Richibi’s Weblog

            “Narcissus” (1896 – 1897)

 

                     Magnus Enckell

 

                            __________

 

 

           Still o’er the fountain’s wat’ry gleam he stood,

           Mindless of sleep, and negligent of food;

           Still view’d his face, and languish’d as he view’d.

 

Narcissus has been smitten by this

reflection of himself in the fountain’s

wat’ry gleam, can’t sleep, won’t eat

 

note, incidentally, the two meanings

of Still here, the first, without moving,

the second, not having stopped, not

discontinued

           At length he rais’d his head, and thus began

           To vent his griefs, and tell the woods his pain.

          “You trees,” says he, “and thou surrounding grove,

           Who oft have been the kindly scenes of love,

           Tell me, if e’er within your shades did lye

           A youth so tortur’d, so perplex’d as I?

           I, who before me see the charming fair,

 

the charming fair, his reflection

in the fountain’s wat’ry gleam

           Whilst there he stands, and yet he stands not there:

           In such a maze of love my thoughts are lost:

 

Narcissus reflects, bewildered

by the ephemerality of his

vision

 

           And yet no bulwark’d town, nor distant coast

           Preserves the beauteous youth from being seen,

           No mountains rise, nor oceans flow between.

 

there is no material object, he reasons,

to obstruct a clear view of the beauteous

youth before him, no intervening

obstacles between him and his vision

 

bulwark’d, defended with fortifications,

as in Medieval towns

 

the beauteous youth, his own reflection

           A shallow water hinders my embrace;

 

A shallow water, only a sheen is

required to cast a reflection, a

film merely, the water need not

be at all that deep

           And yet the lovely mimick wears a face

 

the lovely mimick, the image in

the water

           

           That kindly smiles, and when I bend to join

           My lips to his, he fondly bends to mine.

 

what of homosexuality here, an

unobjectionable predilection at

the time, apparently, there isn’t

a whiff of iniquity in this attraction,

according to the text, no hint of

guilt or embarrassment

 

           Hear, gentle youth, and pity my complaint,

 

a direct exhortation here, note,

no longer, in this instance, a

literary narration, a tale being

told

 

           Come from thy well, thou fair inhabitant.

           My charms an easy conquest have obtain’d

           O’er other hearts, by thee alone disdain’d.

 

you, Narcissus says, alone, replication,

disdain[ ], repulse, my advances, my

elsewhere, otherwise, easy conquest[s]

           But why should I despair? I’m sure he burns

           With equal flames, and languishes by turns.

           When-e’er I stoop, he offers at a kiss,

 

offers, responds with

 

           And when my arms I stretch, he stretches his.

           His eye with pleasure on my face he keeps,

           He smiles my smiles, and when I weep he weeps.

           When e’er I speak, his moving lips appear

           To utter something, which I cannot hear.

 

all his senses are alive, but for

his hearing, which registers only

silence, when all of the other

aspects of the experience are

precise and vivid as though

real, utterly, however

incompatibly, convincing

           “Ah wretched me! I now begin too late

           To find out all the long-perplex’d deceit;

           It is my self I love, my self I see;

           The gay delusion is a part of me.

           I kindle up the fires by which I burn,

           And my own beauties from the well return.

           Whom should I court? how utter my complaint?

 

court, sue to, argue, put to the

test a dilemma, a complaint, as

though before an arbiter

           Enjoyment but produces my restraint,

           And too much plenty makes me die for want.

           How gladly would I from my self remove!

           And at a distance set the thing I love.

           My breast is warm’d with such unusual fire,

           I wish him absent whom I most desire.

           And now I faint with grief; my fate draws nigh;

           In all the pride of blooming youth I die.

 

the contradictions inherent in passion

are evidenced, in this case those of

love

 

           Death will the sorrows of my heart relieve.

           Oh might the visionary youth survive,

 

visionary, relating to vision, observed,

caught sight of, viewed, in the water

 

relieve, render solace to, there is no

solution to this anguished misery

but dying

           I should with joy my latest breath resign!

           But oh! I see his fate involv’d in mine.”

 

 

you might have noted, or not, that

the tale has become psychological

in the instance of Narcissus, where

earlier an action transpired and

events were recounted in

chronological order, in this myth,

the subject explores his inner

world while sitting quietly

throughout by the still water,

nothing moves, but the

palpitations of his heart, and its

distempers

 

there’s a shift here in not only

the mythological template, more

personal, individual stuff, but also 

in the very evolution of literature,

which takes on a more interior

tone rather than fatalistic,

episodic, given entirely to

unfathomed circumstance

 

this will lead to To be, or not to be

eventually, the anthem that took

over the subsequent centuries

since, Shakespeare‘s homage to

introspection, setting the stage

for the ensuing ages of

individualism, human rights

 

but that’s another story

stay tuned

 

 

R ! chard