the latin poet wrote ‘amor vincit omnia’ or ‘love conquers all.’ he did not write, ‘love frees all’ or ‘liberates’ all, and therein lies the first degree of our flagrant misunderstanding. conquer: to defeat, subjugate, massacre, cream, make mincemeat out of. surely, this cannot be a positive thing. and then he wrote ‘conquers all’ - not exclusively the unpleasant things, destitution, assassination, burglary, but all, including pleasure, peace, common sense, liberty and self-determination. and then we may appreciate that virgil’s words are not encouragement, but rather a caveat, a cue to evade, shirk, elude the feeling at all costs, else we risk the massacre of the things we hold most dear, including our sense of self.