As it happens I was caught by surprise this Valentine’s day. “What? It’s not on a Tuesday?” Lucky for me we celebrate in tender ways most everyday so we’ll just call our ordinariness by a special name this evening.

There are those who say it was Chaucer who started it all, mentioning in his Parlement of Foules,

For this was on seynt Volantynys day
Whan euery bryd comyth there to chese his make.

And nature besot was he – here in a prose translation of the verses in the vicinity.

“When I had returned to the sweet and green garden that I spoke of, I walked forth to comfort myself. Then I noticed how there sat a queen who was exceeding in fairness over every other creature, as the brilliant summer sun passes the stars in brightness. This noble goddess Nature was set upon a flowery hill in a verdant glade. All her halls and bowers were wrought of branches according to the art and measure of Nature. 305

And there was not any bird that is created through procreation that was not ready in her presence to hear her and receive her judgment. For this was Saint Valentine’s day, when every bird of every kind that men can imagine comes to this place to choose his mate. And they made an exceedingly great noise; and earth and sea and the trees and all the lakes were so full that there was scarcely room for me to stand, so full was the entire place.”

eChaucer – the Parliament of Fowls

Others say nonsense, of course. There were many St. Valentines, and the one of February is unlikely to be the one celebrated in Chaucer’s spring — unless of course the climate’s changed.

Poor Ophelia rued the day:

To-morrow is Saint Valentine’s day,
All in the morning betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your Valentine.
Then up he rose, and donn’d his clothes,
And dupp’d the chamber-door;
Let in the maid, that out a maid
Never departed more.
[Hamlet, IV, 5]

The big notice of it came as American marketing chops were in their first full flourishing just before the Civil War and cards began to show on stationer’s shelves — now estimated to be more than one billion every year…

You can make up your own mind, but it’s a good thing to celebrate love and kindness once in a while, with such a din of their opposites filling our ears most other days.

Here’s a very sweet tune by a singer. Jill Sobule, previously unknown to me. Steel guitars always tug my heart so I am easily weeping as she nears the end.

If I was your sweetheart and you were my darling

And then we’d vanish too