Moyers:
Then what does love have to do with morality?
Campbell:
Violates it.
Moyers:
Violates it?
Campbell:
Yes. Insofar as love expresses itself,
it is not expressing itself in terms of the socially approved manners of
life. That’s why it is all so secret. Love has nothing to do with social
order. It is a higher spiritual
experience than that of socially organized marriage.
Moyers:
When we say God is love, does that have anything to do with romantic love? Does mythology ever link romantic love and
God?
Campbell:
That’s what it did do. Love was a divine
visitation, and that’s why it was superior to marriage. That was the troubadour idea. If God is love, well then, love is God. Meister Eckhart said, “Love knows no
pain.” And that’s exactly what Tristan
meant when he said, “I’m willing to accept the pains of hell for my love.”
Moyers:
But you’ve been saying that love involves suffering.
Campbell:
That is the other idea. Tristan was
experiencing love—Meister Eckhart was talking about it. The pain of love is not the other kind of
pain, it is the pain of life. Where your
pain is, there is your life, you might say.
Moyers:
There’s that passage in Corinthians where Paul says, “Love beareth all things, endureth all things.”
Campbell:
That’s the same thing…
Moyers:
So joy and pain are in love.
Campbell:
Yes. Love is the burning point of life,
and since all life is sorrowful, so is love.
The stronger the love, the more the pain.
Moyers:
But love bears all things.
Campbell:
Love itself is a pain, you might say—the pain of being truly alive.
