The Valentine I Never Knew

No, I didn’t learn the truth at seventeen, but ten years later, when I found three long-stemmed red roses on my table one Valentine’s Day.  There was no sender’s name. A few tables away were similar bunches for two officemates, two of my three close friends.

At lunch with the group, we got to talk about our roses.  One confessed and said that they were all actually from her.  She came very early and found a huge bouquet on her table.  Then why did you destroy the floral arrangement? We asked. I don’t like the giver, she answered. He had his hair curled in a beauty salon and that mole on his left cheek is artificial because it wasn’t there before.

Who can blame her taste? At least the three of us got something on that day and chose to keep quiet about its source. It turned out that the ribbing from the rest of our officemates was equally distributed along with my friend’s sharing of her roses. Like D’Artagnan and the three musketeers, one-for-all we four shared the expected question, ‘How much did you pay for that to send to yourself?’ Four gives, I answered one, and worth my daily snacks for a month which I won’t be having henceforth.

Valentines do matter, unwanted swains, lovelorn lasses and artificial moles notwithstanding. The occasion is here to stay as an appealing part of world culture. Yet by all appearances, the Valentine’s Day that we know today was borne out of an execution, a war, a feverish festival, and a Church that introduced a religious element to a pagan practice.

The name Valentine, of course, is from a third century Roman saint. It is the Anglicized version of Valentinus (Latin) and Valentini (Italian).  There were three Valentines, in fact, and while legend casts its shadow on their lives, they are at least historically based.

There was a priest and physician who was martyred by Emperor Claudius II Gothicus (Marcus Aurelius Valerius Claudius, AD 214-270) during Rome’s persecution of Christians. The martyr was buried on the Via Flaminia, where a basilica was later built over his grave by Pope Julius I (AD 337-352). The other was a bishop of Terni, Italy, also martyred during the time. It is said that these two accounts could be about one and the same martyr.

The third Valentine was also a Roman but was born some five centuries later.  Well-loved and known to be kind and pious, he was elected pope but died soon after, taking the helm of the pontificate only from August to September, 827.

On the other hand, as early as the 4th century BC, the Romans observed its annual Lupercalia, a festival meant to ensure fertility for people, field and flock.  It was meant to honor the ancient Roman rural god, Faunus, though some accounts believe it was celebrated in honor of Juno, the queen of Roman gods and goddesses and goddess of women and marriage.

One may have an idea of how the ancient festival, held in the middle of February, was observed if one has to base his judgment solely on the word lupanar, which means brothel, based on the Latin word lupa, or prostitute.  Obviously Lupercalia, lupanar and lupa share the same root word in Latin.

One of the festival’s customs was a lottery of names of young girls.  Young men who draw their names became their festival partners. It was a partnership that sometimes worked beyond the festival, all throughout the year, sometimes all the way to a marriage.

By the third century AD, when the glory that was Rome was on the decline and the empire became too large to be defended on all flanks, Emperor Claudius II took the throne. He outlawed marriage for young men, his potential soldiers, believing that married men make poor soldiers because of their emotional attachments.

This was when the priest and physician Valentinus challenged the emperor’s edict by administering marriages in secret despite the ban.  Caught in his defiance, he was jailed, ordered to renounce his Christian God which he did not, and was beheaded on February 14, 270.

As to what embellishments were added to the saint’s story and when they began there are no known records. It is more legend than fact though that one of his frequent visitors when he was jailed, if ever visitors were then possible, was his jailor’s daughter whom he had cured of blindness.  Before his execution, he was said to have written her a note signed ‘from your Valentine.’  A suspension of disbelief may be in order here, but this by far is the best excuse for an origin of today’s Valentine notes.

Later, when the Christian Church became stronger it deemed that the festival of Lupercalia had to have religious underpinnings.  Like Christmas and New Year, Lupercalia was another pagan celebration that the Church had transformed. The date of St. Valentine’s martyrdom was convenient; it was the day of preparation for Lupercalia which was observed on February 15. Finally, the festival had a spiritual overseer who was martyred for his faith and sympathies for lovers who’d rather marry than go to war for an empire.  Thus was Lupercalia altered into St. Valentine’s Day.

Christianity spread, and so did Valentine’s Day. Its being a day for lovers as we know it now is said to have begun only in the 14th century, when young men and women in Europe drew names from a bowl for their valentines and wore the names on their sleeves for a week. This was the basis for the idiom ‘wear your heart on your sleeve,’ which is to show one’s feelings.

The practice of sending greeting cards and gift giving began only in the 19th century. Its commercialization may have relegated the saint to history, but the reason for the day’s observance was never diminished, which is why I still like roses like the ones distributed by my lady officemate.

(2005)