“Echo” (1943)
_______
Fam’d far and near for knowing things to come,
From him th’ enquiring nations sought their doom;
their doom, their auguries, their
fates, their destinies
The fair Liriope his answers try’d,
And first th’ unerring prophet justify’d.
justify’d, gave credence to, believed
This nymph the God Cephisus had abus’d,
With all his winding waters circumfus’d,
circumfus’d, surrounded, enveloped
And on the Nereid got a lovely boy,
the Nereid, Liriope, daughter of Nereus,
god of the Sea, in Dryden’s, inaccurate
rather, a fresh water nymph, a naiad,
not listed among the fifty, fifty, I say,
sea nymphs
Whom the soft maids ev’n then beheld with joy.
soft maids, sister, the other 49,
The tender dame, sollicitous to know
Whether her child should reach old age or no,
Consults the sage Tiresias, who replies,
“If e’er he knows himself he surely dies.”
The tender dame, Liriope
“If e’er he knows himself he surely dies.”,
typically cryptically for a prophecy, see,
for instance, your daily horoscope
Long liv’d the dubious mother in suspence,
‘Till time unriddled all the prophet’s sense.
in the depth of time, all is revealed
Narcissus now his sixteenth year began,
Narcissus, son, however illicit, of
Just turn’d of boy, and on the verge of man;
Many a friend the blooming youth caress’d,
Many a love-sick maid her flame confess’d:
I’ve noted that beautiful people are
pursued by men and women, be
that beautiful person either a man
or a woman, a situation they have
to ever undergo, if not even endure
Such was his pride, in vain the friend caress’d,
The love-sick maid in vain her flame confess’d.
pride, independence, personal
distance
Once, in the woods, as he pursu’d the chace,
The babbling Echo had descry’d his face;
Echo, a mountain nymph
babbling, like water rippling
descry’d, espied, caught sight of
She, who in others’ words her silence breaks,
who can only speak when others have
spoken
Nor speaks her self but when another speaks.
Echo‘s curse since time immemorial
Echo was then a maid, of speech bereft,
bereft, deprived
Of wonted speech;
wonted, usual, habitual, ordinary
for tho’ her voice was left,
Juno a curse did on her tongue impose,
To sport with ev’ry sentence in the close.
To sport with, have fun with
in the close, at the end
Full often when the Goddess might have caught
Jove and her rivals in the very fault,
This nymph with subtle stories would delay
Her coming, ’till the lovers slip’d away.
it is interesting to note that not only
Echo, but any, in such a culture of
many gods, would’ve had to choose
among them, despite their, however
divine, individual inconsistencies,
to the sure detriment of any mortal
caught in the middle, personal guilt
wouldn’t’ve been as foundational a
driving element, therefore, in such
a culture as it would be under
monotheistic religions, where the
moral path is categorically ordained,
specifically determined, as in, for
but Fate, rather, or the will of the
gods, however frivolous, plays a
much larger role there, we are
putty in this alternate theological
universe, in the hands of
essentially disinterested deities
The Goddess found out the deceit in time,
And then she cry’d, “That tongue, for this thy crime,
Which could so many subtle tales produce,
Shall be hereafter but of little use.”
Zeus, the instigator, might’ve had
something to say about that, though
the challenger be his wife, but he
doesn’t
Hence ’tis she prattles in a fainter tone,
With mimick sounds, and accents not her own.
a mere shadow of her former self
This love-sick virgin, over-joy’d to find
The boy alone, still follow’d him behind:
the pining of a woman for a man
without moral judgment in a
theological text is radical in our
monotheistic tradition, where
lust, voluptuousness, in either
direction, have been the work
of the Devil, not the natural
inclination, brought on by very
springtime, instinctive, rather
than premeditated or predatory,
that more pantheistic belief
systems present
When glowing warmly at her near approach,
As sulphur blazes at the taper’s touch,
She long’d her hidden passion to reveal,
long’d, desired, hoped, wished for
And tell her pains, but had not words to tell:
She can’t begin, but waits for the rebound,
To catch his voice, and to return the sound.
Echo cannot voice, begin, her own
words, sentences, needs an already
vocalized statement, a prompt, in
order to utter whatever, is therefore,
before Narcissus, her intended, her
desired, ever mute
The nymph, when nothing could Narcissus move,
Still dash’d with blushes for her slighted love,
dash’d, undone, thrown asunder
Liv’d in the shady covert of the woods,
In solitary caves and dark abodes;
Where pining wander’d the rejected fair,
or Where the rejected fair, Echo,
wander’d pining
Till harrass’d out, and worn away with care,
The sounding skeleton, of blood bereft,
sounding skeleton, reverberating
remains, resonating essence
Besides her bones and voice had nothing left.
Echo, the entity itself, herself,
barren, indeed bereft
Her bones are petrify’d, her voice is found
In vaults, where still it doubles ev’ry sound.
listen, you’ll hear it, despite the
intervening centuries
R ! chard
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