Thursday, February 11, 2010
Saturday, January 23, 2010
DARKNESS
"The waves were dead; the tides were in their grave,
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them -- She was the Universe."
I don`t know the author.
The moon, their mistress, had expir'd before;
The winds were wither'd in the stagnant air,
And the clouds perish'd; Darkness had no need
Of aid from them -- She was the Universe."
I don`t know the author.
TZADIKIM NISTARIM
Also called the Lamed Vev, two letters in the Hebrew alphabet that translate to the number thirty-six. In this violent, ugly, strife-riddled world of ours there are thirty-six men, the Hidden Just Men or Hidden Saints, who bear on their shoulders the burden of all our pain, sorrows and sins. The Tzadikim Nistarim move in obscurity, and are usually found among the poor, the downtrodden and the meekest among us, and are chosen for this task because of their righteousness, stalwart sense of genuine justice, and the true goodness of their souls. When one of these men dies, God chooses another to take his place. It is for their sake and for love of them that God does not destroy His imperfect creation. As long as the Lamed Vav serves humanity, the world will continue to plod on, but once one of them dies and God cannot find another worthy to take his place, the world will be destroyed. In Qabala, the thirty-six men of the Tzadikim Nistarim together combine to symbolize the seventy-two bridges, corresponding to the seventy-two names of God, that connect the concealed and revealed worlds of our universe.
Dragon symbolism
Symbolism from Carl G. Jung's Mysterium Coniunctions: Dragon is personification of Sulphur and is by far the male element. Since the dragon is said to impregnate himself by swallowing his tail, then the tail is the male organ and the mouth is the female organ. The dragon consumes its entire body into his head; thus, partaking of his most dangerous and evil nature turning it into the inner fire of Mercury. This evil dragon nature which sulphur shares is frequently called the "dragon's head" (caput dragonis), which is a "most pernicious poison," a poisonous vapor breathed out by the flying dragon. However,the "winged dragon" that stands for quicksilver becomes a poison-breathing monster only after it unites with the "wingless dragon" which corresponds to sulphur. In psychological terms these two dragons represent the opposites; the winged dragon tries to prevent the wingless dragon from flying. They are always in confrontation until the wingless dragon flies, symbolizing the conquering of an obstacle, or obstacles, preventing total individualization. In other words, the winged dragon represents personal obstacles that must be overcome to insure a more-perfect being; thus, leading to the saying: "You conquer the dragon or he will conquer you."
Romanian Mythology - Iele
In Romanian mythology, the Iele are feminine mythical creatures.
Clear characteristic are hard to be attributed. Most of the times they are described as virgin fairies (zane in Romanian), with great seduction power over men, with magic skills, attributes similar to the Ancient Greek Nymphs, Naiads, Dryads, etc. The Iele live in the sky, in the forests, in caves, on isolated mountain cliffs, in marshes, often bathing in the springs, or at crossroads. From this point of view, the Iele are similar with the Ancient Greek Hecate, a three headed goddess of Thracian origin, which guards the crossroads. They mostly appear at night, under the moonlight, as dancing Horas, in seclusive areas like glades, the tops of certain trees (maples, walnut trees), ponds, river sides, crossroads or abandoned fireplaces, dancing naked, with their breast almost covered by their disheveled hair, with bells to their ankles, and carrying candles. In almost all of these instances, the Iele appear acorporal. Rarely, they are dressed in chain mail coats. The effect of their specific dance, the Hora, has similar characteristics with the dances of the Bacchants. The place where they had danced would after remain carbonized, with the grass incapable of growing on the trodden ground, and with the leafs of the surrounding trees scorched. Later, when grass would finally grow, it would have a red or dark-green color, the animals would not eat it, but instead mushrooms would thrive on it. The Iele don’t live a solitary life. They gather in groups in the air, they can fly with or without wings; they can travel with incredible speeds, either on their own, or with chariots made of fire.
The Iele appear sometimes with bodies, other times only as immaterial spirits. They are young and beautiful, voluptuous, immortals, their frenzy causing delirium to the watchers, with bad tempers, but not being necessarily evil. They come in a group of unknown numbers, either in a group of seven, and sometimes in groups of three. This version is mostly found in Oltenia, were these three Iele are considered the daughters of Alexander the Great, and are called Catrina, Zalina and Marina.
They are not generally considered evil genies: they resort to revenge only when they are provoked, offended, seen while they dance, when people step on the trodden ground left behind by their dance, sleep under a tree which the Iele consider as their property, drink from the springs or wells used by them. Terrible punishes are inflicted upon the ones who refuse their invitation to dance, or the ones who mimic their movements. The one who randomly hears their songs, becomes instantly mute. A main characteristic is their beautiful voices which are used to spell their listeners, just like the Mermaids from ancient Greek mythology. Invisible to humans, there are however certain moments when they can be seen by mortals, like during night, when they dance. When this happens, they abduct the victim, punishing the “guilty” one with magical spells, after they previously caused him to fall into sleep with the sounds and the vertigo of the frenetic Hora, which they dance around their victim. The ones abducted, and which had the unfortunate inspiration to learn the songs of the Iele, disappear forever without a trace.
The Iele are also believed to be agents of revenge, of God or of the Devil, having the right to avenge in the name of their “employers. When they were called upon to act, they hounded their victims into the middle of their dance, until they died in a furor of madness or torment. In this hypostasis, the Iele are similar to the Ancient Greek Erinyes and the Roman Furies.
Dimitrie Cantemir describes the Iele as ‘’Nymphs of the air, inloved especially with young men’’. The origin of these beliefs is unknown. The name iele, is the Romanian popular word for "them" (feminine). Their real names are secret and inaccessible, and are commonly replaced with symbols based on their characteristics. There names based on epithets are: Iele, Dânse, Drăgaice, Vilve, Iezme, Izme, Irodiţe, Rusalii, Nagode, Vântoase, Domniţe, Măiestre, Frumoase, Muşate, Fetele Codrului, Împărătesele Văzduhului, Zânioare, Sfinte de noapte, Şoimane, Mândre, Fecioare, Albe, Hale, etc. But there are also personal names which appear: Ana, Bugiana, Dumernica, Foiofia, Lacargia, Magdalina, Ruxanda, Tiranda, Trandafira, Rudeana, Ruja, Trandafira, Pascuta, Cosânzeana, Orgisceana, Lemnica, Rosia, Todosia, Sandalina, Ruxanda, Margalina, Savatina, Rujalina, etc. These names must not be used randomly, as they may be the base for dangerous enchantments. It is believed that every witch knows nine of these pseudonyms, from which she makes combinations, and who are the bases for spells.
To please the Iele, the people had dedicated to them festival days: the Rusaliile, the Stratul, the Sfredelul or Bulciul Rusaliilor, the nine days after the Easter, the Marina, the Foca, etc. Whoever doesn’t respect these holidays, will suffer the revenge of the Iele: men and women who work during these days would be lifted in spinning vertigos, people and cattle would suffer mysterious deaths or become paralyzed and crippled, hail would fall, flooding would happen, the trees would wither, the houses would catch fire.
But the people also invented cures against the Iele, either preventive: garlic and mugwort wore around the waist, in their bosom, or hanged to their hats, the hanging the skull of a horse in a pole in front of the house, either exorcistic customs. In this category, the most important cure is the dance of Căluşari. This customs was the subject of episode of the popular TV series, The X-Files (see The X-Files (season 2))
The same common Indo-European mythology base is also suggested by the close resemblance with the Nordic Elves, youthful feminine humanoid spirits of great beauty living in forests and other natural places, underground, or in wells and springs, having as sacred tree the same maple tree, and with magical powers, having the ability to cast spells with their circle dances. The elves too leave a kind of circle were they had danced the älvdanser (elf dances) or älvringar (elf circles). Typically, this circle also consisted of a ring of small mushrooms. Arguably, Iele are the Romanian equivalent of the fays of other cultures, like of the nymphs of Greek and Roman mythology, of the vili from Slavic mythology, and of the Irish sídhe.
Clear characteristic are hard to be attributed. Most of the times they are described as virgin fairies (zane in Romanian), with great seduction power over men, with magic skills, attributes similar to the Ancient Greek Nymphs, Naiads, Dryads, etc. The Iele live in the sky, in the forests, in caves, on isolated mountain cliffs, in marshes, often bathing in the springs, or at crossroads. From this point of view, the Iele are similar with the Ancient Greek Hecate, a three headed goddess of Thracian origin, which guards the crossroads. They mostly appear at night, under the moonlight, as dancing Horas, in seclusive areas like glades, the tops of certain trees (maples, walnut trees), ponds, river sides, crossroads or abandoned fireplaces, dancing naked, with their breast almost covered by their disheveled hair, with bells to their ankles, and carrying candles. In almost all of these instances, the Iele appear acorporal. Rarely, they are dressed in chain mail coats. The effect of their specific dance, the Hora, has similar characteristics with the dances of the Bacchants. The place where they had danced would after remain carbonized, with the grass incapable of growing on the trodden ground, and with the leafs of the surrounding trees scorched. Later, when grass would finally grow, it would have a red or dark-green color, the animals would not eat it, but instead mushrooms would thrive on it. The Iele don’t live a solitary life. They gather in groups in the air, they can fly with or without wings; they can travel with incredible speeds, either on their own, or with chariots made of fire.
The Iele appear sometimes with bodies, other times only as immaterial spirits. They are young and beautiful, voluptuous, immortals, their frenzy causing delirium to the watchers, with bad tempers, but not being necessarily evil. They come in a group of unknown numbers, either in a group of seven, and sometimes in groups of three. This version is mostly found in Oltenia, were these three Iele are considered the daughters of Alexander the Great, and are called Catrina, Zalina and Marina.
They are not generally considered evil genies: they resort to revenge only when they are provoked, offended, seen while they dance, when people step on the trodden ground left behind by their dance, sleep under a tree which the Iele consider as their property, drink from the springs or wells used by them. Terrible punishes are inflicted upon the ones who refuse their invitation to dance, or the ones who mimic their movements. The one who randomly hears their songs, becomes instantly mute. A main characteristic is their beautiful voices which are used to spell their listeners, just like the Mermaids from ancient Greek mythology. Invisible to humans, there are however certain moments when they can be seen by mortals, like during night, when they dance. When this happens, they abduct the victim, punishing the “guilty” one with magical spells, after they previously caused him to fall into sleep with the sounds and the vertigo of the frenetic Hora, which they dance around their victim. The ones abducted, and which had the unfortunate inspiration to learn the songs of the Iele, disappear forever without a trace.
The Iele are also believed to be agents of revenge, of God or of the Devil, having the right to avenge in the name of their “employers. When they were called upon to act, they hounded their victims into the middle of their dance, until they died in a furor of madness or torment. In this hypostasis, the Iele are similar to the Ancient Greek Erinyes and the Roman Furies.
Dimitrie Cantemir describes the Iele as ‘’Nymphs of the air, inloved especially with young men’’. The origin of these beliefs is unknown. The name iele, is the Romanian popular word for "them" (feminine). Their real names are secret and inaccessible, and are commonly replaced with symbols based on their characteristics. There names based on epithets are: Iele, Dânse, Drăgaice, Vilve, Iezme, Izme, Irodiţe, Rusalii, Nagode, Vântoase, Domniţe, Măiestre, Frumoase, Muşate, Fetele Codrului, Împărătesele Văzduhului, Zânioare, Sfinte de noapte, Şoimane, Mândre, Fecioare, Albe, Hale, etc. But there are also personal names which appear: Ana, Bugiana, Dumernica, Foiofia, Lacargia, Magdalina, Ruxanda, Tiranda, Trandafira, Rudeana, Ruja, Trandafira, Pascuta, Cosânzeana, Orgisceana, Lemnica, Rosia, Todosia, Sandalina, Ruxanda, Margalina, Savatina, Rujalina, etc. These names must not be used randomly, as they may be the base for dangerous enchantments. It is believed that every witch knows nine of these pseudonyms, from which she makes combinations, and who are the bases for spells.
To please the Iele, the people had dedicated to them festival days: the Rusaliile, the Stratul, the Sfredelul or Bulciul Rusaliilor, the nine days after the Easter, the Marina, the Foca, etc. Whoever doesn’t respect these holidays, will suffer the revenge of the Iele: men and women who work during these days would be lifted in spinning vertigos, people and cattle would suffer mysterious deaths or become paralyzed and crippled, hail would fall, flooding would happen, the trees would wither, the houses would catch fire.
But the people also invented cures against the Iele, either preventive: garlic and mugwort wore around the waist, in their bosom, or hanged to their hats, the hanging the skull of a horse in a pole in front of the house, either exorcistic customs. In this category, the most important cure is the dance of Căluşari. This customs was the subject of episode of the popular TV series, The X-Files (see The X-Files (season 2))
The same common Indo-European mythology base is also suggested by the close resemblance with the Nordic Elves, youthful feminine humanoid spirits of great beauty living in forests and other natural places, underground, or in wells and springs, having as sacred tree the same maple tree, and with magical powers, having the ability to cast spells with their circle dances. The elves too leave a kind of circle were they had danced the älvdanser (elf dances) or älvringar (elf circles). Typically, this circle also consisted of a ring of small mushrooms. Arguably, Iele are the Romanian equivalent of the fays of other cultures, like of the nymphs of Greek and Roman mythology, of the vili from Slavic mythology, and of the Irish sídhe.
Au bord de la mer
Au sortir de ce bal, nous suivîmes les grèves ;
Vers le toit d'un exil, au hasard du chemin,
Nous allions : une fleur se fanait dans sa main ;
C'était par un minuit d'étoiles et de rêves.
Dans l'ombre, autour de nous, tombaient des flots foncés.
Vers les lointains d'opale et d'or, sur l'Atlantique,
L'outre-mer épandait sa lumière mystique ;
Les algues parfumaient les espaces glacés ;
Les vieux échos sonnaient dans la falaise entière !
Et les nappes de l'onde aux volutes sans frein
Ecumaient, lourdement, contre les rocs d'airain.
Sur la dune brillaient les croix d'un cimetière.
Leur silence, pour nous, couvrait ce vaste bruit.
Elles ne tendaient plus, croix par l'ombre insultées,
Les couronnes de deuil, fleurs de morts emportées
Dans les flots tonnants, par les tempêtes, la nuit.
Mais de ces blancs tombeaux en pente sur la rive,
Sous la brume sacrée à des clartés pareils,
L'ombre questionnait en vain les grands sommeils :
Ils gardaient le secret de la Loi décisive.
Frileuse, elle voilait d'un cachemire noir,
Son sein, royal exil de toutes mes pensées !
J'admirais cette femme aux paupières baissées,
Sphinx cruel, mauvais rêve, ancien désespoir.
Ses regards font mourir les enfants. Elle passe.
Et se laisse survivre en ce qu'elle détruit,
C'est la femme qu'on aime à cause de la Nuit,
Et ceux qui l'ont connue en parlent à voix basse.
Le danger la revêt d'un rayon familier :
Même dans son étreinte oublieusement tendre,
Ses crimes, évoqués, sont tels qu'on croit entendre
Des crosses de fusils tombant sur le palier.
Cependant, sous la honte illustre qui l'enchaîne,
Sous le deuil où se plaît cette âme sans essor,
Repose une candeur inviolée encor
Comme un lys enfermé dans un coffret d'ébène.
Elle prêta l'oreille au tumulte des mers,
Inclina son beau front touché par les années,
Et, se remémorant ses mornes destinées,
Elle se répandit en ces termes amers :
"Autrefois, autrefois - quand je faisais partie
Des vivants, - leurs amours sous les pâles flambeaux
Des nuits, comme la mer au pied de ces tombeaux,
Se lamentaient, houleux, devant mon apathie.
J'ai vu de longs adieux sur mes mains se briser ;
Mortelle, j'accueillais, sans désir et sans haine,
Les aveux suppliants de ces âmes en peine :
Le sépulcre à la mer ne rend pas son baiser.
Je suis donc insensible et faite de silence
Et je n'ai pas vécu ; mes jours sont froids et vains ;
Les Cieux m'ont refusé les battements divins !
On a faussé pour moi les poids de la balance.
Je sens que c'est mon sort même dans le trépas :
Et, soucieux encor des regrets ou des fêtes,
Si les morts vont chercher leurs fleurs dans les tempêtes,
Moi je reposerai, ne les comprenant pas."
Je saluai les croix lumineuses et pâles.
L'étendue annonçait l'aurore, et je me pris
A dire, pour calmer ses ténébreux esprits
Que le vent du remords battait de ses rafales
Et pendant que la mer déserte se gonflait :
"Au bal vous n'aviez pas ces mélancolies
Et les sons de cristal de vos phrases polies
Charmaient le serpent d'or de votre bracelet.
Rieuse et respirant une touffe de roses
Sous vos grands cheveux noirs mêlés de diamants,
Quand la valse nous prit, tous deux, quelques moments,
Vous eûtes, en vos yeux, des lueurs moins moroses ?
J'étais heureux de voir sous le plaisir vermeil
Se ranimer votre âme à l'oubli toute prête,
Et s'éclairer enfin votre douleur distraite,
Comme un glacier frappé d'un rayon de soleil."
Elle laissa briller sur moi ses yeux funèbres,
Et la pâleur des morts ornait ses traits fatals.
"Selon vous, je ressemble aux pays boréals,
J'ai six mois de clarté et six mois de ténèbres ?
Sache mieux quel orgueil nous nous sommes donné !
Et tout ce qu'en nos yeux il empêche de lire...
Aime-moi toi qui sais que, sous un clair sourire,
Je suis pareille à ces tombeaux abandonnés."
Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Conte d'Amour.
Vers le toit d'un exil, au hasard du chemin,
Nous allions : une fleur se fanait dans sa main ;
C'était par un minuit d'étoiles et de rêves.
Dans l'ombre, autour de nous, tombaient des flots foncés.
Vers les lointains d'opale et d'or, sur l'Atlantique,
L'outre-mer épandait sa lumière mystique ;
Les algues parfumaient les espaces glacés ;
Les vieux échos sonnaient dans la falaise entière !
Et les nappes de l'onde aux volutes sans frein
Ecumaient, lourdement, contre les rocs d'airain.
Sur la dune brillaient les croix d'un cimetière.
Leur silence, pour nous, couvrait ce vaste bruit.
Elles ne tendaient plus, croix par l'ombre insultées,
Les couronnes de deuil, fleurs de morts emportées
Dans les flots tonnants, par les tempêtes, la nuit.
Mais de ces blancs tombeaux en pente sur la rive,
Sous la brume sacrée à des clartés pareils,
L'ombre questionnait en vain les grands sommeils :
Ils gardaient le secret de la Loi décisive.
Frileuse, elle voilait d'un cachemire noir,
Son sein, royal exil de toutes mes pensées !
J'admirais cette femme aux paupières baissées,
Sphinx cruel, mauvais rêve, ancien désespoir.
Ses regards font mourir les enfants. Elle passe.
Et se laisse survivre en ce qu'elle détruit,
C'est la femme qu'on aime à cause de la Nuit,
Et ceux qui l'ont connue en parlent à voix basse.
Le danger la revêt d'un rayon familier :
Même dans son étreinte oublieusement tendre,
Ses crimes, évoqués, sont tels qu'on croit entendre
Des crosses de fusils tombant sur le palier.
Cependant, sous la honte illustre qui l'enchaîne,
Sous le deuil où se plaît cette âme sans essor,
Repose une candeur inviolée encor
Comme un lys enfermé dans un coffret d'ébène.
Elle prêta l'oreille au tumulte des mers,
Inclina son beau front touché par les années,
Et, se remémorant ses mornes destinées,
Elle se répandit en ces termes amers :
"Autrefois, autrefois - quand je faisais partie
Des vivants, - leurs amours sous les pâles flambeaux
Des nuits, comme la mer au pied de ces tombeaux,
Se lamentaient, houleux, devant mon apathie.
J'ai vu de longs adieux sur mes mains se briser ;
Mortelle, j'accueillais, sans désir et sans haine,
Les aveux suppliants de ces âmes en peine :
Le sépulcre à la mer ne rend pas son baiser.
Je suis donc insensible et faite de silence
Et je n'ai pas vécu ; mes jours sont froids et vains ;
Les Cieux m'ont refusé les battements divins !
On a faussé pour moi les poids de la balance.
Je sens que c'est mon sort même dans le trépas :
Et, soucieux encor des regrets ou des fêtes,
Si les morts vont chercher leurs fleurs dans les tempêtes,
Moi je reposerai, ne les comprenant pas."
Je saluai les croix lumineuses et pâles.
L'étendue annonçait l'aurore, et je me pris
A dire, pour calmer ses ténébreux esprits
Que le vent du remords battait de ses rafales
Et pendant que la mer déserte se gonflait :
"Au bal vous n'aviez pas ces mélancolies
Et les sons de cristal de vos phrases polies
Charmaient le serpent d'or de votre bracelet.
Rieuse et respirant une touffe de roses
Sous vos grands cheveux noirs mêlés de diamants,
Quand la valse nous prit, tous deux, quelques moments,
Vous eûtes, en vos yeux, des lueurs moins moroses ?
J'étais heureux de voir sous le plaisir vermeil
Se ranimer votre âme à l'oubli toute prête,
Et s'éclairer enfin votre douleur distraite,
Comme un glacier frappé d'un rayon de soleil."
Elle laissa briller sur moi ses yeux funèbres,
Et la pâleur des morts ornait ses traits fatals.
"Selon vous, je ressemble aux pays boréals,
J'ai six mois de clarté et six mois de ténèbres ?
Sache mieux quel orgueil nous nous sommes donné !
Et tout ce qu'en nos yeux il empêche de lire...
Aime-moi toi qui sais que, sous un clair sourire,
Je suis pareille à ces tombeaux abandonnés."
Auguste Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, Conte d'Amour.
Le cri
"Je longeais le chemin avec deux amis - c'est alors que le soleil se coucha - le ciel devint tout à coup rouge couleur de sang - je m'arrêtai, m'adossai contre une barrière - le fjord d'un noir bleuté et la ville était inondés de sang et ravagés par des langues de feu - mes amis poursuivirent leur chemin, tandis que je tremblais encore d'angoisse - et je sentis que la nature était traversée par un long cri infini."
Edvard Munch, 1892.
Le cri
Edvard Munch, 1892.
Le cri
Lamia
by John Keats
1819
"I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."
Keats believed that great people (especially poets) have the ability to accept that not everything can be resolved. Keats was a Romantic and believed that the truths found in the imagination access holy authority. Such authority cannot otherwise be understood, and thus he writes of "uncertainties." This "being in uncertaint[y]" is a place between the mundane, ready reality and the multiple potentials of a more fully understood existence.
Part I
Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:
From high Olympus had he stolen light,
On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight
Of his great summoner, and made retreat
Into a forest on the shores of Crete.
For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;
At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured
Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored.
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,
And in those meads where sometime she might haunt,
Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,
Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose.
Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!
So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat
Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,
Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.
From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,
Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,
And wound with many a river to its head,
To find where this sweet nymph prepar'd her secret bed:
In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,
And so he rested, on the lonely ground,
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies
Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys
All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake:
"When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake!
When move in a sweet body fit for life,
And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife
Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!"
The God, dove-footed, glided silently
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed,
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed,
Until he found a palpitating snake,
Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete:
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake,
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey.
"Fair Hermes, crown'd with feathers, fluttering light,
I had a splendid dream of thee last night:
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,
Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,
The only sad one; for thou didst not hear
The soft, lute-finger'd Muses chaunting clear,
Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,
Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long melodious moan.
I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes,
Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart,
Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art!
Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?"
Whereat the star of Lethe not delay'd
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired:
"Thou smooth-lipp'd serpent, surely high inspired!
Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,
Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,
Telling me only where my nymph is fled, -
Where she doth breathe!" "Bright planet, thou hast said,"
Return'd the snake, "but seal with oaths, fair God!"
"I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod,
And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!"
Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.
Then thus again the brilliance feminine:
"Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,
Free as the air, invisibly, she strays
About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days
She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet
Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;
From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green,
She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:
And by my power is her beauty veil'd
To keep it unaffronted, unassail'd
By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,
Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear'd Silenus' sighs.
Pale grew her immortality, for woe
Of all these lovers, and she grieved so
I took compassion on her, bade her steep
Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep
Her loveliness invisible, yet free
To wander as she loves, in liberty.
Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,
If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!"
Then, once again, the charmed God began
An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran
Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.
Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head,
Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said,
"I was a woman, let me have once more
A woman's shape, and charming as before.
I love a youth of Corinth - O the bliss!
Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is.
Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,
And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now."
The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,
She breath'd upon his eyes, and swift was seen
Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.
It was no dream; or say a dream it was,
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.
One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem
Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd;
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd
To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm,
Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.
So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent,
Full of adoring tears and blandishment,
And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,
Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain
Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower
That faints into itself at evening hour:
But the God fostering her chilled hand,
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland,
And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,
Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees.
Into the green-recessed woods they flew;
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.
Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,
Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent,
Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent;
Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear,
Hot, glaz'd, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,
Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.
The colours all inflam'd throughout her train,
She writh'd about, convuls'd with scarlet pain:
A deep volcanian yellow took the place
Of all her milder-mooned body's grace;
And, as the lava ravishes the mead,
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,
Eclips'd her crescents, and lick'd up her stars:
So that, in moments few, she was undrest
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.
Still shone her crown; that vanish'd, also she
Melted and disappear'd as suddenly;
And in the air, her new voice luting soft,
Cried, "Lycius! gentle Lycius!" - Borne aloft
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar
These words dissolv'd: Crete's forests heard no more.
Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,
A full-born beauty new and exquisite?
She fled into that valley they pass o'er
Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore;
And rested at the foot of those wild hills,
The rugged founts of the Peraean rills,
And of that other ridge whose barren back
Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,
South-westward to Cleone. There she stood
About a young bird's flutter from a wood,
Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,
By a clear pool, wherein she passioned
To see herself escap'd from so sore ills,
While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.
Ah, happy Lycius! - for she was a maid
More beautiful than ever twisted braid,
Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flowered lea
Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:
A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore
Of love deep learned to the red heart's core:
Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain
To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;
Define their pettish limits, and estrange
Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;
As though in Cupid's college she had spent
Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,
And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.
Why this fair creature chose so fairily
By the wayside to linger, we shall see;
But first 'tis fit to tell how she could muse
And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,
Of all she list, strange or magnificent:
How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went;
Whether to faint Elysium, or where
Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair
Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair;
Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,
Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine;
Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine
Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line.
And sometimes into cities she would send
Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;
And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,
She saw the young Corinthian Lycius
Charioting foremost in the envious race,
Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,
And fell into a swooning love of him.
Now on the moth-time of that evening dim
He would return that way, as well she knew,
To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew
The eastern soft wind, and his galley now
Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow
In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle
Fresh anchor'd; whither he had been awhile
To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there
Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare.
Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire;
For by some freakful chance he made retire
From his companions, and set forth to walk,
Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:
Over the solitary hills he fared,
Thoughtless at first, but ere eve's star appeared
His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,
In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades.
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near -
Close to her passing, in indifference drear,
His silent sandals swept the mossy green;
So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen
She stood: he pass'd, shut up in mysteries,
His mind wrapp'd like his mantle, while her eyes
Follow'd his steps, and her neck regal white
Turn'd - syllabling thus, "Ah, Lycius bright,
And will you leave me on the hills alone?
Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown."
He did; not with cold wonder fearingly,
But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;
For so delicious were the words she sung,
It seem'd he had lov'd them a whole summer long:
And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up,
Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup,
And still the cup was full, - while he afraid
Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid
Due adoration, thus began to adore;
Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure:
"Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see
Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!
For pity do not this sad heart belie -
Even as thou vanishest so I shall die.
Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay!
To thy far wishes will thy streams obey:
Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain,
Alone they can drink up the morning rain:
Though a descended Pleiad, will not one
Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune
Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine?
So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine
Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade
Thy memory will waste me to a shade -
For pity do not melt!" - "If I should stay,"
Said Lamia, "here, upon this floor of clay,
And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough,
What canst thou say or do of charm enough
To dull the nice remembrance of my home?
Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam
Over these hills and vales, where no joy is, -
Empty of immortality and bliss!
Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know
That finer spirits cannot breathe below
In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth,
What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe
My essence? What serener palaces,
Where I may all my many senses please,
And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts appease?
It cannot be - Adieu!" So said, she rose
Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose
The amorous promise of her lone complain,
Swoon'd, murmuring of love, and pale with pain.
The cruel lady, without any show
Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe,
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be,
With brighter eyes and slow amenity,
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh
The life she had so tangled in her mesh:
And as he from one trance was wakening
Into another, she began to sing,
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing,
A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres,
While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires
And then she whisper'd in such trembling tone,
As those who, safe together met alone
For the first time through many anguish'd days,
Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt,
For that she was a woman, and without
Any more subtle fluid in her veins
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his.
And next she wonder'd how his eyes could miss
Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said,
She dwelt but half retir'd, and there had led
Days happy as the gold coin could invent
Without the aid of love; yet in content
Till she saw him, as once she pass'd him by,
Where 'gainst a column he leant thoughtfully
At Venus' temple porch, 'mid baskets heap'd
Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reap'd
Late on that eve, as 'twas the night before
The Adonian feast; whereof she saw no more,
But wept alone those days, for why should she adore?
Lycius from death awoke into amaze,
To see her still, and singing so sweet lays;
Then from amaze into delight he fell
To hear her whisper woman's lore so well;
And every word she spake entic'd him on
To unperplex'd delight and pleasure known.
Let the mad poets say whate'er they please
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,
As a real woman, lineal indeed
From Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed.
Thus gentle Lamia judg'd, and judg'd aright,
That Lycius could not love in half a fright,
So threw the goddess off, and won his heart
More pleasantly by playing woman's part,
With no more awe than what her beauty gave,
That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save.
Lycius to all made eloquent reply,
Marrying to every word a twinborn sigh;
And last, pointing to Corinth, ask'd her sweet,
If 'twas too far that night for her soft feet.
The way was short, for Lamia's eagerness
Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease
To a few paces; not at all surmised
By blinded Lycius, so in her comprized.
They pass'd the city gates, he knew not how
So noiseless, and he never thought to know.
As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all,
Throughout her palaces imperial,
And all her populous streets and temples lewd,
Mutter'd, like tempest in the distance brew'd,
To the wide-spreaded night above her towers.
Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours,
Shuffled their sandals o'er the pavement white,
Companion'd or alone; while many a light
Flared, here and there, from wealthy festivals,
And threw their moving shadows on the walls,
Or found them cluster'd in the corniced shade
Of some arch'd temple door, or dusky colonnade.
Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear,
Her fingers he press'd hard, as one came near
With curl'd gray beard, sharp eyes, and smooth bald crown,
Slow-stepp'd, and robed in philosophic gown:
Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past,
Into his mantle, adding wings to haste,
While hurried Lamia trembled: "Ah," said he,
"Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully?
Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew?" -
"I'm wearied," said fair Lamia: "tell me who
Is that old man? I cannot bring to mind
His features - Lycius! wherefore did you blind
Yourself from his quick eyes?" Lycius replied,
'Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide
And good instructor; but to-night he seems
The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams.
While yet he spake they had arrived before
A pillar'd porch, with lofty portal door,
Where hung a silver lamp, whose phosphor glow
Reflected in the slabbed steps below,
Mild as a star in water; for so new,
And so unsullied was the marble hue,
So through the crystal polish, liquid fine,
Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine
Could e'er have touch'd there. Sounds Aeolian
Breath'd from the hinges, as the ample span
Of the wide doors disclos'd a place unknown
Some time to any, but those two alone,
And a few Persian mutes, who that same year
Were seen about the markets: none knew where
They could inhabit; the most curious
Were foil'd, who watch'd to trace them to their house:
And but the flitter-winged verse must tell,
For truth's sake, what woe afterwards befel,
'Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus,
Shut from the busy world of more incredulous.
Part II
love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is - Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit's fast -
That is a doubtful tale from faery land,
Hard for the non-elect to understand.
Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down,
He might have given the moral a fresh frown,
Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss
To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss.
Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare,
Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair,
Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar,
Above the lintel of their chamber door,
And down the passage cast a glow upon the floor.
For all this came a ruin: side by side
They were enthroned, in the even tide,
Upon a couch, near to a curtaining
Whose airy texture, from a golden string,
Floated into the room, and let appear
Unveil'd the summer heaven, blue and clear,
Betwixt two marble shafts: - there they reposed,
Where use had made it sweet, with eyelids closed,
Saving a tythe which love still open kept,
That they might see each other while they almost slept;
When from the slope side of a suburb hill,
Deafening the swallow's twitter, came a thrill
Of trumpets - Lycius started - the sounds fled,
But left a thought, a buzzing in his head.
For the first time, since first he harbour'd in
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin,
His spirit pass'd beyond its golden bourn
Into the noisy world almost forsworn.
The lady, ever watchful, penetrant,
Saw this with pain, so arguing a want
Of something more, more than her empery
Of joys; and she began to moan and sigh
Because he mused beyond her, knowing well
That but a moment's thought is passion's passing bell.
"Why do you sigh, fair creature?" whisper'd he:
"Why do you think?" return'd she tenderly:
"You have deserted me - where am I now?
Not in your heart while care weighs on your brow:
No, no, you have dismiss'd me; and I go
From your breast houseless: ay, it must be so."
He answer'd, bending to her open eyes,
Where he was mirror'd small in paradise,
My silver planet, both of eve and morn!
Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn,
While I am striving how to fill my heart
With deeper crimson, and a double smart?
How to entangle, trammel up and snare
Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there
Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose?
Ay, a sweet kiss - you see your mighty woes.
My thoughts! shall I unveil them? Listen then!
What mortal hath a prize, that other men
May be confounded and abash'd withal,
But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical,
And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice
Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth's voice.
Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar,
While through the thronged streets your bridal car
Wheels round its dazzling spokes." The lady's cheek
Trembled; she nothing said, but, pale and meek,
Arose and knelt before him, wept a rain
Of sorrows at his words; at last with pain
Beseeching him, the while his hand she wrung,
To change his purpose. He thereat was stung,
Perverse, with stronger fancy to reclaim
Her wild and timid nature to his aim:
Besides, for all his love, in self despite,
Against his better self, he took delight
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new.
His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue
Fierce and sanguineous as 'twas possible
In one whose brow had no dark veins to swell.
Fine was the mitigated fury, like
Apollo's presence when in act to strike
The serpent - Ha, the serpent! certes, she
Was none. She burnt, she lov'd the tyranny,
And, all subdued, consented to the hour
When to the bridal he should lead his paramour.
Whispering in midnight silence, said the youth,
"Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by my truth,
I have not ask'd it, ever thinking thee
Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny,
As still I do. Hast any mortal name,
Fit appellation for this dazzling frame?
Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth,
To share our marriage feast and nuptial mirth?"
"I have no friends," said Lamia," no, not one;
My presence in wide Corinth hardly known:
My parents' bones are in their dusty urns
Sepulchred, where no kindled incense burns,
Seeing all their luckless race are dead, save me,
And I neglect the holy rite for thee.
Even as you list invite your many guests;
But if, as now it seems, your vision rests
With any pleasure on me, do not bid
Old Apollonius - from him keep me hid."
Lycius, perplex'd at words so blind and blank,
Made close inquiry; from whose touch she shrank,
Feigning a sleep; and he to the dull shade
Of deep sleep in a moment was betray'd
It was the custom then to bring away
The bride from home at blushing shut of day,
Veil'd, in a chariot, heralded along
By strewn flowers, torches, and a marriage song,
With other pageants: but this fair unknown
Had not a friend. So being left alone,
(Lycius was gone to summon all his kin)
And knowing surely she could never win
His foolish heart from its mad pompousness,
She set herself, high-thoughted, how to dress
The misery in fit magnificence.
She did so, but 'tis doubtful how and whence
Came, and who were her subtle servitors.
About the halls, and to and from the doors,
There was a noise of wings, till in short space
The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace.
A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade.
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade
Of palm and plantain, met from either side,
High in the midst, in honour of the bride:
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on,
From either side their stems branch'd one to one
All down the aisled place; and beneath all
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall to wall.
So canopied, lay an untasted feast
Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest,
Silently paced about, and as she went,
In pale contented sort of discontent,
Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche.
Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first,
Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees,
And with the larger wove in small intricacies.
Approving all, she faded at self-will,
And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still,
Complete and ready for the revels rude,
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her solitude.
The day appear'd, and all the gossip rout.
O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout
The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours,
And show to common eyes these secret bowers?
The herd approach'd; each guest, with busy brain,
Arriving at the portal, gaz'd amain,
And enter'd marveling: for they knew the street,
Remember'd it from childhood all complete
Without a gap, yet ne'er before had seen
That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne;
So in they hurried all, maz'd, curious and keen:
Save one, who look'd thereon with eye severe,
And with calm-planted steps walk'd in austere;
'Twas Apollonius: something too he laugh'd,
As though some knotty problem, that had daft
His patient thought, had now begun to thaw,
And solve and melt - 'twas just as he foresaw.
He met within the murmurous vestibule
His young disciple. "'Tis no common rule,
Lycius," said he, "for uninvited guest
To force himself upon you, and infest
With an unbidden presence the bright throng
Of younger friends; yet must I do this wrong,
And you forgive me." Lycius blush'd, and led
The old man through the inner doors broad-spread;
With reconciling words and courteous mien
Turning into sweet milk the sophist's spleen.
Of wealthy lustre was the banquet-room,
Fill'd with pervading brilliance and perfume:
Before each lucid pannel fuming stood
A censer fed with myrrh and spiced wood,
Each by a sacred tripod held aloft,
Whose slender feet wide-swerv'd upon the soft
Wool-woofed carpets: fifty wreaths of smoke
From fifty censers their light voyage took
To the high roof, still mimick'd as they rose
Along the mirror'd walls by twin-clouds odorous.
Twelve sphered tables, by silk seats insphered,
High as the level of a man's breast rear'd
On libbard's paws, upheld the heavy gold
Of cups and goblets, and the store thrice told
Of Ceres' horn, and, in huge vessels, wine
Come from the gloomy tun with merry shine.
Thus loaded with a feast the tables stood,
Each shrining in the midst the image of a God.
When in an antichamber every guest
Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd,
By minist'ring slaves, upon his hands and feet,
And fragrant oils with ceremony meet
Pour'd on his hair, they all mov'd to the feast
In white robes, and themselves in order placed
Around the silken couches, wondering
Whence all this mighty cost and blaze of wealth could spring.
Soft went the music the soft air along,
While fluent Greek a vowel'd undersong
Kept up among the guests discoursing low
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains,
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains
Of powerful instruments - the gorgeous dyes,
The space, the splendour of the draperies,
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine.
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;
Flush'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double bright:
Garlands of every green, and every scent
From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch rent,
In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his ease.
What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?
What for the sage, old Apollonius?
Upon her aching forehead be there hung
The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue;
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,
Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,
Scarce saw in all the room another face,
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took
Full brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look
'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance
From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance,
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher
Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or stir
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride,
Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride.
Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch:
'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins;
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains
Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart.
"Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start?
Know'st thou that man?" Poor Lamia answer'd not.
He gaz'd into her eyes, and not a jot
Own'd they the lovelorn piteous appeal:
More, more he gaz'd: his human senses reel:
Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;
There was no recognition in those orbs.
"Lamia!" he cried - and no soft-toned reply.
The many heard, and the loud revelry
Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes;
The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths.
By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;
A deadly silence step by step increased,
Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair.
"Lamia!" he shriek'd; and nothing but the shriek
With its sad echo did the silence break.
"Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again
In the bride's face, where now no azure vein
Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume
The deep-recessed vision - all was blight;
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.
"Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man!
Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban
Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
Here represent their shadowy presences,
May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn
Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,
In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright
Of conscience, for their long offended might,
For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.
Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch!
Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor mov'd; "from every ill
Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?"
Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look'd again a level - No!
"A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay! - his friends came round
Supported him - no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.
by John Keats
1819
"I had not a dispute but a disquisition with Dilke, on various subjects; several things dovetailed in my mind, & at once it struck me, what quality went to form a Man of Achievement especially in literature & which Shakespeare possessed so enormously - I mean Negative Capability, that is when man is capable of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts without any irritable reaching after fact & reason."
Keats believed that great people (especially poets) have the ability to accept that not everything can be resolved. Keats was a Romantic and believed that the truths found in the imagination access holy authority. Such authority cannot otherwise be understood, and thus he writes of "uncertainties." This "being in uncertaint[y]" is a place between the mundane, ready reality and the multiple potentials of a more fully understood existence.
Part I
Upon a time, before the faery broods
Drove Nymph and Satyr from the prosperous woods,
Before King Oberon's bright diadem,
Sceptre, and mantle, clasp'd with dewy gem,
Frighted away the Dryads and the Fauns
From rushes green, and brakes, and cowslip'd lawns,
The ever-smitten Hermes empty left
His golden throne, bent warm on amorous theft:
From high Olympus had he stolen light,
On this side of Jove's clouds, to escape the sight
Of his great summoner, and made retreat
Into a forest on the shores of Crete.
For somewhere in that sacred island dwelt
A nymph, to whom all hoofed Satyrs knelt;
At whose white feet the languid Tritons poured
Pearls, while on land they wither'd and adored.
Fast by the springs where she to bathe was wont,
And in those meads where sometime she might haunt,
Were strewn rich gifts, unknown to any Muse,
Though Fancy's casket were unlock'd to choose.
Ah, what a world of love was at her feet!
So Hermes thought, and a celestial heat
Burnt from his winged heels to either ear,
That from a whiteness, as the lily clear,
Blush'd into roses 'mid his golden hair,
Fallen in jealous curls about his shoulders bare.
From vale to vale, from wood to wood, he flew,
Breathing upon the flowers his passion new,
And wound with many a river to its head,
To find where this sweet nymph prepar'd her secret bed:
In vain; the sweet nymph might nowhere be found,
And so he rested, on the lonely ground,
Pensive, and full of painful jealousies
Of the Wood-Gods, and even the very trees.
There as he stood, he heard a mournful voice,
Such as once heard, in gentle heart, destroys
All pain but pity: thus the lone voice spake:
"When from this wreathed tomb shall I awake!
When move in a sweet body fit for life,
And love, and pleasure, and the ruddy strife
Of hearts and lips! Ah, miserable me!"
The God, dove-footed, glided silently
Round bush and tree, soft-brushing, in his speed,
The taller grasses and full-flowering weed,
Until he found a palpitating snake,
Bright, and cirque-couchant in a dusky brake.
She was a gordian shape of dazzling hue,
Vermilion-spotted, golden, green, and blue;
Striped like a zebra, freckled like a pard,
Eyed like a peacock, and all crimson barr'd;
And full of silver moons, that, as she breathed,
Dissolv'd, or brighter shone, or interwreathed
Their lustres with the gloomier tapestries -
So rainbow-sided, touch'd with miseries,
She seem'd, at once, some penanced lady elf,
Some demon's mistress, or the demon's self.
Upon her crest she wore a wannish fire
Sprinkled with stars, like Ariadne's tiar:
Her head was serpent, but ah, bitter-sweet!
She had a woman's mouth with all its pearls complete:
And for her eyes: what could such eyes do there
But weep, and weep, that they were born so fair?
As Proserpine still weeps for her Sicilian air.
Her throat was serpent, but the words she spake
Came, as through bubbling honey, for Love's sake,
And thus; while Hermes on his pinions lay,
Like a stoop'd falcon ere he takes his prey.
"Fair Hermes, crown'd with feathers, fluttering light,
I had a splendid dream of thee last night:
I saw thee sitting, on a throne of gold,
Among the Gods, upon Olympus old,
The only sad one; for thou didst not hear
The soft, lute-finger'd Muses chaunting clear,
Nor even Apollo when he sang alone,
Deaf to his throbbing throat's long, long melodious moan.
I dreamt I saw thee, robed in purple flakes,
Break amorous through the clouds, as morning breaks,
And, swiftly as a bright Phoebean dart,
Strike for the Cretan isle; and here thou art!
Too gentle Hermes, hast thou found the maid?"
Whereat the star of Lethe not delay'd
His rosy eloquence, and thus inquired:
"Thou smooth-lipp'd serpent, surely high inspired!
Thou beauteous wreath, with melancholy eyes,
Possess whatever bliss thou canst devise,
Telling me only where my nymph is fled, -
Where she doth breathe!" "Bright planet, thou hast said,"
Return'd the snake, "but seal with oaths, fair God!"
"I swear," said Hermes, "by my serpent rod,
And by thine eyes, and by thy starry crown!"
Light flew his earnest words, among the blossoms blown.
Then thus again the brilliance feminine:
"Too frail of heart! for this lost nymph of thine,
Free as the air, invisibly, she strays
About these thornless wilds; her pleasant days
She tastes unseen; unseen her nimble feet
Leave traces in the grass and flowers sweet;
From weary tendrils, and bow'd branches green,
She plucks the fruit unseen, she bathes unseen:
And by my power is her beauty veil'd
To keep it unaffronted, unassail'd
By the love-glances of unlovely eyes,
Of Satyrs, Fauns, and blear'd Silenus' sighs.
Pale grew her immortality, for woe
Of all these lovers, and she grieved so
I took compassion on her, bade her steep
Her hair in weird syrops, that would keep
Her loveliness invisible, yet free
To wander as she loves, in liberty.
Thou shalt behold her, Hermes, thou alone,
If thou wilt, as thou swearest, grant my boon!"
Then, once again, the charmed God began
An oath, and through the serpent's ears it ran
Warm, tremulous, devout, psalterian.
Ravish'd, she lifted her Circean head,
Blush'd a live damask, and swift-lisping said,
"I was a woman, let me have once more
A woman's shape, and charming as before.
I love a youth of Corinth - O the bliss!
Give me my woman's form, and place me where he is.
Stoop, Hermes, let me breathe upon thy brow,
And thou shalt see thy sweet nymph even now."
The God on half-shut feathers sank serene,
She breath'd upon his eyes, and swift was seen
Of both the guarded nymph near-smiling on the green.
It was no dream; or say a dream it was,
Real are the dreams of Gods, and smoothly pass
Their pleasures in a long immortal dream.
One warm, flush'd moment, hovering, it might seem
Dash'd by the wood-nymph's beauty, so he burn'd;
Then, lighting on the printless verdure, turn'd
To the swoon'd serpent, and with languid arm,
Delicate, put to proof the lythe Caducean charm.
So done, upon the nymph his eyes he bent,
Full of adoring tears and blandishment,
And towards her stept: she, like a moon in wane,
Faded before him, cower'd, nor could restrain
Her fearful sobs, self-folding like a flower
That faints into itself at evening hour:
But the God fostering her chilled hand,
She felt the warmth, her eyelids open'd bland,
And, like new flowers at morning song of bees,
Bloom'd, and gave up her honey to the lees.
Into the green-recessed woods they flew;
Nor grew they pale, as mortal lovers do.
Left to herself, the serpent now began
To change; her elfin blood in madness ran,
Her mouth foam'd, and the grass, therewith besprent,
Wither'd at dew so sweet and virulent;
Her eyes in torture fix'd, and anguish drear,
Hot, glaz'd, and wide, with lid-lashes all sear,
Flash'd phosphor and sharp sparks, without one cooling tear.
The colours all inflam'd throughout her train,
She writh'd about, convuls'd with scarlet pain:
A deep volcanian yellow took the place
Of all her milder-mooned body's grace;
And, as the lava ravishes the mead,
Spoilt all her silver mail, and golden brede;
Made gloom of all her frecklings, streaks and bars,
Eclips'd her crescents, and lick'd up her stars:
So that, in moments few, she was undrest
Of all her sapphires, greens, and amethyst,
And rubious-argent: of all these bereft,
Nothing but pain and ugliness were left.
Still shone her crown; that vanish'd, also she
Melted and disappear'd as suddenly;
And in the air, her new voice luting soft,
Cried, "Lycius! gentle Lycius!" - Borne aloft
With the bright mists about the mountains hoar
These words dissolv'd: Crete's forests heard no more.
Whither fled Lamia, now a lady bright,
A full-born beauty new and exquisite?
She fled into that valley they pass o'er
Who go to Corinth from Cenchreas' shore;
And rested at the foot of those wild hills,
The rugged founts of the Peraean rills,
And of that other ridge whose barren back
Stretches, with all its mist and cloudy rack,
South-westward to Cleone. There she stood
About a young bird's flutter from a wood,
Fair, on a sloping green of mossy tread,
By a clear pool, wherein she passioned
To see herself escap'd from so sore ills,
While her robes flaunted with the daffodils.
Ah, happy Lycius! - for she was a maid
More beautiful than ever twisted braid,
Or sigh'd, or blush'd, or on spring-flowered lea
Spread a green kirtle to the minstrelsy:
A virgin purest lipp'd, yet in the lore
Of love deep learned to the red heart's core:
Not one hour old, yet of sciential brain
To unperplex bliss from its neighbour pain;
Define their pettish limits, and estrange
Their points of contact, and swift counterchange;
Intrigue with the specious chaos, and dispart
Its most ambiguous atoms with sure art;
As though in Cupid's college she had spent
Sweet days a lovely graduate, still unshent,
And kept his rosy terms in idle languishment.
Why this fair creature chose so fairily
By the wayside to linger, we shall see;
But first 'tis fit to tell how she could muse
And dream, when in the serpent prison-house,
Of all she list, strange or magnificent:
How, ever, where she will'd, her spirit went;
Whether to faint Elysium, or where
Down through tress-lifting waves the Nereids fair
Wind into Thetis' bower by many a pearly stair;
Or where God Bacchus drains his cups divine,
Stretch'd out, at ease, beneath a glutinous pine;
Or where in Pluto's gardens palatine
Mulciber's columns gleam in far piazzian line.
And sometimes into cities she would send
Her dream, with feast and rioting to blend;
And once, while among mortals dreaming thus,
She saw the young Corinthian Lycius
Charioting foremost in the envious race,
Like a young Jove with calm uneager face,
And fell into a swooning love of him.
Now on the moth-time of that evening dim
He would return that way, as well she knew,
To Corinth from the shore; for freshly blew
The eastern soft wind, and his galley now
Grated the quaystones with her brazen prow
In port Cenchreas, from Egina isle
Fresh anchor'd; whither he had been awhile
To sacrifice to Jove, whose temple there
Waits with high marble doors for blood and incense rare.
Jove heard his vows, and better'd his desire;
For by some freakful chance he made retire
From his companions, and set forth to walk,
Perhaps grown wearied of their Corinth talk:
Over the solitary hills he fared,
Thoughtless at first, but ere eve's star appeared
His phantasy was lost, where reason fades,
In the calm'd twilight of Platonic shades.
Lamia beheld him coming, near, more near -
Close to her passing, in indifference drear,
His silent sandals swept the mossy green;
So neighbour'd to him, and yet so unseen
She stood: he pass'd, shut up in mysteries,
His mind wrapp'd like his mantle, while her eyes
Follow'd his steps, and her neck regal white
Turn'd - syllabling thus, "Ah, Lycius bright,
And will you leave me on the hills alone?
Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown."
He did; not with cold wonder fearingly,
But Orpheus-like at an Eurydice;
For so delicious were the words she sung,
It seem'd he had lov'd them a whole summer long:
And soon his eyes had drunk her beauty up,
Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup,
And still the cup was full, - while he afraid
Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid
Due adoration, thus began to adore;
Her soft look growing coy, she saw his chain so sure:
"Leave thee alone! Look back! Ah, Goddess, see
Whether my eyes can ever turn from thee!
For pity do not this sad heart belie -
Even as thou vanishest so I shall die.
Stay! though a Naiad of the rivers, stay!
To thy far wishes will thy streams obey:
Stay! though the greenest woods be thy domain,
Alone they can drink up the morning rain:
Though a descended Pleiad, will not one
Of thine harmonious sisters keep in tune
Thy spheres, and as thy silver proxy shine?
So sweetly to these ravish'd ears of mine
Came thy sweet greeting, that if thou shouldst fade
Thy memory will waste me to a shade -
For pity do not melt!" - "If I should stay,"
Said Lamia, "here, upon this floor of clay,
And pain my steps upon these flowers too rough,
What canst thou say or do of charm enough
To dull the nice remembrance of my home?
Thou canst not ask me with thee here to roam
Over these hills and vales, where no joy is, -
Empty of immortality and bliss!
Thou art a scholar, Lycius, and must know
That finer spirits cannot breathe below
In human climes, and live: Alas! poor youth,
What taste of purer air hast thou to soothe
My essence? What serener palaces,
Where I may all my many senses please,
And by mysterious sleights a hundred thirsts appease?
It cannot be - Adieu!" So said, she rose
Tiptoe with white arms spread. He, sick to lose
The amorous promise of her lone complain,
Swoon'd, murmuring of love, and pale with pain.
The cruel lady, without any show
Of sorrow for her tender favourite's woe,
But rather, if her eyes could brighter be,
With brighter eyes and slow amenity,
Put her new lips to his, and gave afresh
The life she had so tangled in her mesh:
And as he from one trance was wakening
Into another, she began to sing,
Happy in beauty, life, and love, and every thing,
A song of love, too sweet for earthly lyres,
While, like held breath, the stars drew in their panting fires
And then she whisper'd in such trembling tone,
As those who, safe together met alone
For the first time through many anguish'd days,
Use other speech than looks; bidding him raise
His drooping head, and clear his soul of doubt,
For that she was a woman, and without
Any more subtle fluid in her veins
Than throbbing blood, and that the self-same pains
Inhabited her frail-strung heart as his.
And next she wonder'd how his eyes could miss
Her face so long in Corinth, where, she said,
She dwelt but half retir'd, and there had led
Days happy as the gold coin could invent
Without the aid of love; yet in content
Till she saw him, as once she pass'd him by,
Where 'gainst a column he leant thoughtfully
At Venus' temple porch, 'mid baskets heap'd
Of amorous herbs and flowers, newly reap'd
Late on that eve, as 'twas the night before
The Adonian feast; whereof she saw no more,
But wept alone those days, for why should she adore?
Lycius from death awoke into amaze,
To see her still, and singing so sweet lays;
Then from amaze into delight he fell
To hear her whisper woman's lore so well;
And every word she spake entic'd him on
To unperplex'd delight and pleasure known.
Let the mad poets say whate'er they please
Of the sweets of Fairies, Peris, Goddesses,
There is not such a treat among them all,
Haunters of cavern, lake, and waterfall,
As a real woman, lineal indeed
From Pyrrha's pebbles or old Adam's seed.
Thus gentle Lamia judg'd, and judg'd aright,
That Lycius could not love in half a fright,
So threw the goddess off, and won his heart
More pleasantly by playing woman's part,
With no more awe than what her beauty gave,
That, while it smote, still guaranteed to save.
Lycius to all made eloquent reply,
Marrying to every word a twinborn sigh;
And last, pointing to Corinth, ask'd her sweet,
If 'twas too far that night for her soft feet.
The way was short, for Lamia's eagerness
Made, by a spell, the triple league decrease
To a few paces; not at all surmised
By blinded Lycius, so in her comprized.
They pass'd the city gates, he knew not how
So noiseless, and he never thought to know.
As men talk in a dream, so Corinth all,
Throughout her palaces imperial,
And all her populous streets and temples lewd,
Mutter'd, like tempest in the distance brew'd,
To the wide-spreaded night above her towers.
Men, women, rich and poor, in the cool hours,
Shuffled their sandals o'er the pavement white,
Companion'd or alone; while many a light
Flared, here and there, from wealthy festivals,
And threw their moving shadows on the walls,
Or found them cluster'd in the corniced shade
Of some arch'd temple door, or dusky colonnade.
Muffling his face, of greeting friends in fear,
Her fingers he press'd hard, as one came near
With curl'd gray beard, sharp eyes, and smooth bald crown,
Slow-stepp'd, and robed in philosophic gown:
Lycius shrank closer, as they met and past,
Into his mantle, adding wings to haste,
While hurried Lamia trembled: "Ah," said he,
"Why do you shudder, love, so ruefully?
Why does your tender palm dissolve in dew?" -
"I'm wearied," said fair Lamia: "tell me who
Is that old man? I cannot bring to mind
His features - Lycius! wherefore did you blind
Yourself from his quick eyes?" Lycius replied,
'Tis Apollonius sage, my trusty guide
And good instructor; but to-night he seems
The ghost of folly haunting my sweet dreams.
While yet he spake they had arrived before
A pillar'd porch, with lofty portal door,
Where hung a silver lamp, whose phosphor glow
Reflected in the slabbed steps below,
Mild as a star in water; for so new,
And so unsullied was the marble hue,
So through the crystal polish, liquid fine,
Ran the dark veins, that none but feet divine
Could e'er have touch'd there. Sounds Aeolian
Breath'd from the hinges, as the ample span
Of the wide doors disclos'd a place unknown
Some time to any, but those two alone,
And a few Persian mutes, who that same year
Were seen about the markets: none knew where
They could inhabit; the most curious
Were foil'd, who watch'd to trace them to their house:
And but the flitter-winged verse must tell,
For truth's sake, what woe afterwards befel,
'Twould humour many a heart to leave them thus,
Shut from the busy world of more incredulous.
Part II
love in a hut, with water and a crust,
Is - Love, forgive us! - cinders, ashes, dust;
Love in a palace is perhaps at last
More grievous torment than a hermit's fast -
That is a doubtful tale from faery land,
Hard for the non-elect to understand.
Had Lycius liv'd to hand his story down,
He might have given the moral a fresh frown,
Or clench'd it quite: but too short was their bliss
To breed distrust and hate, that make the soft voice hiss.
Besides, there, nightly, with terrific glare,
Love, jealous grown of so complete a pair,
Hover'd and buzz'd his wings, with fearful roar,
Above the lintel of their chamber door,
And down the passage cast a glow upon the floor.
For all this came a ruin: side by side
They were enthroned, in the even tide,
Upon a couch, near to a curtaining
Whose airy texture, from a golden string,
Floated into the room, and let appear
Unveil'd the summer heaven, blue and clear,
Betwixt two marble shafts: - there they reposed,
Where use had made it sweet, with eyelids closed,
Saving a tythe which love still open kept,
That they might see each other while they almost slept;
When from the slope side of a suburb hill,
Deafening the swallow's twitter, came a thrill
Of trumpets - Lycius started - the sounds fled,
But left a thought, a buzzing in his head.
For the first time, since first he harbour'd in
That purple-lined palace of sweet sin,
His spirit pass'd beyond its golden bourn
Into the noisy world almost forsworn.
The lady, ever watchful, penetrant,
Saw this with pain, so arguing a want
Of something more, more than her empery
Of joys; and she began to moan and sigh
Because he mused beyond her, knowing well
That but a moment's thought is passion's passing bell.
"Why do you sigh, fair creature?" whisper'd he:
"Why do you think?" return'd she tenderly:
"You have deserted me - where am I now?
Not in your heart while care weighs on your brow:
No, no, you have dismiss'd me; and I go
From your breast houseless: ay, it must be so."
He answer'd, bending to her open eyes,
Where he was mirror'd small in paradise,
My silver planet, both of eve and morn!
Why will you plead yourself so sad forlorn,
While I am striving how to fill my heart
With deeper crimson, and a double smart?
How to entangle, trammel up and snare
Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there
Like the hid scent in an unbudded rose?
Ay, a sweet kiss - you see your mighty woes.
My thoughts! shall I unveil them? Listen then!
What mortal hath a prize, that other men
May be confounded and abash'd withal,
But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical,
And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice
Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth's voice.
Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar,
While through the thronged streets your bridal car
Wheels round its dazzling spokes." The lady's cheek
Trembled; she nothing said, but, pale and meek,
Arose and knelt before him, wept a rain
Of sorrows at his words; at last with pain
Beseeching him, the while his hand she wrung,
To change his purpose. He thereat was stung,
Perverse, with stronger fancy to reclaim
Her wild and timid nature to his aim:
Besides, for all his love, in self despite,
Against his better self, he took delight
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new.
His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue
Fierce and sanguineous as 'twas possible
In one whose brow had no dark veins to swell.
Fine was the mitigated fury, like
Apollo's presence when in act to strike
The serpent - Ha, the serpent! certes, she
Was none. She burnt, she lov'd the tyranny,
And, all subdued, consented to the hour
When to the bridal he should lead his paramour.
Whispering in midnight silence, said the youth,
"Sure some sweet name thou hast, though, by my truth,
I have not ask'd it, ever thinking thee
Not mortal, but of heavenly progeny,
As still I do. Hast any mortal name,
Fit appellation for this dazzling frame?
Or friends or kinsfolk on the citied earth,
To share our marriage feast and nuptial mirth?"
"I have no friends," said Lamia," no, not one;
My presence in wide Corinth hardly known:
My parents' bones are in their dusty urns
Sepulchred, where no kindled incense burns,
Seeing all their luckless race are dead, save me,
And I neglect the holy rite for thee.
Even as you list invite your many guests;
But if, as now it seems, your vision rests
With any pleasure on me, do not bid
Old Apollonius - from him keep me hid."
Lycius, perplex'd at words so blind and blank,
Made close inquiry; from whose touch she shrank,
Feigning a sleep; and he to the dull shade
Of deep sleep in a moment was betray'd
It was the custom then to bring away
The bride from home at blushing shut of day,
Veil'd, in a chariot, heralded along
By strewn flowers, torches, and a marriage song,
With other pageants: but this fair unknown
Had not a friend. So being left alone,
(Lycius was gone to summon all his kin)
And knowing surely she could never win
His foolish heart from its mad pompousness,
She set herself, high-thoughted, how to dress
The misery in fit magnificence.
She did so, but 'tis doubtful how and whence
Came, and who were her subtle servitors.
About the halls, and to and from the doors,
There was a noise of wings, till in short space
The glowing banquet-room shone with wide-arched grace.
A haunting music, sole perhaps and lone
Supportress of the faery-roof, made moan
Throughout, as fearful the whole charm might fade.
Fresh carved cedar, mimicking a glade
Of palm and plantain, met from either side,
High in the midst, in honour of the bride:
Two palms and then two plantains, and so on,
From either side their stems branch'd one to one
All down the aisled place; and beneath all
There ran a stream of lamps straight on from wall to wall.
So canopied, lay an untasted feast
Teeming with odours. Lamia, regal drest,
Silently paced about, and as she went,
In pale contented sort of discontent,
Mission'd her viewless servants to enrich
The fretted splendour of each nook and niche.
Between the tree-stems, marbled plain at first,
Came jasper pannels; then, anon, there burst
Forth creeping imagery of slighter trees,
And with the larger wove in small intricacies.
Approving all, she faded at self-will,
And shut the chamber up, close, hush'd and still,
Complete and ready for the revels rude,
When dreadful guests would come to spoil her solitude.
The day appear'd, and all the gossip rout.
O senseless Lycius! Madman! wherefore flout
The silent-blessing fate, warm cloister'd hours,
And show to common eyes these secret bowers?
The herd approach'd; each guest, with busy brain,
Arriving at the portal, gaz'd amain,
And enter'd marveling: for they knew the street,
Remember'd it from childhood all complete
Without a gap, yet ne'er before had seen
That royal porch, that high-built fair demesne;
So in they hurried all, maz'd, curious and keen:
Save one, who look'd thereon with eye severe,
And with calm-planted steps walk'd in austere;
'Twas Apollonius: something too he laugh'd,
As though some knotty problem, that had daft
His patient thought, had now begun to thaw,
And solve and melt - 'twas just as he foresaw.
He met within the murmurous vestibule
His young disciple. "'Tis no common rule,
Lycius," said he, "for uninvited guest
To force himself upon you, and infest
With an unbidden presence the bright throng
Of younger friends; yet must I do this wrong,
And you forgive me." Lycius blush'd, and led
The old man through the inner doors broad-spread;
With reconciling words and courteous mien
Turning into sweet milk the sophist's spleen.
Of wealthy lustre was the banquet-room,
Fill'd with pervading brilliance and perfume:
Before each lucid pannel fuming stood
A censer fed with myrrh and spiced wood,
Each by a sacred tripod held aloft,
Whose slender feet wide-swerv'd upon the soft
Wool-woofed carpets: fifty wreaths of smoke
From fifty censers their light voyage took
To the high roof, still mimick'd as they rose
Along the mirror'd walls by twin-clouds odorous.
Twelve sphered tables, by silk seats insphered,
High as the level of a man's breast rear'd
On libbard's paws, upheld the heavy gold
Of cups and goblets, and the store thrice told
Of Ceres' horn, and, in huge vessels, wine
Come from the gloomy tun with merry shine.
Thus loaded with a feast the tables stood,
Each shrining in the midst the image of a God.
When in an antichamber every guest
Had felt the cold full sponge to pleasure press'd,
By minist'ring slaves, upon his hands and feet,
And fragrant oils with ceremony meet
Pour'd on his hair, they all mov'd to the feast
In white robes, and themselves in order placed
Around the silken couches, wondering
Whence all this mighty cost and blaze of wealth could spring.
Soft went the music the soft air along,
While fluent Greek a vowel'd undersong
Kept up among the guests discoursing low
At first, for scarcely was the wine at flow;
But when the happy vintage touch'd their brains,
Louder they talk, and louder come the strains
Of powerful instruments - the gorgeous dyes,
The space, the splendour of the draperies,
The roof of awful richness, nectarous cheer,
Beautiful slaves, and Lamia's self, appear,
Now, when the wine has done its rosy deed,
And every soul from human trammels freed,
No more so strange; for merry wine, sweet wine,
Will make Elysian shades not too fair, too divine.
Soon was God Bacchus at meridian height;
Flush'd were their cheeks, and bright eyes double bright:
Garlands of every green, and every scent
From vales deflower'd, or forest-trees branch rent,
In baskets of bright osier'd gold were brought
High as the handles heap'd, to suit the thought
Of every guest; that each, as he did please,
Might fancy-fit his brows, silk-pillow'd at his ease.
What wreath for Lamia? What for Lycius?
What for the sage, old Apollonius?
Upon her aching forehead be there hung
The leaves of willow and of adder's tongue;
And for the youth, quick, let us strip for him
The thyrsus, that his watching eyes may swim
Into forgetfulness; and, for the sage,
Let spear-grass and the spiteful thistle wage
War on his temples. Do not all charms fly
At the mere touch of cold philosophy?
There was an awful rainbow once in heaven:
We know her woof, her texture; she is given
In the dull catalogue of common things.
Philosophy will clip an Angel's wings,
Conquer all mysteries by rule and line,
Empty the haunted air, and gnomed mine -
Unweave a rainbow, as it erewhile made
The tender-person'd Lamia melt into a shade.
By her glad Lycius sitting, in chief place,
Scarce saw in all the room another face,
Till, checking his love trance, a cup he took
Full brimm'd, and opposite sent forth a look
'Cross the broad table, to beseech a glance
From his old teacher's wrinkled countenance,
And pledge him. The bald-head philosopher
Had fix'd his eye, without a twinkle or stir
Full on the alarmed beauty of the bride,
Brow-beating her fair form, and troubling her sweet pride.
Lycius then press'd her hand, with devout touch,
As pale it lay upon the rosy couch:
'Twas icy, and the cold ran through his veins;
Then sudden it grew hot, and all the pains
Of an unnatural heat shot to his heart.
"Lamia, what means this? Wherefore dost thou start?
Know'st thou that man?" Poor Lamia answer'd not.
He gaz'd into her eyes, and not a jot
Own'd they the lovelorn piteous appeal:
More, more he gaz'd: his human senses reel:
Some hungry spell that loveliness absorbs;
There was no recognition in those orbs.
"Lamia!" he cried - and no soft-toned reply.
The many heard, and the loud revelry
Grew hush; the stately music no more breathes;
The myrtle sicken'd in a thousand wreaths.
By faint degrees, voice, lute, and pleasure ceased;
A deadly silence step by step increased,
Until it seem'd a horrid presence there,
And not a man but felt the terror in his hair.
"Lamia!" he shriek'd; and nothing but the shriek
With its sad echo did the silence break.
"Begone, foul dream!" he cried, gazing again
In the bride's face, where now no azure vein
Wander'd on fair-spaced temples; no soft bloom
Misted the cheek; no passion to illume
The deep-recessed vision - all was blight;
Lamia, no longer fair, there sat a deadly white.
"Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man!
Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban
Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images
Here represent their shadowy presences,
May pierce them on the sudden with the thorn
Of painful blindness; leaving thee forlorn,
In trembling dotage to the feeblest fright
Of conscience, for their long offended might,
For all thine impious proud-heart sophistries,
Unlawful magic, and enticing lies.
Corinthians! look upon that gray-beard wretch!
Mark how, possess'd, his lashless eyelids stretch
Around his demon eyes! Corinthians, see!
My sweet bride withers at their potency."
"Fool!" said the sophist, in an under-tone
Gruff with contempt; which a death-nighing moan
From Lycius answer'd, as heart-struck and lost,
He sank supine beside the aching ghost.
"Fool! Fool!" repeated he, while his eyes still
Relented not, nor mov'd; "from every ill
Of life have I preserv'd thee to this day,
And shall I see thee made a serpent's prey?"
Then Lamia breath'd death breath; the sophist's eye,
Like a sharp spear, went through her utterly,
Keen, cruel, perceant, stinging: she, as well
As her weak hand could any meaning tell,
Motion'd him to be silent; vainly so,
He look'd and look'd again a level - No!
"A Serpent!" echoed he; no sooner said,
Than with a frightful scream she vanished:
And Lycius' arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life, from that same night.
On the high couch he lay! - his friends came round
Supported him - no pulse, or breath they found,
And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.
Lovecraft`s and Bastet
This is an excerpt from H.P.Lovecraft`s "Cats and dogs" article! I think it`s the final paragraph from the article.
Photobucket
"Beauty, sufficiency, ease, and good manners -what more can civilisation require? We have them all in the divine monarch who lounges gloriously on his silken cushion before the hearth. Loveliness and joy for their own sake -- pride and harmony and coordination -- spirit, restfulness and completeness -- all here
are present, and need but a sympathetic disillusionment for worship in full measure. What fully civilised soul but would eagerly serve as high priest of Bast? The star of the cat, I think, is just now in the ascendant, as we emerge
little by little from the dreams of ethics and conformity which clouded the nineteenth century and raised the grubbing and unlovely dog to the pinnacle of sentimental regard. Whether a renaissance of power and beauty will restore our Western civilisation, or whether the forces of disintegration are already too powerful for any hand to check, none may yet say, but in the present moment of cynical world-unmasking between the pretence of the eighteen-hundreds and the ominous mystery of the decades ahead we have at least a flash of the old pagan
perspective and the old pagan clearness and honesty.
And one idol lit up by that flash, seen fair and lovely on a dream-throne of silk and gold under a chryselephantine dome, is a shape of deathless grace not always given its due among groping mortals -- the haughty, the unconquered, the mysterious, the luxurious, the Babylonian, the impersonal, the eternal companion of superiority and art -- the type of perfect beauty and the brother of poetry
-- the bland, grave, compliant, and patrician cat."
Photobucket
"Beauty, sufficiency, ease, and good manners -what more can civilisation require? We have them all in the divine monarch who lounges gloriously on his silken cushion before the hearth. Loveliness and joy for their own sake -- pride and harmony and coordination -- spirit, restfulness and completeness -- all here
are present, and need but a sympathetic disillusionment for worship in full measure. What fully civilised soul but would eagerly serve as high priest of Bast? The star of the cat, I think, is just now in the ascendant, as we emerge
little by little from the dreams of ethics and conformity which clouded the nineteenth century and raised the grubbing and unlovely dog to the pinnacle of sentimental regard. Whether a renaissance of power and beauty will restore our Western civilisation, or whether the forces of disintegration are already too powerful for any hand to check, none may yet say, but in the present moment of cynical world-unmasking between the pretence of the eighteen-hundreds and the ominous mystery of the decades ahead we have at least a flash of the old pagan
perspective and the old pagan clearness and honesty.
And one idol lit up by that flash, seen fair and lovely on a dream-throne of silk and gold under a chryselephantine dome, is a shape of deathless grace not always given its due among groping mortals -- the haughty, the unconquered, the mysterious, the luxurious, the Babylonian, the impersonal, the eternal companion of superiority and art -- the type of perfect beauty and the brother of poetry
-- the bland, grave, compliant, and patrician cat."
Melancholy
One day, a very good friend of mine, a kind and helpful man, told me that while we were walk in his beautiful garden:
"There are very dark times when I remain surprisingly calm and I don`t loose my head.
Although I am a very sensible person, I appear very cold to my closest friends.
Sometimes this coldness surprises even me.
In the periods of darkness I never lose my reason.You could say that I never loose my head.
I always have something of a child inside... and that drives me through and leads me towards my future child.I know I will have one.
...or maybe I just feed with my own melancholy..."
"There are very dark times when I remain surprisingly calm and I don`t loose my head.
Although I am a very sensible person, I appear very cold to my closest friends.
Sometimes this coldness surprises even me.
In the periods of darkness I never lose my reason.You could say that I never loose my head.
I always have something of a child inside... and that drives me through and leads me towards my future child.I know I will have one.
...or maybe I just feed with my own melancholy..."
Mnemosyne
Mnemosyne
by Holderlin
—Third version
The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire,
Cooked and sampled on earth. And there's a law,
That things crawl off in the manner of snakes,
Prophetically, dreaming on the hills of heaven.
And there is much that needs to be retained,
Like a load of wood on the shoulders.
But the pathways are dangerous.
The captured elements and ancient laws of earth
Run astray like horses. There is a constant yearning
For all that is unconfined. But much needs
To be retained. And loyalty is required.
Yet we mustn't look forwards or backwards.
We should let ourselves be cradled
As if on a boat rocking on a lake.
But what about things that we love?
We see sun shining on the ground, and the dry dust,
And at home the forests deep with shadows,
And smoke flowering from the rooftops,
Peacefully, near the ancient crowning towers.
These signs of daily life are good,
Even when by contrast something divine
Has injured the soul.
For snow sparkles on an alpine meadow,
Half-covered with green, signifying generosity
Of spirit in all situations, like flowers in May —
A wanderer walks up above on a high trail
And speaks irritably to a friend about a cross
He sees in the distance, set for someone
Who died on the path... what does it mean?
My Achilles
Died near a fig tree,
And Ajax lies in the caves of the sea
Near the streams of Skamandros —
Great Ajax died abroad
Following Salamis' inflexible customs,
A rushing sound at his temples —
But Patroclus died in the King's armor.
Many others died as well.
But Eleutherai, the city
Of Mnemosyne, once stood upon
Mount Kithaeron. Evening
Loosened her hair, after the god
Had removed his coat.
For the gods are displeased
If a person doesn't compose
And spare himself.
But one has to do it,
And grief is soon gone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Once gods walked…
by Holderlin
Once gods walked among humans,
The splendid Muses and youthful Apollo
Inspired and healed us, just like you.
And you are to me as if one of the Holy Ones
Had sent me forth into life, and the image
Of my beloved goes with me,
And wherever I stay and whatever I learn,
I learned and gained it from her,
With a love that lasts until death.
Then let us live, you with whom I suffer
And inwardly strive towards better times
In faith and loyalty. For we are the ones.
And if people should remember us both
In years to come, when Spirit again prevails,
They'd say that these lonely ones lovingly
Created a secret world, known to the gods alone.
The earth will take back those concerned
With impermanent things: others climb higher
To ethereal Light who've been faithful
To the love inside themselves, and to the spirit
Of the gods. Thus they master Fate
In patience, hope and quietness.
ROMANIAN SKY DRAGONS & CELESTIAL SERPENTS
-an article by Alastair McBeath & Andrei Dorian Gheorghe,
first published in The Dragon Chronicle,
Number 12, April 1998-
The Draco Constellation
In a recent issue of The Dragon Chronicle we discussed the Romanian Sky Myth
(McBeath & Gheorghe 1997), and saw the central role the Dragon
played in creating the Milky Way.
In Romania, as across the modern western world, this dragon
was portrayed in the constellations as Draco.
Here, we present a short review of the old Romanian interpretations of
the other sky dragon and celestial serpent star-patterns, except Hydrus, which
were the subject of an earlier Dragon Chronicle series (McBeath 1996a, b, 1997).
The funeral camera of Seti I in Luxor.
Two of these constellations have been identified with the modern ones: The ox (that are the Great Bear),
the circumpolar in Egypt, and the Crocodile and Hipopótamo (Dragoon and the Little Bear).
Surprisingly, Cetus and Hydra do not figure at all prominently in
Romanian sky lore, although Serpens and Ophiuchus combined appears as
one giant constellation, Sarpele, the Serpent. Ion Ottescu (1907) suggested that
the Romanian peasants were primarily interested in stars and constellations as
a means of timing during the most important part of the agricultural year,
chiefly the period between June to September,most notably July-August.
They looked at the risings of certain stars and constellations,
and their positions at midnight and dawn, and used those as
signposts for their work in the fields.
Neither Cetus nor Hydra are easy to see at such a time.
As Ottescu puts it, “Only the shepherds are interested in the rest of the year”!
Cetus has a slight advantage over Hydra,
modernly rising completely before dawn by the July-August boundary.
In the past, its rising time would have been somewhat more favourable,
as the position on the ecliptic where the Sun lies at midsummer was east of where
it now lies, in Gemini or Cancer between 2000 to 3000 years ago, for instance.
The solstice point is now reached near the Taurus-Gemini border.
As a result, Cetus is the better-known of the pair, and is called Chitul, the Whale,
perceived as the great fish that swallowed the prophet Jonah for three days
(cf. Wansbrough 1994, pp.1541-1542; Jonah 2:1-11).
However, this enormous sea creature links back to Tiamat, as one of the creatures
of the deep, and a symbol of the Sea itself, conquered by the god Yahweh
(e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.765, note f).
Yahweh here, in a sense, echoes Marduk’s defeat of Tiamat,
from the earlier Mesopotamian myth (cf. Dalley 1989, pp.228-277),
and the fish becomes Yahweh’s tool, much as Marduk’s symbol in
Mesopotamian iconography was the mushussu dragon.
The most prominent part of Hydra, the “head to heart” section,
still modernly lies not far from the summer solstice point.
As a consequence, this part of Hydra is invisible to northern hemisphere sites
for much of the summer today.
In the past, the problem was still more severe, and was at its worst around
3000 years ago, when the summer solstice occurred in the constellation of Cancer,
directly over the head of Hydra. Presumably because of this,
Hydra has only two partial representatives in Romanian tales.
Firstly, she appears as a zmeoaica, a many-headed dragon-woman,
who had poisonous breath, making her quite similar to the Greek hydra.
In some respects, she is perhaps closer to a cross between the Greek hydra
and the gorgon Medusa.
Her second incarnation is as Gheonoaia, a giant bird-woman,
who could unleash a wind by flapping her wings that could fell the trees.
Gheonoaia has a sister called Scorpia, a flying serpent-woman able to
pour out fire and burning pitch from her mouth.
Both the zmeoaica and Gheonoaia (and Scorpia too) are enemies that
the major Romanian hero Fat Frumos, “Beautiful Boy”,
has to overcome in separate myths.
Fat Frumos is a hero figure who is equated with the constellation of The Man,
Omul, in Romanian sky lore.
He is also similar to the Greek Herakles - who appears in the sky as Hercules,
the same constellation that Fat Frumos is associated with.
When we look at Serpens/Sarpele the Serpent, we find a much more complex
symbol in the Romanian myths.
As a star-pattern, it is much larger than the western Serpens,
as it includes Ophiuchus, and forms a large coil shape in the sky,
with its head just under Corona Borealis (where we find Serpens’ head too).
This region of sky lies almost opposite the summer solstice point, and as a
consequence, is visible almost all night during the summer - and was even
2000-3000 years ago - which accounts for its greater prominence
in Romanian sky lore.
With the overlain Christian symbolism found in many of the
Romanian constellations, this Serpent becomes the snake that tempted Eve
at the garden in Eden (Genesis 3:1-15; e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.20).
A later Romanian belief translated Sarpele into the Road of Lost Men, i.e.
where sinners stray, afraid of the Second Coming of the Christian Messiah
and his Judgement.
There are several curious points about this.
On a physical level, the region of Ophiuchus-Serpens leads away westwards
from the brighter regions of the Milky Way, and so can literally be interpreted as
a “path” of stars leading off into the “darkness” away from the Milky Way.
The Milky Way itself is frequently perceived as an important, often royal,
road in the sky, sometimes one which dead souls must traverse after leaving
the Earth (cf. Allen 1963, pp.474-485; Olcott 1911, pp.391-398).
The Milky Way occasionally features mythically as a huge serpent as well,
but we will not pursue this point further here.
The constellation representing Eve’s tempting snake is frequently thought of
as Draco, although there is often confusion in trying to discover which of
the sky’s dragons may have been meant by the various biblical allusions
to such creatures (see for instance the discussion in Allen 1963, pp.202-203).
It is quite possible either Serpens/Sarpele or Draco would serve equally well.
As a coiling serpent, Sarpele might perhaps better be seen as the “crooked serpent”
found in the King James’ translation of the Bible (Job 25:13), although
more accurate modern translations suggest this should be “Fleeing Serpent”
(e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.785).
As the Serpent in the Romanian Sky Myth was banished by the use of Hora,
the Ring Dance (see McBeath & Gheorghe 1997), the idea that
the “Fleeing Serpent” could be Sarpele/Serpens is certainly an interesting one.
Such an active term is distinctly more appropriate to the rapid motion of a
constellation across the southern sky during the night, than the apparently
very sluggish rotation of Draco near the celestial pole.
Wansbrough (1994; p.759, notes d and e) also indicates that this Serpent
was Leviathan, for which he additionally gives the term Dragon as synonymous.
He describes Leviathan as “a monster of primeval chaos” and further suggests
that this was the creature that swallowed the Sun in eclipses.
Again, we come back to Tiamat and the dragon.
Symbolically, we find two principal representations in the Romanian tales.
The first, and most important, is as a cunning, malevolent character (not
dissimilar to some of trickster/controller figures found in mythologies worldwide).
Tudor Pamfile’s folklore quotation in (Kernbach 1983) amends the
biblical temptation of Eve: “‘Listen to me, Eve’, said the Snake. ‘Adam thinks
we have fallen in love, and wants to separate us.’”; is one example.
Another comes from the ballad “The Snake” (collected by T. Balasel
from Oltenia in southern Romania).
Here, a mother curses her son to be “of the Snake”, because of the pains
he tortured her with at his birth.
When the boy grows up to be a young man, a great snake born the same day
as him appears, and swallows half of him.
Fortunately, the brave hero Dobrisan awakes in time to discover what is happening,
cuts open the snake, rescues the boy and purifies him by washing him in milk.
This echoes the biblical tale again, in that Eve’s punishment for being tempted
by the snake was to always suffer intense agonies in childbirth
(Genesis 3:16; e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.20).
Milk as an anti-venom substance was discussed earlier in
(McBeath & Gheorghe 1997).
The second Romanian snake symbol concerns a small,
non-venomous type called Sarpele Casei, the “House Snake”.
Tudor Pamfile in (Kernsbach 1983) notes: “When the [house] snake flees
from a house, that house will remain unlived-in”, as a traditional Romanian belief.
There is a lower-level hint here of a belief similar to that in which if the ravens
leave the Tower of London, then England will cease to exist.
This belief seems to derive ultimately from the Celtic deity Bran the Blessed,
whose sacred bird was the raven, and whose head was thought to be buried in a hill,
perhaps Tower Hill, near London, protecting England from her enemies.
Something of this deity and his exploits can also be found in Romanian myths,
but that is another story.
………………………………………………….
ASTROPOETICAL FANTASY
-astropoem by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-
“In the Romanian tradition, he who is pricked by a venomous monster
can be purified by milk.”
Cetus, Hydra and Serpens
Made a monstrous coalition
To destroy the Milky Way,
But every time the noble stars
Drive them away.
Then the Milky Way
Purifies the sky
From their poison,
Giving us fortunate mornings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two interesting links related to Draco Constellation and the ancient cult of the serpent in Pre-Tracia, Mesopotamia and Egypt:
D R A C O - Mythology and history
Origins of snake worship
first published in The Dragon Chronicle,
Number 12, April 1998-
The Draco Constellation
In a recent issue of The Dragon Chronicle we discussed the Romanian Sky Myth
(McBeath & Gheorghe 1997), and saw the central role the Dragon
played in creating the Milky Way.
In Romania, as across the modern western world, this dragon
was portrayed in the constellations as Draco.
Here, we present a short review of the old Romanian interpretations of
the other sky dragon and celestial serpent star-patterns, except Hydrus, which
were the subject of an earlier Dragon Chronicle series (McBeath 1996a, b, 1997).
The funeral camera of Seti I in Luxor.
Two of these constellations have been identified with the modern ones: The ox (that are the Great Bear),
the circumpolar in Egypt, and the Crocodile and Hipopótamo (Dragoon and the Little Bear).
Surprisingly, Cetus and Hydra do not figure at all prominently in
Romanian sky lore, although Serpens and Ophiuchus combined appears as
one giant constellation, Sarpele, the Serpent. Ion Ottescu (1907) suggested that
the Romanian peasants were primarily interested in stars and constellations as
a means of timing during the most important part of the agricultural year,
chiefly the period between June to September,most notably July-August.
They looked at the risings of certain stars and constellations,
and their positions at midnight and dawn, and used those as
signposts for their work in the fields.
Neither Cetus nor Hydra are easy to see at such a time.
As Ottescu puts it, “Only the shepherds are interested in the rest of the year”!
Cetus has a slight advantage over Hydra,
modernly rising completely before dawn by the July-August boundary.
In the past, its rising time would have been somewhat more favourable,
as the position on the ecliptic where the Sun lies at midsummer was east of where
it now lies, in Gemini or Cancer between 2000 to 3000 years ago, for instance.
The solstice point is now reached near the Taurus-Gemini border.
As a result, Cetus is the better-known of the pair, and is called Chitul, the Whale,
perceived as the great fish that swallowed the prophet Jonah for three days
(cf. Wansbrough 1994, pp.1541-1542; Jonah 2:1-11).
However, this enormous sea creature links back to Tiamat, as one of the creatures
of the deep, and a symbol of the Sea itself, conquered by the god Yahweh
(e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.765, note f).
Yahweh here, in a sense, echoes Marduk’s defeat of Tiamat,
from the earlier Mesopotamian myth (cf. Dalley 1989, pp.228-277),
and the fish becomes Yahweh’s tool, much as Marduk’s symbol in
Mesopotamian iconography was the mushussu dragon.
The most prominent part of Hydra, the “head to heart” section,
still modernly lies not far from the summer solstice point.
As a consequence, this part of Hydra is invisible to northern hemisphere sites
for much of the summer today.
In the past, the problem was still more severe, and was at its worst around
3000 years ago, when the summer solstice occurred in the constellation of Cancer,
directly over the head of Hydra. Presumably because of this,
Hydra has only two partial representatives in Romanian tales.
Firstly, she appears as a zmeoaica, a many-headed dragon-woman,
who had poisonous breath, making her quite similar to the Greek hydra.
In some respects, she is perhaps closer to a cross between the Greek hydra
and the gorgon Medusa.
Her second incarnation is as Gheonoaia, a giant bird-woman,
who could unleash a wind by flapping her wings that could fell the trees.
Gheonoaia has a sister called Scorpia, a flying serpent-woman able to
pour out fire and burning pitch from her mouth.
Both the zmeoaica and Gheonoaia (and Scorpia too) are enemies that
the major Romanian hero Fat Frumos, “Beautiful Boy”,
has to overcome in separate myths.
Fat Frumos is a hero figure who is equated with the constellation of The Man,
Omul, in Romanian sky lore.
He is also similar to the Greek Herakles - who appears in the sky as Hercules,
the same constellation that Fat Frumos is associated with.
When we look at Serpens/Sarpele the Serpent, we find a much more complex
symbol in the Romanian myths.
As a star-pattern, it is much larger than the western Serpens,
as it includes Ophiuchus, and forms a large coil shape in the sky,
with its head just under Corona Borealis (where we find Serpens’ head too).
This region of sky lies almost opposite the summer solstice point, and as a
consequence, is visible almost all night during the summer - and was even
2000-3000 years ago - which accounts for its greater prominence
in Romanian sky lore.
With the overlain Christian symbolism found in many of the
Romanian constellations, this Serpent becomes the snake that tempted Eve
at the garden in Eden (Genesis 3:1-15; e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.20).
A later Romanian belief translated Sarpele into the Road of Lost Men, i.e.
where sinners stray, afraid of the Second Coming of the Christian Messiah
and his Judgement.
There are several curious points about this.
On a physical level, the region of Ophiuchus-Serpens leads away westwards
from the brighter regions of the Milky Way, and so can literally be interpreted as
a “path” of stars leading off into the “darkness” away from the Milky Way.
The Milky Way itself is frequently perceived as an important, often royal,
road in the sky, sometimes one which dead souls must traverse after leaving
the Earth (cf. Allen 1963, pp.474-485; Olcott 1911, pp.391-398).
The Milky Way occasionally features mythically as a huge serpent as well,
but we will not pursue this point further here.
The constellation representing Eve’s tempting snake is frequently thought of
as Draco, although there is often confusion in trying to discover which of
the sky’s dragons may have been meant by the various biblical allusions
to such creatures (see for instance the discussion in Allen 1963, pp.202-203).
It is quite possible either Serpens/Sarpele or Draco would serve equally well.
As a coiling serpent, Sarpele might perhaps better be seen as the “crooked serpent”
found in the King James’ translation of the Bible (Job 25:13), although
more accurate modern translations suggest this should be “Fleeing Serpent”
(e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.785).
As the Serpent in the Romanian Sky Myth was banished by the use of Hora,
the Ring Dance (see McBeath & Gheorghe 1997), the idea that
the “Fleeing Serpent” could be Sarpele/Serpens is certainly an interesting one.
Such an active term is distinctly more appropriate to the rapid motion of a
constellation across the southern sky during the night, than the apparently
very sluggish rotation of Draco near the celestial pole.
Wansbrough (1994; p.759, notes d and e) also indicates that this Serpent
was Leviathan, for which he additionally gives the term Dragon as synonymous.
He describes Leviathan as “a monster of primeval chaos” and further suggests
that this was the creature that swallowed the Sun in eclipses.
Again, we come back to Tiamat and the dragon.
Symbolically, we find two principal representations in the Romanian tales.
The first, and most important, is as a cunning, malevolent character (not
dissimilar to some of trickster/controller figures found in mythologies worldwide).
Tudor Pamfile’s folklore quotation in (Kernbach 1983) amends the
biblical temptation of Eve: “‘Listen to me, Eve’, said the Snake. ‘Adam thinks
we have fallen in love, and wants to separate us.’”; is one example.
Another comes from the ballad “The Snake” (collected by T. Balasel
from Oltenia in southern Romania).
Here, a mother curses her son to be “of the Snake”, because of the pains
he tortured her with at his birth.
When the boy grows up to be a young man, a great snake born the same day
as him appears, and swallows half of him.
Fortunately, the brave hero Dobrisan awakes in time to discover what is happening,
cuts open the snake, rescues the boy and purifies him by washing him in milk.
This echoes the biblical tale again, in that Eve’s punishment for being tempted
by the snake was to always suffer intense agonies in childbirth
(Genesis 3:16; e.g. Wansbrough 1994, p.20).
Milk as an anti-venom substance was discussed earlier in
(McBeath & Gheorghe 1997).
The second Romanian snake symbol concerns a small,
non-venomous type called Sarpele Casei, the “House Snake”.
Tudor Pamfile in (Kernsbach 1983) notes: “When the [house] snake flees
from a house, that house will remain unlived-in”, as a traditional Romanian belief.
There is a lower-level hint here of a belief similar to that in which if the ravens
leave the Tower of London, then England will cease to exist.
This belief seems to derive ultimately from the Celtic deity Bran the Blessed,
whose sacred bird was the raven, and whose head was thought to be buried in a hill,
perhaps Tower Hill, near London, protecting England from her enemies.
Something of this deity and his exploits can also be found in Romanian myths,
but that is another story.
………………………………………………….
ASTROPOETICAL FANTASY
-astropoem by Andrei Dorian Gheorghe-
“In the Romanian tradition, he who is pricked by a venomous monster
can be purified by milk.”
Cetus, Hydra and Serpens
Made a monstrous coalition
To destroy the Milky Way,
But every time the noble stars
Drive them away.
Then the Milky Way
Purifies the sky
From their poison,
Giving us fortunate mornings.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Two interesting links related to Draco Constellation and the ancient cult of the serpent in Pre-Tracia, Mesopotamia and Egypt:
D R A C O - Mythology and history
Origins of snake worship
Solitude
The english translation of this poem and the song "Solitude" composed by Pourcell and interpreted by the band Elend on their "Weeping Nights" album (1997) could be found on my profile (in the Act 4 section).
Voice: Nathalie Barbary.
Solitude
translated by Katherine Philips (1632-1664)
after the original poem of St.Amant (1594-1661)
1
O! Solitude, my sweetest choice
Places devoted to the night,
Remote from tumult, and from noise,
How you my restless thoughts delight!
O Heavens! what content is mine,
To see those trees which have appear'd
From the nativity of Time,
And which hall ages have rever'd,
To look to-day as fresh and green,
As when their beauties first were seen!
2
A cheerful wind does court them so,
And with such amorous breath enfold,
That we by nothing else can know,
But by their hieght that they are old.
Hither the demi-gods did fly
To seek the sanctuary, when
Displeased Jove once pierc'd the sky,
To pour a deluge upon men,
And on these boughs themselves did save,
When they could hardly see a wave.
3
Sad Philomel upon this thorn,
So curiously by Flora dress'd,
In melting notes, her case forlorn,
To entertain me, hath confess'd.
O! how agreeable a sight
These hanging mountains do appear,
Which the unhappy would invite
To finish all their sorrows here,
When their hard fate makes them endure
Such woes, as only death can cure.
4
What pretty desolations make
These torrents vagabond and fierce,
Who in vast leaps their springs forsake,
This solitary Vale to pierce.
Then sliding just as serpents do
Under the foot of every tree,
Themselves are changed to rivers too,
Wherein some stately Nayade,
As in her native bed, is grown
A queen upon a crystal throne.
5
This fen beset with river-plants,
O! how it does my sense charm!
Nor elders, reeds, nor willows want,
Which the sharp steel did never harm.
Here Nymphs which come to take the air,
May with such distaffs furnish'd be,
As flags and rushes can prepare,
Where we the nimble frogs may see,
Who frighted to retreat do fly
If an approaching man they spy.
6
Here water-flowl repose enjoy,
Without the interrupting care,
Lest Fortune should their bliss destroy
By the malicious fowler's snare.
Some ravish'd with so bright a day,
Their feathers finely prune and deck;
Others their amorous heats allay,
Which yet the waters could not check:
All take their innocent content
In this their lovely element.
7
Summer's, nor Winter's bold approach,
This stream did never entertain;
Nor ever felt a boat or coach,
Whilst either season did remain.
No thirsty traveller came near,
And rudely made his hand his cup;
Nor any hunted hind hath here
Her hopeless life resigned up;
Nor ever did the treacherous hook
Intrude to empty any brook.
8
What beauty is there in the sight
Of these old ruin'd castle-walls
Of which the utmost rage and spight
Of Time's worst insurrection falls?
The witches keep their Sabbath here,
And wanton devils make retreat.
Who in malicious sport appear,
Our sense both to afflict and cheat;
And here within a thousand holes
Are nest of adders and of owls.
9
The raven with his dismal cries,
That mortal augury of Fate,
Those ghastly goblins ratifies,
Which in these gloomy places wait.
On a curs'd tree the wind does move
A carcase which did once belong
To one that hang'd himself for love
Of a fair Nymph that did him wrong,
Who thought she saw his love and truth,
With one look would not save the youth.
10
But Heaven which judges equally,
And its own laws will still maintain,
Rewarded soon her cruelty
With a deserv'd and mighty pain:
About this squalid heap of bones,
Her wand'ring and condemned shade,
Laments in long and piercing groans
The destiny her rigour made,
And the more to augment her right,
Her crime is ever in her sight.
11
There upon antique marbles trac'd,
Devices of past times we see,
Here age ath almost quite defac'd,
What lovers carv'd on every tree.
The cellar, here, the highest room
Receives when its old rafters fail,
Soil'd with the venom and the foam
Of the spider and the snail:
And th'ivy in the chimney we
Find shaded by a walnut tree.
12
Below there does a cave extend,
Wherein there is so dark a grot,
That should the Sun himself descend,
I think he could not see a jot.
Here sleep within a heavy lid
In quiet sadness locks up sense,
And every care he does forbid,
Whilst in arms of negligence,
Lazily on his back he's spread,
And sheaves of poppy are his bed.
13
Within this cool and hollow cave,
Where Love itself might turn to ice,
Poor Echo ceases not to rave
On her Narcissus wild and nice:
Hither I softly steal a thought,
And by the softer music made
With a sweet lute in charms well taught,
Sometimes I flatter her sad shade,
Whilst of my chords I make such choice,
They serve as body to her voice.
14
When from these ruins I retire,
This horrid rock I do invade,
Whose lofty brow seems to inquire
Of what materials mists are made:
From thence descending leisurely
Under the brow of this steep hill
It with great pleasure I descry
By waters undermin'd, until
They to Palaemon's seat did climb,
Compos'd of sponges and of slime.
15
How highly is the fancy pleas'd
To be upon the Ocean's shore,
When she begins to be appeas'd
And her fierce billows cease to roar!
And when the hairy Tritons are
Riding upon the shaken wave,
With what strange sounds they strike the air
Of their trumpets hoarse and brave,
Whose shrill reports does every wind
Unto his due submission bind!
16
Sometimes the sea dispels the sand,
Trembling and murmuring in the bay,
And rolls itself upon the shells
Which it both brings and takes away.
Sometimes exposed on the strand,
Th'effect of Neptune's rage and scorn,
Drown'd men, dead monsters cast on land,
And ships that were in tempests torn,
With diamonds and ambergreece,
And many more such things as these.
17
Sometimes so sweetly she does smile,
A floating mirror she might be,
And you would fancy all that while
New Heavens in her face to see:
The Sun himself is drawn so well,
When there he would his picture view,
That our eye can hardly tell
Which is the false Sun, which the true;
And lest we give our sense the lie,
We think he's fallen from the sky.
18
Bernieres! for whose beloved sake
My thoughts are at a noble strife,
This my fantastic landskip take,
Which I have copied from the life.
I only seek the deserts rough,
Where all alone I love to walk,
And with discourse refin'd enough,
My Genius and the Muses talk;
But the converse most truly mine,
Is the dear memory of thine.
19
Thou mayst in this Poem find,
So full of liberty and heat,
What illustrious rays have shin'd
To enlighten my conceit:
Sometimes pensive, sometimes gay,
Just as that fury does control,
And as the object I survey
The notions grow up in my soul,
And are as unconcern'd and free
As the flame which transported me.
20
O! how I Solitude adore,
That element of noblest wit,
Where I have learnt Apollo's lore,
Without the pains to study it:
For thy sake I in love am grown
With what thy fancy does pursue;
But when I think upon my own,
I hate it for that reason too.
Because it needs must hinder me
From seeing, and from serving thee.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Antoine Girard Saint-Amant (1594-1661): "a poet, born at Rouen, the son of a naval officer. He was the boon companion of the comte d'Harcourt, whom he accompanied on his campaigns and sea-voyages and in a mission to England in 1643, and later a follower of Marie de Gonzague, Queen of Poland. He was a freethinker and a remarkable poet, vivid and realistic, especially in his songs of the tavern. He was the author of picturesque, some of them burlesque, lyrics and of a long tedoius epic on Moses, Moïse sauvé (1653). The bizarre and whimsical quality of some of his verse is seen in his well-known sonnet, Les Goinfres and in the longer poem, La Solitude. He was one of the original members of the Académie, but was condemned by Boileau [from The Oxford Companion to French Literature, compiled and edited by Sir Paul Harvey and J. E. Heseltine, Oxford: 1959].
IsaBelle
27 June 1955, Paris, France
Birth Name
Isabelle Yasmine Adjani
Height
5' 4¼" (1.63 m)
Mini Biography
Isabelle Adjani, one of the most talented and accomplished actresses in the history of French and world cinema, was born on June 27, 1955 in Paris, France in the 17th Arrondissement, a working class neighborhood on the Right Bank of the Seine. She and her younger brother Eric were raised by her ethnic Algerian father and ethnic German mother in Gennevilliers in the Hauts-de-Seine department, an industrial city located near to and to the northwest of Paris. She started acting before her teen years, appearing in amateur theater by the time she was 12 years old and in her first movie at the age of 14.
The teenage Adjani, already a great beauty, appeared with the Comedie Francaise, France's premier theater, and scored a great success in Jean Giraudoux's play Ondine (1975) (TV) when she was 17 years old (she repeated the performance on TV in 1974). She attracted notice, on film, as the daughter in Gifle, La (1974), which was released in 1974, the year she left the Comedie Francaise. Also that year, she filmed what would prove to be her cinema breakthrough, playing the title role in French cinema great 'Francois Truffaut''s Histoire d'Adèle H., L' (1975) ("The Story of Adele H."), a biographical film about Victor Hugo's daughter. The role brought her her first Best Actress nominations from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences and from the French Academy (the Oscar and César, respectively).
Her beauty and talent made her an international star, and the multilingual Adjani has performed in English and German-language films as well as in her native French tongue. She garnered the Cannes Film Festival's Best Actress Award for her English-language role in 'James Merchant''s 1981 film Quartet (1981) in 1991, then won the first of her four record Césars the next year for Possession (1981), which was directed by her then-lover (and father of her first child) Bruno Nuytten. She won her second Cé in 1983 for her role in Été meurtrier, L' (1983) ("One Deadly Summer" (1983)) and her third for playing French sculptor Camille Claudel (1988) in the eponymous film. That role also brought her her second Best Actress Oscar nomination (the film, which was produced by her own production company, also was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar). She won her record fourth César for Reine Margot, La (1994) ("Queen Margot" (1994)). This last film represented the high-water mark of her career.
The legendary Adjani has appeared in only five movies since "La Reine Margot" (and only 24 movies altogether since "Adele H."), being last seen on screen in 2003 in two films: the female lead in Bon voyage (2003) and a cameo in Monsieur Ibrahim et les fleurs du Coran (2003). As Adjani explained after quitting the Comedie Francaise a generation ago, work is not her consuming passion. In the past decade, she has devoted most of her time to her private life, including raising her two children, Barnabé Nuytten and Gabriel-Kane Adjani (born 1995), her son fathered by former lover Daniel Day-Lewis.
IMDb Mini Biography By: Jon C. Hopwood
Trivia
Raised and schooled in Paris
Has two children: Barnabé Nuytten, born in 1979 and fathered by Bruno Nuytten, and Gabriel-Kane Day-Lewis, born in 1995, fathered by Daniel Day-Lewis.
Chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world [1990]
Engaged to musician Jean-Michel Jarre but later broke it off. [July 2002]
Measurements: 35-24-36 (Source: Celebrity Sleuth magazine)
Her exotic beauty comes by way of an Algerian-Kabyle father and a German mother.
Recorded a million-selling album in 1983 with the hit single "Pull Marine" written by Serge Gainsbourg. The video was shot by Luc Besson.
Is the only actress in the history of French cinema to get four César awards: the first in 1982 for Possession (1981), the second in 1984 for Été meurtrier, L' (1983), the third for Camille Claudel (1988) in 1989 and her last in 1995 for Reine Margot, La (1994).
Said in a 1970 interview with Paris-Match that she would never wear pants "because her hips were too big".
At the age of 19 she was the youngest person ever nominated for a Best Lead Actress Academy Award until Keisha Castle-Hughes broke the record for Whale Rider (2002) in 2004.
Announced that she has broken up with her boyfriend of two years, musician Jean-Michel Jarre, revealing to the magazine Paris-Match that he had cheated on her. (June 2004)
Fluent in English and German
Her favorite perfume is called "En avion" by Caron
Was selected as the second most beautiful woman (after Monica Bellucci) by the French public in the TV show "La plus belle femme du monde on Nov. 8, 2004.
President of jury at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997
Born in the 17th district of Paris to an Algerian father and German mother.
Brother is photographer Eric Adjani.
Personal Quotes
"It's rare to find a director who really likes and knows how to look at a woman through the camera."
[speaking in 1977] "This is all very funny. Today I am a star - and tomorrow?"
"The Method is Judeo-Christian: if you go through pain, you can't miss. Rubbish. I'm more interested in the box itself than what's in it. How vs why."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
