To Be a Jedi: Part 2
For, as is always the case in tales of courtly love, things do not go smoothly for the two at all. They are always together and forever apart. Theirs is a romance of illicit glances and broken kisses - a love as forbidden as that of Lancelot and Guinevere, and one destined to be as tragic as Tristan and Isolde. Anakin must balance his duty as a Jedi just as Padme must her duty as a senator, while each share a bittersweet balance on the edge of desire.
In this Arthurian tradition, the love is a love of particulars. As Campbell notes in his essay, it does run in contrast to certain forms of Asian mysticism, by which the individual lovers serve as but vehicles for spiritual illumination. This is all about the individual lovers, and while their union may share elements of mystic rapture, it is only because of their specific union. Campbell remarks of the troubadours that "The beloved to them was a woman, not the manifestation of some divine principle; and specifically for that woman. The love was for her." There is no doubt that no other romantic prospect even exists in Anakin's peripheral vision. Ever since he spotted Padme for the first time as a child and believed her to be an angel, there has been no thought of anyone else. It is Padme that lives in his heart for ten years, and it is her kiss alone that haunts him.
Yet with the insistence of this kind of person-to-person love, the bond between the two can be all-encompassing. It can also make it very difficult to let the other person go, even if the situation demands it. And as William Blake wrote, "He who binds to himself a joy/ Does the winged life destroy;/ But he who kisses the joy as it flies/ Lives in eternity's sun rise."
This brings us to the much debated dialogue that takes place between Anakin and Padme on the freighter to Naboo. Disguised as refugees, they are discussing the role of love in the Jedi way. When Padme coyly asks if he's allowed to love, Anakin tells her that "Attachment is forbidden. Possession is forbidden. Compassion, which I would define as unconditional love, is central to a Jedi's life." The first part has generated many arguments, as has the second, so each needs to be clarified.
The ideal of compassion in religious traditions expresses itself
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