Florentino Ariza’s declaration of love to Fermina Daza in Love in the time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. She is the woman he has loved passionately for more than two score years. He would do anything to be with her. For her he has remained celibate. When her husband dies his passion is revived with more vigour. His pursuit of his beloved is about to be consummated. She reciprocates at last in this old age of hers. They are alone on a steamer owned by Florentino Ariza. Love blooms in a myriad ways. Unfortunately or fortunately their ship is quarantined from the near by ports due to the spread of cholera. When the captain asks how long they would go on roaming the seas without entry Florentino Ariza answers magically “Forever”.
Wordsworth’s lyrical tribute to his spiritual mate is stirring and unmatched.
“A slumber did my spirit seal
I had no human fears
She seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly years
No motion, no force has she now
She neither hears, nor sees
Roll’d round in the earth’s diurnal course
With the rocks, stones and trees.”
Romantic love apart Shakespeare has shown what it is to love a dear friend and share with him all your life’s poignancy and struggle. These are lines from the tragedy Hamlet which Matthew Arnold has hailed as touchstones and example of noble, transcendental poetry.
“ If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart
Absent thee from felicity awhile
And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain
To tell my story”