In “The Book of Ruth” there are two types of love shown the love that Ruth shows to her mother-in-law Naomi and the love that Boaz has for Ruth. In the very beginning of the story Naomi is telling her two daughter-in-laws to “Go, return to her mother’s house.” They all say their good-byes but Ruth, feeling as family to Naomi, wanted to stay with her on her trip back to Bethlehem. Ruth had begged Naomi “Intreat me not to leave thee” and she went on saying to Naomi wherever she goes Ruth will follow and where Naomi dies she will die with her. Ruth feeling so much loyalty towards Naomi felt it was her duty to stay with her mother-in-law out of love for her. This love and loyalty shown towards Naomi influences Naomi to change her mind and to let Ruth go with her on her voyage to her village. The second example of love shown in this story is between Ruth and Boaz. Boaz is kind and nice to Ruth and lets her “glean and gather after the reapers among the sheaves’” and tells her not to go to other people’s fields but to only gather form his field. Some would think that he would not allow her to gather from his field because she was from Moab and was a stranger to their village. He very kindly said that it was basically his pleasure to let her glean with out any questions or statements from his working men. He is in love with her that much that he will sacrifice everything he’s earned and worked for to be with her and he bought everything owned by Emilelech’s and everything that was Mahlon’s and Chilion’s so that he could marry Ruth. He also loved her so much that he wanted “thy house be like the house of Pharez, whom Tamar bare unto Judah,” which basically says that he wants to bare a child with Ruth. This story showed the theme of love in loyalty, kindness and sacrifice.
The next example of the theme of love comes from the poem “Your Love, Dear Man, Is as Lovely to Me.” The love expressed in this poem is the love for another significant other. The author uses similes to show how great the love is between the two people. “As fragrance of incense to one coming home hot from the smells of the street,” shows that the love is as great as coming home to the best smell ever from the hot bad smelling fumes of the street. Its also saying that the days they spend together are unhurried between them as they “walk in peace to the edge of old age,” with the love that they know is there without having to proclaim it. It also shows that they are meant to be together and that they want to be together forever and the woman feels so strongly about him that he is her “lord.” The love shown in this poem is the everlasting love of a couple either married or not and how they believe they want to be together forever.
The last example of love comes from “The Epic of Gilgamesh: Prologue” is a love not towards a person or thing but a love for creation. In the story Gilgamesh had “brought us a tale of the days before the flood.” He knew exactly what wads going to happen he saw mysteries and he knew secrets. He “went on a long journey, was weary, worn out with labor, returning he rested, he engraved on a stone the whole story” knowing he would be tired and worn out he went on with his love to create life. His love for creation after the flood was great when he knew it would be lot of work.
In these three different works of literature there were many different types of love. All have a great passion for what they are so caring about but each has love towards a different thing. Although love is a very broad term many of the most common types of love are found in many pieces of literature. These three were just a sample of how love towards something shows up in many writing pieces.