The Genesis of the Arrows of Love: Diachronic Conceptual Integration in Greek Mythology

When and how were the arrows of love created? Individual invention has been argued for by classicists; a connection to everyday metaphors has been suggested in cognitive linguistics. I propose new cognitive-theoretical tools: the Abstract Cause Personification blend and an EMISSION image-schema. I explain the emergence of Love the Archer in Antiquity through conceptual integration from earlier materials: Apollo the Archer personifying death, erotic emissions in lyric imagery, the link between passion and extreme illness, and possibly the arrows of glance. The embodied, human-scale story of causation that structures the arrows of love has been crucial for their success.