[E]pic diction has the same verb (mnaomai) for ‘to be mindful, to have in mind, to direct one’s attention to’ and ‘to woo, court, be a suitor.’ Stationed at the edge of itself, or of its present knowledge, the thinking mind launches a suit for understanding into the unknown. So too the wooer stands at the edge of his value as a person and asserts a claim across the boundaries of another. Both mind and wooer reach out from what is known and actual to something different, possibly better, desired. Something else. Think about what that feels like.

Anne Carson, Eros the Bittersweet