lead somehow well. 0:03:09.160 --> 0:03:11.919 And it also says that as blunt, meaning I assume 0:03:11.960 --> 0:03:14.760 it is not meant to penetrate, but maybe strikes more 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:17.560 like a like a beanbag gun. Yeah, like just to 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.920 brain you with this dense leaden arrowhead. Yeah, just to 0:03:22.200 --> 0:03:25.839 just smack you hard. And then it Also it imparts aversion, 0:03:26.400 --> 0:03:28.880 so like it hits you and now you you want 0:03:28.880 --> 0:03:31.440 to you want to not be around somebody. I guess right. 0:03:31.480 --> 0:03:33.600 This seems that this seems to be the most popular 0:03:33.639 --> 0:03:37.440 interpretation of the leaden arrows power though I was looking around, uh, 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:40.400 and I did see at least one description saying that 0:03:40.440 --> 0:03:43.560 the leaden arrow had to do with set with sensual passion. 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:46.480 But I don't think that's the predominant interpretation. It's certainly 0:03:46.520 --> 0:03:48.360 not the one that we're going to spend much time 0:03:48.400 --> 0:03:52.640 with here today. Consensual passion. There are other gods for that. Uh. 0:03:52.920 --> 0:03:57.280 You know, Cupid's domain is more about that that that 0:03:57.280 --> 0:04:01.320 that romantic passion, the arrows or the philos or I 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:08.840 lose track of what love is what in Greek philodo? Um. Yeah, 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:10.760 we'll be we'll be getting into the Greek and Roman 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:14.040 stuff shortly, but yes, we're gonna be talking about Cupid. 0:04:14.040 --> 0:04:16.880 And I do I do encourage everyone to maybe put 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:22.279 aside the more cherubic interpretations of of Cupid as we 0:04:22.360 --> 0:04:25.520 discuss this figure, because we have to remember he is 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:30.640 a god. Um. He is capable of of of wrecking 0:04:30.640 --> 0:04:34.720 people's lives with his mischief and he's not always depicted 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:37.239 as a as a baby. He's he's often he's usually 0:04:37.279 --> 0:04:41.160 depicted as youthful, certainly, and that may be a male 0:04:41.240 --> 0:04:45.160 youth or a boy. He's very often and you know, 0:04:45.240 --> 0:04:49.719 depicted naked or nearly so. And sometimes he's blindfolded as well. 0:04:49.880 --> 0:04:52.840 I think it's blind right, Oh yeah, I didn't think 0:04:52.920 --> 0:04:55.160 of that. Well, I I think he's often depicted as 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:57.440 a baby just because if he were an adult, he 0:04:57.480 --> 0:05:02.000 would be a horrifying, gross creep. Right. Well, they're still 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:05.039 there's still always room to find Cupid creepy for sure. 0:05:05.320 --> 0:05:07.200 All right, Well who is Cupid? Where do you come from? 0:05:07.240 --> 0:05:10.359 In the pantheon and the mythology? Okay, so Cupid is 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.040 the Roman variant of the Greek god Arrows, the prime 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:17.440 evil god of love, a son of chaos, though in 0:05:17.520 --> 0:05:21.359 later traditions he has depicted as a son of Aphrodite, 0:05:21.880 --> 0:05:25.599 who is the Roman Venus, whose goddess of sexual love 0:05:25.720 --> 0:05:29.120 and beauty. And as far as the father goes, it's 0:05:29.120 --> 0:05:33.039 all across the board. They're very different tellings. Sometimes it's Zeus, 0:05:33.120 --> 0:05:36.800 sometimes it's it's Aries. There's at least one version where 0:05:36.839 --> 0:05:39.919 it's It's It seems like it's Vulcan, the god of 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:43.679 the forage. But in but then a lot of stories 0:05:43.680 --> 0:05:46.760 have it have hermes as the father, who of course 0:05:46.920 --> 0:05:50.640 is the Roman Mercury. So it's a real Mari show. Yes, yeah, 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:52.720 you can very much imagine that there being a lot 0:05:52.760 --> 0:05:55.480 of drama around this. But he's a god of passion 0:05:56.080 --> 0:05:59.720 and love but also a fertility to a certain extent. 0:05:59.760 --> 0:06:03.200 As now, in Roman traditions, Cupid is largely described as 0:06:03.200 --> 0:06:06.720 a son of Venus and Mercury, combining their roles into 0:06:06.760 --> 0:06:10.279 that of a divine messenger of love. Okay, so Mercury 0:06:10.360 --> 0:06:13.280 is the messenger, Aphrodite is love. So he brings you 0:06:13.400 --> 0:06:17.799 the love signals, the he's he's the radar love god. Yeah, 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:19.920 don't you So you can't really hate the messenger, right, 0:06:20.480 --> 0:06:22.760 I guess that's part of the story here as well. 0:06:23.040 --> 0:06:25.720 Now he's often depicted as this kind of cherubic creature 0:06:25.760 --> 0:06:27.920 like we describe, but also sometimes is more of a 0:06:28.440 --> 0:06:31.960 you know, in an androgynous, youthful figure, sometimes clad in 0:06:32.120 --> 0:06:37.159 armor because I guess love is also a battlefield and 0:06:37.240 --> 0:06:41.080 he's sometimes a mischief maker other times a generous patron 0:06:41.120 --> 0:06:44.840 of love. His targets include both mortals and other gods. 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:48.920 And uh as always, the versions of the myth very 0:06:49.000 --> 0:06:52.000 with the teller and the time. But we certainly want 0:06:52.040 --> 0:06:55.479 to to tell the major Cupid story. Well, tell me 0:06:55.520 --> 0:06:58.760 the story, Robert, all right. So his mother again is Venus, 0:06:58.760 --> 0:07:03.559 and Venus has is subject to bouts of jealousy pretty 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:06.880 much like all of them, the major gods and the pantheon, right, 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.880 and so she one day she has had enough of 0:07:09.960 --> 0:07:12.920 this beautiful mortal by the name of Psyche. She's just 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:16.920 too too lovely. She's so lovely that other mortals are 0:07:16.960 --> 0:07:20.880 afraid to approach her. And in Venus isn't having it. 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.320 She tasks her son Cupid, and says, go to this woman, 0:07:25.560 --> 0:07:27.920 shoot her with a golden arrow of love, and then 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:30.520 make her fall in love with the first thing she sees, 0:07:30.960 --> 0:07:32.960 because that's the power of the arrow in this in 0:07:33.000 --> 0:07:36.160 this interpretation of it. And she adds, make sure that 0:07:36.200 --> 0:07:40.119 the next thing she sees is the most hideous creature imaginable. 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:43.280 I don't care what it is, usual imagination. She falls 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:48.200 in love with the font Papyrus. That would have been good, um, 0:07:48.240 --> 0:07:51.720 so Cupid. Cupid goes down to Earth to do this, 0:07:51.800 --> 0:07:55.000 but he can't quite bring himself to finish the task, 0:07:55.280 --> 0:07:58.360 though he was certainly okay with the plan enough to 0:07:58.400 --> 0:08:01.120 trick her parents into a band, dinning her on a 0:08:01.200 --> 0:08:04.040 desolate hilltop so that she could wed a monster, but 0:08:04.520 --> 0:08:08.000 as far as actually yeah, because she's taken. The Psyche 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:10.560 has taken to this hill and here you go. Sorry, 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:13.120 the gods wants you to marry a monster. It's gonna happen. 0:08:13.160 --> 0:08:15.040 See you later, because you know you do what do 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:18.560 what the gods say, or suffer. But then he can't 0:08:18.600 --> 0:08:20.720 actually shoot her with the arrow, so instead he pricks 0:08:20.800 --> 0:08:23.960 himself with the golden arrow and then gazes upon Psyche, 0:08:24.240 --> 0:08:27.560 falls in love with her, and so he takes her away, 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:30.520 sets her up in a protected place like a palace, 0:08:30.560 --> 0:08:34.800 somewhere where he can visit her safely, but only in darkness. 0:08:35.240 --> 0:08:37.480 And then but then one night she cast light upon 0:08:37.600 --> 0:08:40.760 him and she learns his identity, spilling wax on him 0:08:40.760 --> 0:08:45.400 in the process, and he flees. So Psyche is distraught. 0:08:45.480 --> 0:08:48.160 She's she's in love with this this god, this beautiful 0:08:48.920 --> 0:08:52.440 young god boy, so she searches for him, and finally 0:08:52.600 --> 0:08:55.240 Venus agrees to hand him over, but only if she 0:08:55.280 --> 0:08:58.760 completes a series of trials. Oh yeah, never a good 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.120 sign in a myth, right, you get the feeling that 0:09:01.120 --> 0:09:03.720 a lot of these trials might be tricks. Yes, and 0:09:03.800 --> 0:09:08.720 indeed they are. Uh. The the exact trials can vary 0:09:08.760 --> 0:09:12.320 with the telling, but uh, this is the basic roll 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.880 out here. First of all, she has to sort a 0:09:14.880 --> 0:09:18.840 massive pile of seeds in a single night, and uh, 0:09:18.960 --> 0:09:21.680 fortunately some ants help her. Oh that's a great variation 0:09:21.720 --> 0:09:24.000 on all the tweety birds and scugs in the snow 0:09:24.000 --> 0:09:26.640 White story. You know they'll come in and help with 0:09:26.679 --> 0:09:29.840 the chores. Now it's ants, and who knows, maybe Spider's 0:09:29.840 --> 0:09:32.720 pitch in a bit. Well. The next task is that 0:09:32.760 --> 0:09:35.440 she has to fetch the golden wool from a like 0:09:35.480 --> 0:09:39.360 a monstrous sheep, like a kind of sheep that disembowels 0:09:39.400 --> 0:09:42.120 anyone who gets near it, and a swarm of cockroaches 0:09:42.160 --> 0:09:45.440 assist her. No, actually, a river god helps her out 0:09:45.840 --> 0:09:48.199 um and helps her acquire the wolf. So she turns 0:09:48.280 --> 0:09:50.440 that in. But then she has to venture into the 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.760 underworld and acquire a drop of the Queen of the 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:58.319 Underworld's beauty. Oh yeah, so uh cupid, it seems ends 0:09:58.400 --> 0:10:00.520 up sort of cluing her in sends her some signals 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:03.560 because going to the underworld isn't easy, right, yeah, it's 0:10:03.640 --> 0:10:07.760 it's a dangerous proposition. So Cupid clues her in you know, 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:11.000 secret messages, letting her know, make sure you bring coins 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:16.680 for torone and treats for service, important things to bring along. 0:10:17.640 --> 0:10:20.040 So she does this. She wins that drop, brings it 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.920 back in a golden box, and brings it to the surface. 0:10:23.120 --> 0:10:25.320 She's on her way to deliver it to Venus, but 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:27.480 then she decides, well, I'm gonna steal a little bit 0:10:27.559 --> 0:10:30.600 of that beauty from the box for myself, and then 0:10:30.640 --> 0:10:34.120 she discovers the boxes full of sleep. Sleep comes over her, 0:10:34.360 --> 0:10:37.040 Cupid comes to her way and wakes her up, gives 0:10:37.040 --> 0:10:38.840 her the nectar of the gods and makes her a 0:10:38.840 --> 0:10:41.440 god as well the embodiment of the soul, and she 0:10:41.559 --> 0:10:44.480 later gives birth to Pleasure. That's a heck of a story. 0:10:44.760 --> 0:10:47.240 Oh yeah, there are various treatments of the story. The 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:49.720 various you know, additional stories such as Beauty and the 0:10:49.760 --> 0:10:53.360 Beast take this basic structure and then uh, you know, 0:10:53.400 --> 0:10:56.600 employ it in a slightly different manner. But yeah, that's 0:10:56.640 --> 0:11:00.719 the major Cupid narrative. But there's also a fun one 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:04.520 that employs his arrows in an interesting way in which 0:11:04.520 --> 0:11:06.439 both of them this time, both of them as he 0:11:06.520 --> 0:11:10.880 messes with the god Apollo. So Apollo is a powerful 0:11:10.920 --> 0:11:14.760 god and he's he's he's lusting after the nymph Daphne. 0:11:15.360 --> 0:11:17.920 And while he's in the midst of this, he taunts 0:11:18.000 --> 0:11:21.080 Cupid's archery ability. He says, you're not much of an archer, 0:11:21.120 --> 0:11:23.720 are you, And so it's always good to taunt people 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:28.320 holding ranged weapons. Well, again, the gods are vain and 0:11:28.559 --> 0:11:30.760 you know, kind of and it's in vengeful and but 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:34.679 also kind of stupid at times. So what Cupid does 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:37.520 is he shoots Apollo with a golden arrow that makes him, 0:11:37.520 --> 0:11:40.760 of course, you know, lust like crazy after Daphney. But 0:11:40.800 --> 0:11:44.120 then he shoots Daphne with a leaden arrow, ensuring that 0:11:44.160 --> 0:11:46.600 she wants nothing to do with exactly. In fact, she 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:49.120 runs away to her father, who also happens to be 0:11:49.120 --> 0:11:52.080 a river god, and has him turned her into a 0:11:52.160 --> 0:11:56.080 tree so that Apollo will leave her alone. And then 0:11:56.160 --> 0:11:59.440 Cupid you know, goes off and laughs about the whole affair. Now, wait, 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:01.720 after the us, is Apollo still in love with the 0:12:01.760 --> 0:12:05.000 tree or not? It really depends on the user agreement 0:12:05.080 --> 0:12:08.240 with you on the golden arrow? How does the gold 0:12:08.320 --> 0:12:11.000 narrow magic work? Can you transform the essence of the 0:12:11.000 --> 0:12:13.960 target of the affection? And does that? Can'tcel the spell? 0:12:14.480 --> 0:12:15.800 Or do you have to roll a D twenty to 0:12:15.840 --> 0:12:18.040 find out? I don't know. And then we are the 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:20.800 effects on God's Is that a little different than an 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:25.280 effect on immortal Who can say? Now you might think, okay, 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.240 Cupid sounds like he makes some enemies here and there. 0:12:28.240 --> 0:12:31.839 Who's his greatest rival? Is there like a safety god 0:12:31.880 --> 0:12:35.600 who's always trying to take his arrows away? No? No, no, 0:12:35.840 --> 0:12:39.800 it's none other than the great God Pan. What one 0:12:39.840 --> 0:12:42.200 of our favorites. Yeah, In one corner we have the 0:12:42.360 --> 0:12:46.920 flighty arrow shooting Cherubic, son of of of Venus, U, 0:12:47.080 --> 0:12:49.079 the Lord of Love. And in the other corner we 0:12:49.120 --> 0:12:53.200 have the wild rutting he goat, king of fornication, Uh, 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:56.960 surrounded by nymphs prancing through the forest. And so it's 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:02.240 divine love versus earthly love, and spoiler alert, Cupid often 0:13:02.240 --> 0:13:04.120 comes out on top. In fact, there are some there 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:09.040 are paintings that depict Cupid kind of wrestling Pan to 0:13:09.080 --> 0:13:11.160 the ground. Could you also say that this is like 0:13:11.280 --> 0:13:14.520 city love versus country love. I guess you could. Yeah, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.400 like Pan was sort of envisioned as the representative of 0:13:18.440 --> 0:13:20.880 the I don't know, the the amorous affairs of like 0:13:21.000 --> 0:13:23.720 shepherds and country people. Yeah, it is kind of country 0:13:23.720 --> 0:13:28.280 love versus you know, the divine love of Mount Olympus. Here. 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:31.400 On the other hand, when you look up artistic interpretations 0:13:31.440 --> 0:13:35.320 of Pan, he is often wrestling or doing something like wrestling, 0:13:35.720 --> 0:13:39.120 so it's it's hard to say he's definitely on the 0:13:39.160 --> 0:13:43.720 losing end of the scenario here. The Pan's a rascal. Yea. Now, 0:13:43.800 --> 0:13:46.840 in terms of other treatments of of Cupid, you know, 0:13:47.080 --> 0:13:50.360 we're not going to go through, you know, all the 0:13:50.360 --> 0:13:53.440 the echoes in popular culture. I did notice just the 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:57.520 most dignified one. Yes, I did notice that there is 0:13:57.640 --> 0:14:01.439 a There is a Cupid in at DC comics that's 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:04.720 kind of a feisty redhead and it's a it's a female. 0:14:05.280 --> 0:14:08.240 It's like a cohort of the green arrow. Is she 0:14:08.360 --> 0:14:10.599 a got us or just a human named Cupid? I 0:14:10.640 --> 0:14:12.680 think she's just a human who shoots arrows at people. 0:14:13.320 --> 0:14:15.600 It's not a thor situation. I don't think so. If 0:14:15.720 --> 0:14:18.240 any comic book fans out there that want to, um, 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:21.800 you know, clue us in on this. We'd love to 0:14:21.800 --> 0:14:23.560 hear more. But I think she just shoots arrows at 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:26.520 people and tries to kill them, you know. Independent of 0:14:26.560 --> 0:14:30.160 you coming up with this lead, Robert, I immediately was googling, like, 0:14:30.280 --> 0:14:35.080 cupid horror movie? Is there one? I came across something, 0:14:35.080 --> 0:14:37.320 only to discover that you'd already given it a little 0:14:37.400 --> 0:14:41.360 right up here. Yes, two thousand and one slasher film 0:14:41.680 --> 0:14:47.280 titled Valentine. Now have you seen this before? No? I 0:14:47.320 --> 0:14:50.480 looked up a couple of scenes on YouTube. One actually 0:14:50.480 --> 0:14:52.720 had kind of a cool set with like somebody's like 0:14:52.760 --> 0:14:55.880 walking through a maze made out of TV screens or 0:14:55.920 --> 0:14:59.280 something that. Yeah, I kind of like that, but otherwise 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:02.600 it looks so stupid. And it has the ultimate like 0:15:02.960 --> 0:15:06.280 two thousand one smart Face cast where it's got David 0:15:06.320 --> 0:15:10.720 Boreanaz and Denise Richards. It's like the cast of Starship Troopers. 0:15:11.800 --> 0:15:14.320 It also has a has a two thousand and one 0:15:14.440 --> 0:15:17.320 alternative rock album, like the most two thousand and one 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:22.160 alternative rock album, Imaginable. Yeah that the soundtrack is, um, 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:25.640 does it have what down with the sickness? It doesn't 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:29.360 have that particular track, but Disturbed is present and h 0:15:29.480 --> 0:15:32.400 and yeah, you can pretty much extrapolate from there what 0:15:32.440 --> 0:15:35.000 else is on the soundtrack. But it does have this 0:15:35.200 --> 0:15:38.600 killer stalking around, this slasher character with a Cupid mask, 0:15:38.680 --> 0:15:40.920 and there is one scene at least where he kills 0:15:40.920 --> 0:15:43.800 somebody with arrows, and that's the sequence you're you're talking 0:15:43.840 --> 0:15:47.440 about with all the TVs. So yeah, as far as 0:15:47.480 --> 0:15:51.320 slasher films we're seeing, it's been too long since I've 0:15:51.360 --> 0:15:53.600 seen it to really give it a firm recommendation. But 0:15:53.680 --> 0:15:56.200 as far as slasher films worth looking up the kills 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:58.920 on YouTube, I give it a give it a thumbs up. 0:16:00.360 --> 0:16:04.080 But in this movie, if unless I'm mistaken, no gold 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.880 arrows and lead blunt arrows right right, I think he 0:16:06.960 --> 0:16:09.920 just has normal killing arrows because he's ultimately not an 0:16:09.920 --> 0:16:12.520 actual god. That would have been a fun twist. Though. 0:16:12.680 --> 0:16:16.160 They don't get deep into the resonances of the mythology, no, 0:16:16.600 --> 0:16:18.640 because if there's a lot there you could really go 0:16:18.640 --> 0:16:20.720 go nuts with. For instance, the fact that Cupid is 0:16:20.720 --> 0:16:23.640 often depicted riding around on dolphins or even sometimes just 0:16:23.720 --> 0:16:28.120 on sea monsters. That's odd. Yeah, and uh, you know, 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:30.520 you know we mentioned Beauty and the Beast already, but 0:16:30.800 --> 0:16:33.360 I should throw out there even though I haven't read it, 0:16:33.400 --> 0:16:35.040 and I don't know why I haven't read it, because 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:36.960 I read a whole lot of C. S. Lewis at 0:16:37.000 --> 0:16:40.239 one point in my life. But C. S. Lewis retells 0:16:40.280 --> 0:16:43.880 the story of of Cupid and Psyche in the nine 0:16:44.480 --> 0:16:47.680 novel Till We Have Faces. I've never read that either, 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:50.160 but that sounds maybe worth check now. So again, we 0:16:50.200 --> 0:16:52.280 could keep going on Cupid, we could keep talking about 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:57.720 various mythological treatments, different versions of the stories. Um. But basically, 0:16:57.720 --> 0:16:59.760 what we want to drive home here is that, first 0:16:59.840 --> 0:17:02.960 of all, he has these two arrows. He has the 0:17:03.520 --> 0:17:05.440 leaden arrow and the golden arrow, and these are the 0:17:05.480 --> 0:17:08.200 powers associated. And we also just want to drive home 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:12.520 that he's he is more than just this ridiculous cartoon baby. 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.320 Now he's an epic creep cartoon baby who wrestles goat 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:20.000 men and rides on seam monsters. Indeed, he is so 0:17:20.359 --> 0:17:22.040 On that note, we're going to take a quick break 0:17:22.080 --> 0:17:24.879 and when we come back, we are going to discuss 0:17:25.160 --> 0:17:27.960 the leaden Arrow of Cupid. We're going to get into 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.480 what ancient people knew of lead, how they used lead, 0:17:31.560 --> 0:17:33.960 what they thought about its properties, And then of course 0:17:34.000 --> 0:17:36.240 we'll well, we'll we'll dive a little bit into the 0:17:36.240 --> 0:17:40.760 periodic table and discuss exactly what lad is. Thank thank you, 0:17:41.760 --> 0:17:44.960 all right, we're back. So, Robert, we have already told 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.800 the story of Cupid as especially as described in Ovid's Metamorphoses. Uh, 0:17:49.840 --> 0:17:52.200 And in the story of these two different arrows, he's 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:55.680 got the gold arrow, which imparts love, makes people fancy 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.320 one another, and the lead arrow, which is blunt and 0:17:58.359 --> 0:18:00.760 maybe seems to cause a version, at least in some 0:18:00.920 --> 0:18:03.000 tellings of the story. Right, Like if if you were 0:18:03.080 --> 0:18:06.159 hit with the lead arrow and somebody passed you a 0:18:06.200 --> 0:18:08.679 note in in in high school and said will you 0:18:08.720 --> 0:18:11.240 go out with me? Yes and no, you would add 0:18:11.240 --> 0:18:14.000 a third box that said I would rather my father 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:16.720 turned me into a tree. Yeah, your head would just explode, 0:18:16.720 --> 0:18:20.359 like in Scanners. Yes, Well, other than the general association 0:18:20.440 --> 0:18:23.560 of gold being thought of as good, is there anything 0:18:23.840 --> 0:18:27.880 any reason we can think of why these particular metals 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.879 are picked to have the magical significance they do in 0:18:30.880 --> 0:18:33.240 the arrows in the myth? Well, yeah, exactly what we 0:18:33.400 --> 0:18:36.760 with gold? Obviously, gold is beautiful and humans have thought 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.480 it's beautiful for ages, and we've been perfectly happy to 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.600 squabble over it and kill each other over it. So 0:18:41.640 --> 0:18:46.400 it seems the perfect substance to sum up the appeal 0:18:46.520 --> 0:18:49.679 and then sometimes the dangers of love. Plus knowing what 0:18:49.720 --> 0:18:51.959 we know now, this was an element that was likely 0:18:52.000 --> 0:18:55.600 produced in the collisions of of neutron stars long before 0:18:55.640 --> 0:18:59.160 the formation of the Earth, which is amazing to consider. 0:18:59.240 --> 0:19:01.359 By the way, I mean us to contemplate this for 0:19:01.400 --> 0:19:03.840 a moment. Uh, you know, it was once thought that 0:19:04.000 --> 0:19:07.399 most of the universe's heavy elements, like elements heavier than iron, 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:11.040 were created in supernovas, which is when a massive star 0:19:11.440 --> 0:19:13.959 at the end of its life cycle collapses on itself 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.800 and then explodes, and supernovas can create some heavy elements. 0:19:17.840 --> 0:19:20.159 But some scientists have argued for a while that there 0:19:20.160 --> 0:19:23.600 are too many heavy elements that the proportion of them 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:26.159 that we find in the universe is too high to 0:19:26.240 --> 0:19:30.600 be accounted for by what's possible from supernovas alone. So 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.200 in recent years there have been some cool experiments that 0:19:33.240 --> 0:19:36.520 have shown that the collision of neutron stars, like you say, 0:19:36.600 --> 0:19:39.400 could be the alternative. For example, I was looking at 0:19:39.400 --> 0:19:42.840 there was a study published in and the Astrophysical Journal 0:19:42.880 --> 0:19:46.080 by Coat at All that looked at data from a 0:19:46.200 --> 0:19:50.679 neutron star merger and I love that's the technology they use, 0:19:51.040 --> 0:19:54.440 like two companies like mergers and acquisitions. What they should 0:19:54.480 --> 0:19:57.040 have used the language of love, because we are creating 0:19:57.040 --> 0:19:59.800 a substance that will one day be used by the 0:20:00.040 --> 0:20:02.480 out of love, right it is it should be neutron 0:20:02.600 --> 0:20:09.239 star copulation, yes, neutron starter course, but anyway, that this 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:12.119 collision was between eighty five and a hundred and sixty 0:20:12.119 --> 0:20:15.440 million light years away, and the researchers calculated that this 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:19.600 one event, these two neutron stars colliding, produced between one 0:20:19.640 --> 0:20:23.960 and five earth masses of an element called europium and 0:20:24.040 --> 0:20:29.040 between three and thirteen earth masses of gold earth masses 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:32.800 of gold. So just think about a solid gold Earth 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.040 and then between three and thirteen of them, and then 0:20:36.040 --> 0:20:38.840 it just like spits a bunch of this out into 0:20:38.840 --> 0:20:41.639 the universe to get bound up with other gases and 0:20:41.680 --> 0:20:44.440 stuff like that and eventually end up in maybe say 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:47.320 a planetary accretion disk, where it becomes part of the 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:49.879 crust of an Earth. So if you're wearing like a 0:20:49.960 --> 0:20:52.520 gold ring or any other piece of gold right now, 0:20:52.640 --> 0:20:55.439 or if you're maybe maybe say using an electronic device 0:20:55.480 --> 0:20:57.320 that has a bit of gold in it, just think 0:20:57.359 --> 0:21:00.560 about how that element was forged either in the guts 0:21:00.600 --> 0:21:04.800 of a dying star as it exploded, or was probably 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:08.520 more likely created in the chaos of rapid neutron capture 0:21:08.920 --> 0:21:12.160 when two of the densest objects in the universe, two 0:21:12.240 --> 0:21:17.280 neutron stars, smashed together billions of years ago. And of course, 0:21:17.680 --> 0:21:19.639 I guess the even crazier thing is that that doesn't 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:23.000 stop at gold, right, Like our amazement at the elements 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:26.240 shouldn't stop there, because all the heavy elements had to 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:28.320 be formed at some point. In fact, all the elements 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.080 of any kind had to be formed at some point. 0:21:30.320 --> 0:21:32.920 A few of the lightest ones are primordial, you know, 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.520 you find hydrogen and helium and lithium out in the 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:38.440 original universe. Uh, And then a few more I think 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:41.240 are formed by like a cosmic rays and stuff. But 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:44.479 beyond that, pretty much everything that you could see and 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:46.840 touch and that your body is made of was in 0:21:46.880 --> 0:21:50.919 some way forged inside a dying star. Uh. You know, 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:53.720 you've got this dying star forge that has slow neutron 0:21:53.760 --> 0:21:56.720 capture going on inside it. Or it was a supernova 0:21:56.800 --> 0:22:00.879 explosion or the collision of neutron stars or or something 0:22:00.960 --> 0:22:02.840 like that. Yeah, these are the very kind of forges 0:22:02.920 --> 0:22:06.840