Motif family
Beauty Paired with Pain and Paradox
The aesthetic and spiritual insight that beauty and suffering, sweetness and danger, are inseparable. The rose and the thorn. The wisdom that comes through wounding.
12 traditions
37 occurrences
35 mapped motifs
7 sub-families
- buddhist
- celtic irish
- christian apocrypha
- filipino
- germanic
- greek
- greek roman
- islamic
- norse
- persian
- roman
- sufi
Conserved neighbors: sacred love · mystical quest · sacred knowledge
Sub-families · the next landing down
Overwhelming Beauty Causing Bodily and Self-Wounding
3 motifs
- beauty causing involuntary self-wounding 2 occurrences · 1 traditions
- islamic
- Overwhelming beauty causing bodily wounding 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- islamic
- Overwhelming beauty causing self-wounding witnesses 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- islamic
Beloved and Erotic Love as Wound, Joy, and Grief
5 motifs
- Beloved as wounder and healer 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- Beloved foreshadowed as source of joy and grief 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- germanic
- beloved wounds the hero during a quarrel 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- celtic irish
- Erotic pain as divine shafts and inner fire 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- love as wound and grief 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- persian
Sweetness Contaminated into Moral Corruption
2 motifs
- corruption through sweet pleasure 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- Moral corruption as bitter contamination of sweetness 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- christian apocrypha
Floral Images of Wounding, Endurance, and Loss
4 motifs
- flower as model of endurance through loss 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- sensual garden shadowed by mortality 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- persian
- withered rose as image of lost beauty 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- wounds figured as flowers 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
Destruction, Death, and the Loss of Beauty
4 motifs
- maker creates and destroys a beautiful vessel 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- outward beauty as cause of destruction 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- Untimely death of a beautiful youth 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- youth as a vanished bird 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
Ideal Beauty and Its Comparative Standard
2 motifs
- faultless beauty defying criticism 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek roman
- ideal beauty as comparative standard 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- celtic irish
Not yet placed in a sub-family
11 motifs
- Love as wound and consuming fire 2 occurrences · 1 traditions
- roman
- Beauty accompanied by foreseen harm 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- norse
- Beauty and erotic charm contrasted with martial courage 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- Desire represented through dangerous and painful images 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- buddhist
- divine madness through beauty 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- exchange of outward beauty for true beauty 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- Exposure of beauty invites danger 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
- Extraordinary beauty changes light, water, and surroundings 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- filipino
- perishable beauty contrasted with enduring bloom 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- Vision of higher beauty producing reverent restraint 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- greek
- wounds as flowers 1 occurrences · 1 traditions
- sufi
Each motif link opens its evidence page: every tagged passage with its quote, and a path into the book where the passage lives.