Alchemically she is De Nerval's feminine
principle
to be fused with the masculine.
19th Century French Poetry
.
.
And twice victorious crossed Acheron:
Plucking from Orpheus' lyre one by one
The saintly sighs and the faerie cries.
Note: The Spanish title was the motto adopted by the disinherited Ivanhoe in Scott's novel. The Hill of Posilipo is situated to the west of the city of Naples, and is the site of Virgil's tomb. Biron was a friend of Henri IV, Lusignan a famous family, both associated with the Valois. A number of personal references are best pursued by reading a biography of Nerval, of his early meeting with 'Adrienne' and later relationship with the actress Jenny Colon.
Myrtho
Myrtho, I think of you divine enchantress,
And of proud Posilipo, lit with a thousand fires,
Of your brow flooded with Eastern light,
And the black grapes twined in your golden hair.
It was in your cup I drank intoxication,
When they saw me praying at Iacchus' feet,
And from your laughing eyes' secret lightening,
For the Muses made me one of the sons of Greece.
I know why the volcano erupts once more. . .
You stirred it with agile foot, but yesterday,
And suddenly ash drowned the horizon's circle.
Since a Norman duke broke your gods of clay,
Eternally, beneath Virgil's laurel spray,
The pale hydrangea is wed to the green myrtle.
Note: Myrtho a shining mask of Venus Murcia to whom myrtle was sacred, is the counterpart to the dark prince of El Desdichado.
Alchemically she is De Nerval's feminine principle to be fused with the masculine. Iacchus was an epithet of the god Dionysus (Bacchus) and the name of the torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries, herald of the child born of the underworld.
Horus
Trembling Kneph, the god, shook the starry ways:
Isis, the mother, then raised herself from her bed,
Made, to her savage spouse, a sign of hatred,
In her green eyes shone the passion of elder days.
'Do you see him, she cried, the old lecher dies;
Through his mouth the frosts of earth take flight;
Bind his lame feet, destroy his squinting sight,
He's the god of craters, king of the winter's ice!
The new spirit summons, the eagle is done,
Cybele's robe for him do I now put on. . .
The beloved son of Hermes and Osiris! '
The goddess fled away on her golden shell,
Her adored image returning to us on the swell,
And the sky shone beneath the scarf of Iris.
Note: This poem is a consequence of the two previous poems. Kneph, is Amon-Ra the great god of Egypt. Isis was the Egyptian mother goddess (Cybele was her equivalent in Asia Minor): consort of Osiris she bore the child Horus-Harpocrates, the new sun (De Nerval's image here for the Christ-Child). This is the alchemical fusion of male and female principles which produces gold, a process sacred to Hermes Trismegistos. Iris' scarf is the rainbow, she being sky-messenger for Hera (the Greek great-goddess). Isis returns as Venus from the waves but fused with Mary, the Stella Maris.
Delfica
Do you know it, Daphne, that ballad of old,
At the sycamore-foot, or beneath the white laurels,
Under myrtle or olive or trembling willows,
That song of love that resounds forever?
And twice victorious crossed Acheron:
Plucking from Orpheus' lyre one by one
The saintly sighs and the faerie cries.
Note: The Spanish title was the motto adopted by the disinherited Ivanhoe in Scott's novel. The Hill of Posilipo is situated to the west of the city of Naples, and is the site of Virgil's tomb. Biron was a friend of Henri IV, Lusignan a famous family, both associated with the Valois. A number of personal references are best pursued by reading a biography of Nerval, of his early meeting with 'Adrienne' and later relationship with the actress Jenny Colon.
Myrtho
Myrtho, I think of you divine enchantress,
And of proud Posilipo, lit with a thousand fires,
Of your brow flooded with Eastern light,
And the black grapes twined in your golden hair.
It was in your cup I drank intoxication,
When they saw me praying at Iacchus' feet,
And from your laughing eyes' secret lightening,
For the Muses made me one of the sons of Greece.
I know why the volcano erupts once more. . .
You stirred it with agile foot, but yesterday,
And suddenly ash drowned the horizon's circle.
Since a Norman duke broke your gods of clay,
Eternally, beneath Virgil's laurel spray,
The pale hydrangea is wed to the green myrtle.
Note: Myrtho a shining mask of Venus Murcia to whom myrtle was sacred, is the counterpart to the dark prince of El Desdichado.
Alchemically she is De Nerval's feminine principle to be fused with the masculine. Iacchus was an epithet of the god Dionysus (Bacchus) and the name of the torch-bearer at the Eleusinian mysteries, herald of the child born of the underworld.
Horus
Trembling Kneph, the god, shook the starry ways:
Isis, the mother, then raised herself from her bed,
Made, to her savage spouse, a sign of hatred,
In her green eyes shone the passion of elder days.
'Do you see him, she cried, the old lecher dies;
Through his mouth the frosts of earth take flight;
Bind his lame feet, destroy his squinting sight,
He's the god of craters, king of the winter's ice!
The new spirit summons, the eagle is done,
Cybele's robe for him do I now put on. . .
The beloved son of Hermes and Osiris! '
The goddess fled away on her golden shell,
Her adored image returning to us on the swell,
And the sky shone beneath the scarf of Iris.
Note: This poem is a consequence of the two previous poems. Kneph, is Amon-Ra the great god of Egypt. Isis was the Egyptian mother goddess (Cybele was her equivalent in Asia Minor): consort of Osiris she bore the child Horus-Harpocrates, the new sun (De Nerval's image here for the Christ-Child). This is the alchemical fusion of male and female principles which produces gold, a process sacred to Hermes Trismegistos. Iris' scarf is the rainbow, she being sky-messenger for Hera (the Greek great-goddess). Isis returns as Venus from the waves but fused with Mary, the Stella Maris.
Delfica
Do you know it, Daphne, that ballad of old,
At the sycamore-foot, or beneath the white laurels,
Under myrtle or olive or trembling willows,
That song of love that resounds forever?
