Apollo | Richibi's Weblog

May 1, 2021

“The Story of Narcissus” – Ovid

“Narcissus” (c.1599)

Caravaggio

______

Thus did the nymphs in vain caress the boy,

the boy, Narcissus

in vain , Narcissus‘ pride, you’ll remember,

was such that love-sick maid[s] uselessly

[their] flame confess’d, Narcissus was

oblivious to their advances

He still was lovely, but he still was coy;
When one fair virgin of the slighted train

slighted train, row of followers, love-sick

maid[s] who’d been spurned by Narcissus

Thus pray’d the Gods, provok’d by his disdain,

provok’d by his disdain, angered by his

rejection

“Oh may he love like me, and love like me in vain!”

beseeches the one fair virgin

Rhamnusia pity’d the neglected fair,

Rhamnusia, goddess of Retribution,

also known as Nemesis

And with just vengeance answer’d to her pray’r.

just vengeance, justified retribution

There stands a fountain in a darksom wood,
Nor stain’d with falling leaves nor rising mud;
Untroubled by the breath of winds it rests,
Unsully’d by the touch of men or beasts;
High bow’rs of shady trees above it grow,
And rising grass and chearful greens below.

bow’rs, enclosures among trees

greens, lawns, grasslands

Pleas’d with the form and coolness of the place,
And over-heated by the morning chace,
Narcissus on the grassie verdure lyes:

verdure, greenness

But whilst within the chrystal fount he tries
To quench his heat, he feels new heats arise.

chrystal fount, glistening fountain,

or spring

For as his own bright image he survey’d,
He fell in love with the fantastick shade;

shade, apparition, illusion

And o’er the fair resemblance hung unmov’d,

see above

Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he lov’d.
The well-turn’d neck and shoulders he descries,

descries, espies, catches sight of

The spacious forehead, and the sparkling eyes;
The hands that Bacchus might not scorn to show,

Bacchus, god of Wine and Revelry, also

known as Dionysus

And hair that round Apollo’s head might flow;

Apollo, god of the Sun

With all the purple youthfulness of face,
That gently blushes in the wat’ry glass.

***wat’ry glass,* the chrystal *fount***

By his own flames consum’d the lover lyes,
And gives himself the wound by which he dies.

the wound, the sight of himself

dies, succumbs, is undone

To the cold water oft he joins his lips,
Oft catching at the beauteous shade he dips

His arms,

shade, see above

as often from himself he slips.

slips, becomes abstracted, bewildered

Nor knows he who it is his arms pursue
With eager clasps, but loves he knows not who.

he cannot give substance to this illusion

What could, fond youth, this helpless passion move?

What kindled in thee this unpity’d love?

move, excite, indeed kindle[]

Thy own warm blush within the water glows,

the poet, here, note, interjects, speaks

directly to Narcissus

With thee the colour’d shadow comes and goes,

colour’d, because of the water, an exact

replication, even chromatically, but

shimmering, com[ing] and go[ing]

shadow, shade, see above, reflection

Its empty being on thy self relies;

empty being, fabrication, imagined

construct

on thy self relies, you are yourself

the source of your illusion

Step thou aside, and the frail charmer dies.

frail charmer, shimmering, insubstantial

illusion

stay tuned

R ! chard

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March 4, 2021

“The Birth of Bacchus” (ll)– Ovid

**“Jupiter and Semele” (1889 – 1895)**

Gustave Moreau

_________

Old Beroe’s decrepit shape she wears,

Her wrinkled visage, and her hoary hairs;

Old Beroe, faithful servant of Semele

she, Juno / Hera, goddess

hoary hairs, love it

Whilst in her trembling gait she totters on,

And learns to tattle in the nurse’s tone.

Juno / Hera transforms herself into

**Old Beroe, tattl[ing], talking idly, in**

the nurse’s tone, impersonating her

in order to seek revenge, if you’ll

remember, on Semele, for bearing

her husband’s progeny

The Goddess, thus disguis’d in age, beguil’d

With pleasing stories her false foster-child.

foster-child, a child who is fostered,

nurtured, by someone other than a

parent, Semele, by Old Beroe,

purportedly, in this instance

false, Juno / Hera is not Old Beroe,

but the nurse’s duplicitous, false,

in both senses of the word here,

double

beguil’d, enchanted, amused

Much did she talk of love, and when she came

To mention to the nymph her lover’s name,

Fetching a sigh, and holding down her head,

“‘Tis well,” says she, “if all be true that’s said.

Juliet’s nurse from Romeo and Juliet,

I thought, meets Sleeping Beauty’s

wicked stepmother, for a more

contemporary coupling

But trust me, child, I’m much inclin’d to fear

Some counterfeit in this your Jupiter:

Some counterfeit, yourJupiter is not

your [actual] Jupiter, Juno / Hera

suggests

Many an honest well-designing maid

Has been by these pretended Gods betray’d,

well-designing, without guile, with

no ulterior motive

pretended Gods, men who unjustifiably

beat their chest, tell tall tales, unequal

to their proclaimed accomplishments

But if he be indeed the thund’ring Jove,

Bid him, when next he courts the rites of love,

Descend triumphant from th’ etherial sky,

In all the pomp of his divinity,

Encompass’d round by those celestial charms,

With which he fills th’ immortal Juno’s arms.”

Juno / Hera, as Old Beroe, tells Semele

to ask her lover, when next he courts

the rites of love, to prove he is indeed

Jove / Jupiter / Zeus, to dress

appropriately

Encompass’d round, accoutred,

enveloped, in

the pomp, incidentally, the splendour

of his divinity, take on a couple of

extra poetic lines, verses, indicative

of that very splendour

note also that Semele seems to have

no qualms about Jove / Jupiter / Zeus‘s

marital status, about bearing the child

of another woman’s man, indeed that

of a very, in this instance, goddess,

the redoubtable Juno / Hera

Th’ unwary nymph, ensnar’d with what she said,

ensnar’d, ensnarled, caught up in

Desir’d of Jove, when next he sought her bed,

To grant a certain gift which she would chuse;

Desir’d of, asked of, requested of

chuse, choose

“Fear not,” reply’d the God, “that I’ll refuse

Whate’er you ask: may Styx confirm my voice,

Chuse what you will, and you shall have your choice.”

Styx, goddess of the river Styx, which

forms the boundary between Earth and

the Underworld, had sided with Jove /

Jupiter / Zeus during the War of the

Titans and been granted by him that

oaths should henceforth all be sworn

upon her, and be punctiliously observed

Phoebus / Apollo had similarly granted

his own son Phaeton his wish upon very

Styx, if you’ll remember, with the direst,

for both, of consequences

“Then,” says the nymph, “when next you seek my arms,

May you descend in those celestial charms,

And fill with transport Heav’n’s immortal dame.”

show me, Semele asks of her suitor,

what she gets, what Juno / Hera gets,

***when* next you seek my *arms***

go, girl, I thought, if you’re going

to be irreverent

The God surpriz’d would fain have stopp’d her voice,

But he had sworn, and she had made her choice.

on very Styx, he’d sworn, ever so

perilously

stay tuned

R ! chard

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January 25, 2021

“The Transformation of Actaeon into a Stag” – Ovid

**“The Bath of Diana” (1855)**

Camille Corot

_____

In a fair chace a shady mountain stood,

chace, chase

a fair chace, not far away

Well stor’d with game, and mark’d with trails of blood;

Here did the huntsmen, ’till the heat of day,

Pursue the stag, and load themselves with rey:

rey, probably prey, cause rey is not

**a word, and ray instead of rey would**

lead to inanities, improbabilities, lead

**to hunters, huntsmen, bearing branches,**

or stalks, of flowers at best, at worst,

bolts of light

When thus Actaeon calling to the rest:

Actaeon, grandson of Cadmus,

founder of Thebes

“My friends,” said he, “our sport is at the best,

The sun is high advanc’d, and downward sheds

His burning beams directly on our heads;

let’s take a break, Actaeon says, it’s
midday, too hot, it’s scorching

Then by consent abstain from further spoils,

Call off the dogs, and gather up the toils,

And ere to-morrow’s sun begins his race,

Take the cool morning to renew the chace.”

we’ve gathered sufficient quarry, he

continues, let’s wait until to-morrow,

**for the cool[er] morning, in order to**

renew the chace

They all consent, and in a chearful train

The jolly huntsmen, loaden with the slain,

Return in triumph from the sultry plain.

loaden, laden

the slain, the spoils from the hunt

Down in a vale with pine and cypress clad,

Refresh’d with gentle winds, and brown with shade,

The chaste Diana’s private haunt, there stood

Diana / Artemis, goddess of the Hunt,
and of the Moon

Full in the centre of the darksome wood

A spacious grotto, all around o’er-grown

With hoary moss, and arch’d with pumice-stone.

see above

From out its rocky clefts the waters flow,

And trickling swell into a lake below.

Nature had ev’ry where so plaid her part,

That ev’ry where she seem’d to vie with art.

to vie, to contend, to curry for

position, favour

Here the bright Goddess, toil’d and chaf’d with heat,

Was wont to bathe her in the cool retreat.

Here did she now with all her train resort,

Panting with heat, and breathless from the sport;

Her armour-bearer laid her bow aside,

Some loos’d her sandals, some her veil unty’d;

Each busy nymph her proper part undrest;

While Crocale, more handy than the rest,

Gather’d her flowing hair, and in a noose

Bound it together, whilst her own hung loose.

Crocale, one of Diana’s nymphs

Five of the more ignoble sort by turns

Fetch up the water, and unlade the urns.

ignoble, not noble, lacking authority,

pedigree, courtly experience

unlade, empty

an idyll about to unravel

stay tuned

R ! chard

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November 30, 2020

“The Story of of Cadmus” – Ovid

“Lying Cow” (1883)

Vincent van Gogh

______

When now Agenor had his daughter lost,

Agenor, king of Tyre, father of

Europa, his daughter lost

He sent his son to search on ev’ry coast;

his son, Agenor’s son, Cadmus,

Europa’s brother

And sternly bid him to his arms restore
The darling maid, or see his face no more,
But live an exile in a foreign clime;
Thus was the father pious to a crime.

pious to a crime, intent on, devoted to,

having justice restored

The restless youth search’d all the world around;
But how can Jove in his amours be found?

amours, loves, trysts, entanglements

When, tir’d at length with unsuccessful toil,
To shun his angry sire and native soil,

his angry sire, Agenor, father, sire

He goes a suppliant to the Delphick dome;

suppliant, supplicant, petitioner,

one in search of a favour

Delphick dome, the Temple of Apollo

at Delphi, where the oracle, Pythia,

proclaimed her cryptic prognostications,

her famously ambiguous prophecies

Delphi, incidentally, was one of several

sacred sites in Greece, sanctuaries,

open to any Greek, or person who

could speak Greek, regardless of

geographical provenance, any

city-state, for instance then, or

kingdom, akin to embassies today,

or places where people can expect

to find similar political haven

Delphi was the destination then also of

pilgrimages, comparable to our own

Santiago de Compostela today, an

ancient path I dearly would’ve, but

never have, unfortunately, undertaken

though I did walk to Mission B.C. some

several years ago, from my home in

Vancouver, to a monastery there, a

place of recuperation when I needed

one, three days there, and a half, three

days and an equal half back, my feet

were blistered, I noticed at one point,

but hadn’t at all registered any pain,

a truth I gathered about the power of

intention, one’s very aim can be a

salve, a balm, a solace, against any

adversity

but back to Cadmus

There asks the God what new appointed home
Should end his wand’rings, and his toils relieve.

where do I land, asks Cadmus,where

is my appointed home, my final

destination

The Delphick oracles this answer give.

The Delphick oracles, subordinates

to Pythia, the high priestess at Delphi

“Behold among the fields a lonely cow,

Unworn with yokes, unbroken to the plow;

Mark well the place where first she lays her down,

There measure out thy walls, and build thy town,

And from thy guide Boeotia call the land,

In which the destin’d walls and town shall stand.”

Boeotia, a region still of Greece

No sooner had he left the dark abode,
Big with the promise of the Delphick God,

the Delphick God, Apollo, god of

music, dance, truth, prophecy,

healing, the sun, light, poetry,

among many other things

When in the fields the fatal cow he view’d,
Nor gall’d with yokes, nor worn with servitude:

fatal, fateful

gall’d, irritated, frustrated

Her gently at a distance he pursu’d;
And as he walk’d aloof, in silence pray’d
To the great Pow’r whose counsels he obey’d.

the great Pow’r, Apollo, by way of his

***Delphick oracles,*the high priestesses,**

**through their counsel, their divinations**

Her way thro’ flow’ry Panope she took,

Panope, plural, were sea nymphs, not

places, in Ancient Greece, therefore

Cadmus must’ve been crossing water,

however flow’ry, I’ll have to check my

Latin text for, maybe, inaccuracies in

the translation

And now, Cephisus, cross’d thy silver brook;

Cephisus, or Cephissus, a river in Boeotia,

a brook, a stream, anthropomorphized here,

which is to say Cephissus, the flow, the

waterway, is being addressed as a rational

being, I have cross’d thy silver brook, he

says, speaking to the torrent

meanwhile, to brook, to conquer, to

overcome, a wonderful, a shimmering,

literarily speaking, homonym, which is

to say, a word with two faces

When to the Heav’ns her spacious front she rais’d,
And bellow’d thrice, then backward turning gaz’d
On those behind, ’till on the destin’d place
She stoop’d, and couch’d amid the rising grass.

she, the fatal cow, see above, has led

Cadmus to his famed, his mythic,

**destination, destin’d place, destiny**

stay tuned

R ! chard

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September 28, 2020

“Ocyrrhoe transform’d into a Mare” (II) – Ovid

**“Indigo Sky Mares“**

Laurel Burch

______

Thus entring into destiny, the maid

The secrets of offended Jove betray’d:

the maid, Ocyrrhoe, daughter of Chiron

and [t]he nymph Charicle

Ocyrrhoe had offended Jove, but

especially Hades, Jove’s brother,

ruler of the Underworld, when she

had prophesied that Apollo‘s child

with Coronis would be an acclaimed

healer, thus defraud[ing] the tomb,

thereby saving people from the

clutches of Hades, the especially

aggrieved god

More had she still to say; but now appears

Oppress’d with sobs and sighs, and drown’d in tears.

Occhyroe would have had more

to prophesy, but was impeded by

involuntary physical spasms

“My voice,” says she, “is gone, my language fails;

Through ev’ry limb my kindred shape prevails:

kindred shape, the bodily

characteristics of her father,

her kin, the centaur Chiron

Why did the God this fatal gift impart,

And with prophetick raptures swell my heart!

prophetick raptures, Occhyroe, who

knew her father’s arts, and could

rehearse The depths of prophecy,

had inherited through her father,

Chiron, who had himself received

it from Apollo, his own father, the

gift of divination, for better, for

either, we’ll learn, or for worse

What new desires are these? I long to pace

O’er flow’ry meadows, and to feed on grass;

I hasten to a brute, a maid no more;

what’s happening, What new desires

are these?, Occhyroe cries, or nearly

neighs, rather, at this point, I’m

**becoming a brute, she groans, an**

**animal, a maid, no more, she objects**

But why, alas! am I transform’d all o’er?

My sire does half a human shape retain,

And in his upper parts preserve the man.”

why, Occhyroe asks, since my

father, Chiron, is partially a man,

am I transform’d all o’er?, why

is there nothing left of me that

is human

Her tongue no more distinct complaints affords,

distinct, clear, easy to decipher

affords, allows, permits

But in shrill accents and mis-shapen words

Pours forth such hideous wailings, as declare

The human form confounded in the mare:

Occhyroe has become a horse,

the proof is in her braying

‘Till by degrees accomplish’d in the beast,

She neigh’d outright, and all the steed exprest.

all the steed exprest, was

everywhere the very picture

of a horse

Her stooping body on her hands is born,

born, borne, carried

Her hands are turn’d to hoofs, and shod in horn,

Her yellow tresses ruffle in a mane,

And in a flowing tail she frisks her train,

The mare was finish’d in her voice and look,

And a new name from the new figure took.

Occhyroe can no longer be called

Occhyroe, she is no longer she,

but a new figure, needing to be

identified as something else

R ! chard

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September 21, 2020

“Ocyrrhoe transform’d into a Mare” – Ovid

“Centaur and Nymph“

Arnold Böcklin

________

Old Chiron took the babe with secret joy,

Proud of the charge of the celestial boy.

His daughter too, whom on the sandy shore

The nymph Charicle to the centaur bore,

With hair dishevel’d on her shoulders, came

To see the child, Ocyrrhoe was her name;

Ocyrrhoe, daughter of Chiron and [t]he

***nymph Charicle,* *c[o]me …[t]***o see

***the* *child***

With hair dishevel’d on her shoulders,

there’s a suggestion here, regarding

Charicle, of madness, or possession

the child, the babe, the celestial boy,

**the infant, ript, by its very father,**

Apollo, from his unfaithful lover,

Coronis’, womb, and [given] … to

the centaur Chiron”s charge, into

its, or his, care

She knew her father’s arts, and could rehearse

The depths of prophecy in sounding verse.

it appears that Ocyrrhoe, daughter of

Chiron and the nymph Charicle, was

a poetess, was possessed, on her

father’s side, of poetry, could reveal,

decipher, or rehearse / The depths

of prophecy, in sounding verse, was

able, as wordmongers sometimes do,

to tell truth, deliver, in rhyme, incisive

evaluations

Once, as the sacred infant she survey’d,

the sacred infant, the child born of

Apollo and Coronis

The God was kindled in the raving maid,

***The God,* the child, *the sacred infant,***

by virtue of being half, if only half,

divine, having been fathered by the

god, Apollo

kindled, inspired

the raving maid, Ocyrrhoe, beset by

neurotic, irrational, though prophetic,

it is proposed, powers

And thus she utter’d her prophetick tale:

“Hail, great physician of the world, all-hail;

great physician of the world, the fated

child of Apollo and Coronis would

become a healer of legend

Hail, mighty infant, who in years to come

Shalt heal the nations, and defraud the tomb;

defraud the tomb, recall from the

hereafter, resuscitate, revive,

return to life

Swift be thy growth! thy triumphs unconfin’d!

Make kingdoms thicker, and increase mankind.

thicker, more populated

Thy daring art shall animate the dead,

***Thy daring art,* medicine, the *mighty***

infant will eventually be recognized

as a celebrated man of healing

And draw the thunder on thy guilty head:

guilty head, when Hades, king of the

Underworld, complained to Zeus, his

**brother, that the mighty infant was**

stealing his subjects, the departed,

**Zeus shot the great physician down,**

acknowledging the healer’s guilt, of

his defraud[ing] the tomb, condemning

the culprit with a punishing, an

annihilating, thunderbolt

Then shalt thou dye, but from the dark abode

Rise up victorious, and be twice a God.

Apollo, aggrieved, had had his son,

the child, the sacred infant, reinstated,

after tortuous ministrations, as an

immortal god, an entirely, however,

other story

And thou, my sire, not destin’d by thy birth

To turn to dust, and mix with common earth,

How wilt thou toss, and rave, and long to dye,

And quit thy claim to immortality;

When thou shalt feel, enrag’d with inward pains,

The Hydra’s venom rankling in thy veins?

***the child,* the sire, not destin’d *by [its] birth***

/ To turn to dust, which is to say, to be no

longer mortal but immortal, how will it, not

wanting particularly to survive, quit [its]

claim to immortality, deal with the

impossibility of dying, [w]hen [it] shal[l]

feel, ***enrag’d* with inward pains, agonies,**

that compel it to seek personal annihilation

Hydra, a snakelike monster with many

heads, whose venom and very breath

were poisonous, stationed at one of

the entrances to the Underworld

The Gods, in pity, shall contract thy date,

And give thee over to the pow’r of Fate.”

contract thy date, make mortal,

subject once again to Fate

R ! chard

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September 7, 2020

“The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius” (IV) – Ovid

“Apollo and Coronis“ (1606 – 1608)

Adam Elsheimer

__________

On her incestuous life I need not dwell
(In Lesbos still the horrid tale they tell),
And of her dire amours you must have heard,
For which she now does penance in a bird,
That conscious of her shame, avoids the light,
And loves the gloomy cov’ring of the night;
The birds, where-e’er she flutters, scare away
The hooting wretch, and drive her from the day.”

Nyctimene, daughter of Epopeus,

king of Lesbos, a Greek Island in

the Aegean Sea, had been defiled

by her father, Minerva, out of pity,

transformed her into an owl, the

above verses tell the story of

that owl, Nyctimene

The raven, urg’d by such impertinence,
Grew passionate, it seems, and took offence,
And curst the harmless daw; the daw withdrew:
The raven to her injur’d patron flew,
And found him out, and told the fatal truth
Of false Coronis and the favour’d youth.

the raven, Apollo’s ***own bird*, having**

discovered Coronis to be unfaithful

to their master, its and hers, remained

intent, despite the daw’s warnings,

earlier here reported, on informing

the god of the Sun

The God was wroth, the colour left his look,

wroth, angry

The wreath his head, the harp his hand forsook:

[t]he wreath, … the harp, Apollo’s

usual attributes, symbols of his

harmony, concord

His silver bow and feather’d shafts he took,
And lodg’d an arrow in the tender breast,
That had so often to his own been prest.

though Apollo is not usually

associated with bows and arrows,

his twin sister Diana, goddess of

the Hunt, always is, it would not

be unusual to conflate the two

deities for poetic, or indeed

mythological, purposes

Down fell the wounded nymph, and sadly groan’d,
And pull’d his arrow reeking from the wound;
And weltring in her blood, thus faintly cry’d,
“Ah cruel God! tho’ I have justly dy’d,
What has, alas! my unborn infant done,
That he should fall, and two expire in one?”
This said, in agonies she fetch’d her breath.

it is supposed here that the unborn

infant is indeed Apollo’s

The God dissolves in pity at her death;

He hates the bird that made her falshood known,
And hates himself for what himself had done;
The feather’d shaft, that sent her to the Fates,
And his own hand, that sent the shaft, he hates.

Apollo is suffused with regret, anger,

self-recrimination

Fain would he heal the wound, and ease her pain,

Fain, with pleasure, gladly

And tries the compass of his art in vain.

the compass of his art, the range

of his ability, in this case vain,

faulty, ineffective

Soon as he saw the lovely nymph expire,
The pile made ready, and the kindling fire.

pile, pyre

the sentence lacks a verb here, it

should read The pile was made

ready, just saying

With sighs and groans her obsequies he kept,

obsequies, funeral rites

And, if a God could weep, the God had wept.

I’ll have to watch out for gods

weeping, I suspect some have,

some can

Her corps he kiss’d, and heav’nly incense brought,
And solemniz’d the death himself had wrought.

***corps*, body, corpse**

wrought, brought about, made

happen

But lest his offspring should her fate partake,
Spight of th’ immortal mixture in his make,

Spight, in spite

He ript her womb, and set the child at large,
And gave him to the centaur Chiron’s charge:

Chiron, first among the centaurs,

half man, half horse, was highly

revered as a teacher, having

been raised by the twins, Apollo

and Diana / Artemis, supremely

accomplished deities

Then in his fury black’d the raven o’er,
And bid him prate in his white plumes no more.

black’d, Apollo turned the snowy

plume[d], [w]hite as the whitest

dove’s unsully’d breast raven

black

prate, babble, talk incoherently

R ! chard

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August 28, 2020

“The Story of Coronis, and Birth of Aesculapius” – Ovid

“A Saint, from ‘The Jackdaw of Rheims’“ (1868)

Briton Rivière

_______

The raven once in snowy plumes was drest,
White as the whitest dove’s unsully’d breast,
Fair as the guardian of the Capitol,
Soft as the swan; a large and lovely fowl;
His tongue, his prating tongue had chang’d him quite
To sooty blackness, from the purest white.

***the Capitol*, the Temple of Jupiter, only**

portions of which remain, on exhibit in

the Capitoline Museums, on the

Capitoline Hill, one of the Seven Hills

of Rome

***the guardian of the Capitol,* the *Vestalis***

Maxima, or the greatest of the Vestals,

who were charged with ensuring the

security of the city

the raven was white once, Ovid says,

[f]air as the guardian of the Capitol,

[s]oft as the swan, but it seems his

prating tongue got him in trouble

prating, chattering, tattling

here’s what happened

In Thessaly there liv’d a nymph of old,
Coronis nam’d; a peerless maid she shin’d,
Confest the fairest of the fairer kind.
Apollo lov’d her, ’till her guilt he knew,
While true she was, or whilst he thought her true.

Thessaly, a region of Greece

contrary to what’s taken place in

these myths till now, Coronis, a

nymph, in name only, it appears,

was found out to be untrue to

Apollo, who lov’d her

his own bird the raven chanc’d to find
The false one with a secret rival joyn’d.
Coronis begg’d him to suppress the tale,
But could not with repeated pray’rs prevail.

the raven, Apollo‘s own bird, was not

going to not tell his master about his

mistress’ indiscretion, despite [t]he

false one’s pray’rs not to

His milk-white pinions to the God he ply’d;

pinion, the outer part of a bird’s wing,

including the flight feathers

[A] busy daw flew with him, side by side,

daw, jackdaw, a black bird related to

the crow

see above

And by a thousand teizing questions drew
Th’ important secret from him as they flew.

teizing, teasing

The daw gave honest counsel, tho’ despis’d,

tho’ despis’d, though the honest

counsel would be unpleasant to

hear

And, tedious in her tattle, thus advis’d:

listen, said the daw, cautioning

the raven

“Stay, silly bird, th’ ill-natur’d task refuse,

silly bird, the raven

Nor be the bearer of unwelcome news.
Be warn’d by my example:

pay attention, the daw insists, be

wary, [b]e warn’d

you discern
What now I am, and what I was shall learn.
My foolish honesty was all my crime;
Then hear my story.

here’s what happened to me,

says the pitch black bird

Once upon a time,

to follow

R ! chard

**psst: The Jackdaw of Reims, by**

Richard Harris Barham

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August 23, 2020

“The Story of Calisto” – Ovid

“Jupiter and Callisto“ (1611 – 1613)

Peter Paul Rubens

___________

after having read Homer’s Iliad, the

greatest work of fiction, to my mind,

ever told, resounding through the

centuries and millennia with power,

pathos, and profound humanity, I

found it hard for one reason or

another to complete other

acclaimed epics, Virgil’s Aeneid,

for instance, too brimming with

bombast and bravado, much like

many American war movies,

wherein the Americans win every

conflict, whether or not they’ve

indeed won, all on their own, with

little acknowledgment of the other

international militaries that might’ve

also played essential roles

Ovid’s Metamorphoses, as I read

on, is becoming more and more

offensive because of its recurrent

abuse of women, nymphs, virgins,

so that I can no longer champion

this work, however enthusiastic I

might’ve been at the beginning

I’m not ready to personally give it

up, but intend to relate it in brief

segments, with perhaps, here

and there, noteworthy verses

the myth that follows the

transformation of Cycnus into

a swan, and the restoration of

Earth after its near conflagration

upon the death of Phaeton, has

Jove / Jupiter / Zeus cast[ing]

**an eye on ev’ry diff’rent coast in**

order to ensure that all is aright,

which it is, and Nature smiles

again

but he spies by chance a nymph,

a follower of Diana, virginal

goddess of the Countryside, and

despite concerns about Juno, his

goddess wife, pursues the maiden

who was easy prey, did whate’er a

virgin cou’d … / With all her might

against his force … / But how can

mortal maids contend with Jove?

following which Diana arrives with

her train of nubile followers, to the

dismay of the young victim, who

could only try to hide her shame,

which her altered demeanour

must’ve somewhat, it is supposed,

uncovered

How in the look does conscious guilt appear!
Slowly she mov’d, and loiter’d in the rear;
Nor lightly tripp’d, nor by the Goddess ran,
As once she us’d, the foremost of the train.

but now the moon had nine times

lost her light, and any doubt about

her condition was erased, so that

Diana, unforgiving, a not uncommon

reaction, I’ve found, among women,

banished her to eventually alone

give birth to a son

meanwhile Juno, now doubly

incensed – This boy, she rails, shall

stand a living mark, to prove / My

husband’s baseness and the strumpet’s

love – turns the wretched mom into a

bear

but when the son had fifteen summers

told, and came inadvertently upon this

beast while in the forest, unaware it was

his mother, and to protect himself, he

aim’d a pointed arrow at her breast,
And would have slain his mother in the beast;
But Jove forbad, and snatch’d ’em through
In whirlwinds up to Heav’n, and fix’d ’em there!

where now we know them as either

the Great Bear and the Little Bear,

Ursa Major and Ursa Minor or,

more familiarly, as the Big Dipper

and the Little Dipper

who could ‘a’ ever thunk it

R ! chard

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August 15, 2020

“The Transformation of Cycnus into a Swan” – Ovid

“Swans among the Reeds at First Light“ (1832)

Caspar David Friedrich

_______________

were I to be transformed into anything,

I told myself, after reading about all

these earlier metamorphoses, then

coming upon this one, of Cycnus, I

wouldn’t mind, I decided, becoming

a swan

Cycnus beheld the nymphs transform’d, ally’d
To their dead brother on the mortal side,
In friendship and affection nearer bound;

Cycnus, son of Sthenelus, King of Liguria,

a region still of Northern Italy, a prince,

therefore, in his own right, was a good

friend of Phaeton

the nymphs, the Heliades, daughters

of Helios / Phoebus / Apollo and

**Clymene, though transform’d into trees,**

were nevertheless on the mortal side,

living things, ally’d ***/ To* their *dead***

brother, by the earth, which confined,

constrained, covered them, if only,

the maidens, partially

nearer bound, ally’d again, like a refrain,

a literary reverberation, honouring their

brother, Phaeton, [i]n friendship and

affection

He left the cities and the realms he own’d,
Thro’ pathless fields and lonely shores to range,
And woods made thicker by the sisters’ change.

the sisters’ change, more trees than

there had been before

Whilst here, within the dismal gloom, alone,
The melancholy monarch made his moan,

monarch, Cycnus, prince of Liguria

His voice was lessen’d, as he try’d to speak,
And issu’d through a long-extended neck;

the transformation of Cycnus occurs,

much as it did earlier with the Heliades,

through the mercy, presumably, of the

gods, who, usually indifferent, express

compassion here, however

uncharacteristically, for the unbearable

anguish suffered by the grieving sisters

and friend

Cycnus, incidentally, would also later be

placed by Apollo among the stars, to

become the constellation Cygnus

His hair transforms to down, his fingers meet
In skinny films, and shape his oary feet;

oary, hoary, grayish white, grizzled,

withered

From both his sides the wings and feathers break;
And from his mouth proceeds a blunted beak:
All Cycnus now into a Swan was turn’d,
Who, still remembring how his kinsman burn’d,

his kinsman, Phaeton, burn’d, in the

sundered Chariot of the Sun

To solitary pools and lakes retires,
And loves the waters as oppos’d to fires.

swans, it appears, seek out the shade,

are oppos’d to fires, shun the heat of

the nefarious, the treacherous, sun

see above

Mean-while Apollo in a gloomy shade
(The native lustre of his brows decay’d)

decay’d, disintegrated, fell away from,

its native lustre

Indulging sorrow, sickens at the sight
Of his own sun-shine, and abhors the light;

Indulging sorrow, allowing himself

to steep in his own agony

The hidden griefs, that in his bosom rise,
Sadden his looks and over-cast his eyes,
As when some dusky orb obstructs his ray,
And sullies in a dim eclipse the day.

another reverberation erupts here

recalling the darkness, eclipse, just

undergone after the incineration of

Apollo’s chariot, however paltry

might’ve been, to that god, the

mere disturbance of a planet

obstructing the sun, however

otherwise momentous, compared

to the death of his son

Now secretly with inward griefs he pin’d,
Now warm resentments to his griefs he joyn’d,
And now renounc’d his office to mankind.

Helios / Phoebus / Apollo, presently

in the throes of griefs and guilt, warm,

impassioned, resentments, chooses

to no longer drive the Chariot of the

Sun, renounc[es] his office, his duty,

responsibility, service, to mankind

“Ere since the birth of time,” said he, “I’ve born
A long ungrateful toil, without return;
Let now some other manage, if he dare,
The fiery steeds, and mount the burning carr;
Or, if none else, let Jove his fortune try,
And learn to lay his murd’ring thunder by;

Helios / Phoebus / Apollo challenges

Jove himself, if no other will take his

place, to guide the horses, holding

him responsible for the death of

his son, Phaeton, by having cast his

murd’ring thunder at him, though

the Earth herself and the harried

constellations, in Jove’s defence,

had begged the god of gods to do

something

Then will he own, perhaps, but own too late,
My son deserv’d not so severe a fate.”

but could there have been any other

option

The Gods stand round him, as he mourns, and pray
He would resume the conduct of the day,
Nor let the world be lost in endless night:

without the Chariot of the Sun and

someone to guide it, there would be

no day, an apocalyptic cataclysm

Jove too himself descending from his height,
Excuses what had happen’d, and intreats,

intreats, entreats, implores, beseeches

Majestically mixing pray’rs and threats.

Jove / Jupiter / Zeus, from his position

of supreme authority, pulls out all the

stops, uses all his mechanisms,

pray’rs, threats

Prevail’d upon at length, again he took
The harness’d steeds, that still with horror shook,
And plies ’em with the lash, and whips ’em on,
And, as he whips, upbraids ’em with his son.

	Tonyia on November / Month of the Sonata…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	how to listen to mus… on how to listen to music if you…
	richibi on “Metamorphoses” (The Giants…

Category: Apollo

“Narcissus” (c.1599)

______

Thus did the nymphs in vain caress the boy,

the boy, Narcissus

in vain , Narcissus‘ pride, you’ll remember,

was such that love-sick maid[s] uselessly

[their] flame confess’d, Narcissus was

oblivious to their advances

He still was lovely, but he still was coy; When one fair virgin of the slighted train

slighted train, row of followers, love-sick

maid[s] who’d been spurned by Narcissus

Thus pray’d the Gods, provok’d by his disdain,

provok’d by his disdain, angered by his

rejection

“Oh may he love like me, and love like me in vain!”

beseeches the one fair virgin

Rhamnusia pity’d the neglected fair,

Rhamnusia, goddess of Retribution,

also known as Nemesis

And with just vengeance answer’d to her pray’r.

just vengeance, justified retribution

There stands a fountain in a darksom wood, Nor stain’d with falling leaves nor rising mud; Untroubled by the breath of winds it rests, Unsully’d by the touch of men or beasts; High bow’rs of shady trees above it grow, And rising grass and chearful greens below.

bow’rs, enclosures among trees

greens, lawns, grasslands

Pleas’d with the form and coolness of the place, And over-heated by the morning chace, Narcissus on the grassie verdure lyes:

verdure, greenness

But whilst within the chrystal fount he tries To quench his heat, he feels new heats arise.

chrystal fount, glistening fountain,

or spring

For as his own bright image he survey’d, He fell in love with the fantastick shade;

shade, apparition, illusion

And o’er the fair resemblance hung unmov’d,

Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he lov’d. The well-turn’d neck and shoulders he descries,

descries, espies, catches sight of

The spacious forehead, and the sparkling eyes; The hands that Bacchus might not scorn to show,

Bacchus, god of Wine and Revelry, also

known as Dionysus

And hair that round Apollo’s head might flow;

Apollo, god of the Sun

With all the purple youthfulness of face, That gently blushes in the wat’ry glass.

wat’ry glass, the chrystal fount

By his own flames consum’d the lover lyes, And gives himself the wound by which he dies.

the wound, the sight of himself

dies, succumbs, is undone

To the cold water oft he joins his lips, Oft catching at the beauteous shade he dips

His arms,

shade, see above

as often from himself he slips.

slips, becomes abstracted, bewildered

Nor knows he who it is his arms pursue With eager clasps, but loves he knows not who.

he cannot give substance to this illusion

What could, fond youth, this helpless passion move?

move, excite, indeed kindle[]

Thy own warm blush within the water glows,

the poet, here, note, interjects, speaks

directly to Narcissus

With thee the colour’d shadow comes and goes,

colour’d, because of the water, an exact

replication, even chromatically, but

shimmering, com[ing] and go[ing]

shadow, shade, see above, reflection

Its empty being on thy self relies;

empty being, fabrication, imagined

construct

on thy self relies, you are yourself

the source of your illusion

Step thou aside, and the frail charmer dies.

frail charmer, shimmering, insubstantial

illusion

stay tuned

R ! chard

“Jupiter and Semele” (1889 – 1895)

_________

Old Beroe’s decrepit shape she wears,

Her wrinkled visage, and her hoary hairs;

Old Beroe, faithful servant of Semele

she, Juno / Hera, goddess

hoary hairs, love it

Whilst in her trembling gait she totters on,

He still was lovely, but he still was coy;
When one fair virgin of the slighted train

There stands a fountain in a darksom wood,
Nor stain’d with falling leaves nor rising mud;
Untroubled by the breath of winds it rests,
Unsully’d by the touch of men or beasts;
High bow’rs of shady trees above it grow,
And rising grass and chearful greens below.

Pleas’d with the form and coolness of the place,
And over-heated by the morning chace,
Narcissus on the grassie verdure lyes:

But whilst within the chrystal fount he tries
To quench his heat, he feels new heats arise.

For as his own bright image he survey’d,
He fell in love with the fantastick shade;

Nor knew, fond youth! it was himself he lov’d.
The well-turn’d neck and shoulders he descries,

The spacious forehead, and the sparkling eyes;
The hands that Bacchus might not scorn to show,

With all the purple youthfulness of face,
That gently blushes in the wat’ry glass.

***wat’ry glass,* the chrystal *fount***

By his own flames consum’d the lover lyes,
And gives himself the wound by which he dies.

To the cold water oft he joins his lips,
Oft catching at the beauteous shade he dips

Nor knows he who it is his arms pursue
With eager clasps, but loves he knows not who.

**“Jupiter and Semele” (1889 – 1895)**

**Old Beroe, tattl[ing], talking idly, in**