Like Epicurus and Lucretius, Violetta attempts to live her life free from emotional entanglements and in the pursuit of all pleasures. She is initially tempted by a young suitor, Alfredo Germont, who has come to admire her from afar and later declares his love for her. She claims she can only offer fleeting pleasure and a light-hearted friendship because she doesn't know how to truly love another human being. She pushes down the emotions welling up in her heart aside and claims:
“Free and aimless I frolic
From joy to joy,
Flowing along the surface of life's path as I please.
As the day is born,
Or as the day dies,
Happily I turn to the new delights
That make my spirit soar.” (La Traviata, Sempre Libera)
In the second act, we find out that
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His love for God is sexual in the way that Biblical language speaking of love is sexual. For example, Genesis states, “Adam lay with his wife Eve, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Cain.” (4:1). The Hebrew word for sex is yada. Yada means “to know, to be known, to be deeply respected”. The word is a mingling of emotional knowing and deep respect. This word is used 900 times in the Old Testament, but used more often in phrases like, “Be still and know [yada] that I am God. (Psalm 46:10) Yada isn't just about the physical act, it describes the act of knowing the whole person. It is the merging of the heart, mind and will. It portrays an uncovering and an embrace of the nakedness of another. Lucretius understood this too; he would be wary of this type of sexual love (sexual in the sense of union with the beloved) because he understood that certain experiences of love are very close to pain. He knew that not all sex is the same. This is also supported in the Old Testament where Lot and his daughters have fled their city of Sodom and Gomorrah. They are homeless, motherless, and face an even bigger problem - who will take care of them when their father dies in their male-dominated society where women are dependent on male relatives? The oldest daughter takes action into her own hand and gets her father drunk and goes in and “lays” with him (Genesis 19:33). In this case, the Hebrew word for “lay” is shakab which basically means to exchange bodily fluids. This is the type of sex that Lucretius and Epicurus describe. They understand sex is enjoyable, but they purely view it in this detached exchange. They reject the possibility of truly knowing someone in the most intimate way possible, because the lines between joy and pain are seen as too