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Category: dramatic monologues
June 13, 2021
“The Story of Narcissus” (ll) – Ovid
“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
July 11, 2020
The Story of Phaeton (IV) – Ovid
“Dawn“ (1873)
Fyodor Vasilyev
_______
Thus did the God th’ unwary youth advise;
Helios / Phoebus / Apollo tells his
son Phaeton, th’ unwary youth,
that he shouldn’t try to ride the
Chariot of the Sun himself
But he still longs to travel through the skies.
Phaeton, however, is inclined to
disregard his father’s advice
When the fond father (for in vain he pleads)
At length to the Vulcanian Chariot leads.
Vulcanian, of Vulcan, god of fire,
metal, metalworkers
Vulcan, according to Ovid here,
built the Chariot of the Sun
A golden axle did the work uphold,
the axle is the principal part, the
beam between the wheels, that
holds the chariot together, that
did the work, which is to say
the chariot, uphold
Gold was the beam, the wheels were orb’d with gold.
The spokes in rows of silver pleas’d the sight,
The seat with party-colour’d gems was bright;
the chariot was made of precious
metals and gems, was therefore
bright, resplendent
Apollo shin’d amid the glare of light.
Apollo, Sun god, would surely, as
well as the chariot, be radiant,
glowing
note that the Sun god is called
Apollo here, where earlier he’d
been called Phoebus, the Latin
name replacing the Greek, but
upon further investigation I found
that it was Dryden who’d made
the switch, Ovid had called the
Sun god Phoebus in the original
Latin text
The youth with secret joy the work surveys,
Phaeton is beside himself, eager
with anticipation
When now the moon disclos’d her purple rays;
purple rays, tinged with the colours
of dawn
see above
The stars were fled, for Lucifer had chased
The stars away, and fled himself at last.
Lucifer, the Morning Star, the
planet Venus, as it appears in
the East before sunrise
having suspected Dryden of having
replaced with Lucifer another name
from the original Latin text, I was
surprised to discover that Lucifer
had been indeed translated faithfully
from Ovid’s poem, which means that
the Christian name we’re familiar
with as another name for Satan has
to have been adopted from the
Ancients and modified to fit the new
Christian mythology, the biblical
narrative
Lucifer, a god in his own right in
Antiquity, had been the son of
Aurora, goddess of the Dawn
do you love it
Soon as the father saw the rosy morn,
And the moon shining with a blunter horn,
blunter, less incandescent, dulled
by the advancing light
horn, a lesser phase of the moon,
when it is either waxing or waning,
thus resembling a horn
He bid the nimble Hours, without delay,
Bring forth the steeds; the nimble Hours obey:
the Hours, or Horae, goddesses
of the Seasons, horae is the
Greek word for seasons
From their full racks the gen’rous steeds retire,
retire, come away, from their stalls
in the stables
Dropping ambrosial foams, and snorting fire.
ambrosial, especially fragrant, or
tasty
Still anxious for his son, the God of day,
To make him proof against the burning ray,
His temples with celestial ointment wet,
Of sov’reign virtue to repel the heat;
celestial ointment, ambrosia,
elixir of the gods
sov’reign virtue, exceedingly effective
attribute
Then fix’d the beamy circle on his head,
beamy circle, radiant halo of
solar rays
And fetch’d a deep foreboding sigh, and said,
“Take this at least, this last advice, my son,
Keep a stiff rein, and move but gently on:
The coursers of themselves will run too fast,
Your art must be to moderate their haste.
Drive ’em not on directly through the skies,
But where the Zodiac’s winding circle lies,
Along the midmost Zone; but sally forth
Nor to the distant south, nor stormy north.
The horses’ hoofs a beaten track will show,
But neither mount too high, nor sink too low.
That no new fires, or Heav’n or Earth infest;
Keep the mid way, the middle way is best.
Nor, where in radiant folds the serpent twines,
Direct your course, nor where the altar shines.
serpent twines, serpentine, tortuous
entanglements
altar, probably alter, or other, light
sources, the moon, for instance,
the Morning Star, do not be
distracted by bright lights,
Phoebus / Apollo advises
Shun both extreams; the rest let Fortune guide,
And better for thee than thy self provide!
Fortune, or Fortuna, goddess of Fate,
will be of greater help to you, Phoebus
/ Apollo tells his son, than you, thy self,
can provide for yourself
compare this last fatherly advice,
incidentally, to that of Polonius to
Laertes, his own son, act I, scene
3, lines 55 to 81 in Shakespeare’s
Hamlet, proof that Shakespeare
was not only well acquainted
with Ovid, but also much
admired him
See, while I speak, the shades disperse away,
Aurora gives the promise of a day;
Aurora, goddess of the Dawn
I’m call’d, nor can I make a longer stay.
I’m call’d, the time has come to
mount the Chariot of the Sun,
the morning breaks, I must, or
you must, in my stead, go
Snatch up the reins; or still th’ attempt forsake,
And not my chariot, but my counsel, take,
While yet securely on the Earth you stand;
Nor touch the horses with too rash a hand.
Let me alone to light the world, while you
Enjoy those beams which you may safely view.”
should you choose to my counsel, take,
from the Earth you may safely view my
beams while I alone … light the world,
Phoebus / Apollo implores his son
He spoke in vain; the youth with active heat
And sprightly vigour vaults into the seat;
And joys to hold the reins, and fondly gives
Those thanks his father with remorse receives.
for better, or for worse
stay tuned
R ! chard
May 16, 2020
“Metamorphoses” (The Giants’ War, XII) – Ovid
“After the Storm“ (1872)
Gustave Courbet
__________
A thin circumference of land appears;
And Earth, but not at once, her visage rears,
And peeps upon the seas from upper grounds;
as the land begins to peep[ ] through
the water, a circumference of land
appears, a circle of Earth within the
earlier universal water
to rear, to raise upright, boldly, the better,
here, for Earth‘s visage, Earth‘s face, to
peep[ ] upon the seas from newly gained
upper grounds
The streams, but just contain’d within their bounds,
By slow degrees into their channels crawl;
streams, just recently redefining their
boundaries, or bounds, [b]y slow
degrees settle, become waterways,
channels, rivers, rivulets, rills
I love crawl here, incidentally, the slow,
insidious, infiltration of a territory, silent
and immutable, as [t]he streams, at the
dispassionate pace of nature, find their
individual course
And Earth increases, as the waters fall.
the waters fall, the waters recede
In longer time the tops of trees appear,
[i]n longer time, after a while
Which mud on their dishonour’d branches bear.
for which the only solution here, would
be, I thought, however ironically, a
shower, rain
but I digress
At length the world was all restor’d to view;
But desolate, and of a sickly hue:
see, for instance, above
Nature beheld her self, and stood aghast,
A dismal desart, and a silent waste.
desart, is desert, even my spellcheck
insisted
meanwhile, back on Mount Parnassus,
our two survivors, look around
Which when Deucalion, with a piteous look
Beheld, he wept, and thus to Pyrrha spoke:
let me point out that what follows,
which is to say when Deucalion
… thus to Pyrrha spoke, we have
an extended monologue, rather
than a narration, the poet, Ovid,
has given a voice to Deucalion,
his character, his creation
I was reminded of Shakespeare‘s
monologues, especially since the
metre is iambic pentameter,
Shakespeare‘s signature poetic
rhythm
it should be noted that this translation
of Metamorphoses is from 1717, a
century and a very year after
Shakespeare‘s demise, in 1616, time
for poets to have imbibed his already
profound influence
nor could they not have been marked
by the spirit of their own time, and the
many transformative epochs since
Metamorphoses had been written, in
the year 1, that would’ve affected the
translation
the original Latin text, for instance,
was in dactylic hexameter, not
iambic pentameter
Oh wife, oh sister, oh of all thy kind
The best, and only creature left behind,
By kindred, love, and now by dangers joyn’d;
Of multitudes, who breath’d the common air,
We two remain; a species in a pair:
The rest the seas have swallow’d; nor have we
Ev’n of this wretched life a certainty.
The clouds are still above; and, while I speak,
A second deluge o’er our heads may break.
Shou’d I be snatcht from hence, and thou remain,
Without relief, or partner of thy pain,
How cou’dst thou such a wretched life sustain?
Shou’d I be left, and thou be lost, the sea
That bury’d her I lov’d, shou’d bury me.
Oh cou’d our father his old arts inspire,
And make me heir of his informing fire,
That so I might abolisht Man retrieve,
And perisht people in new souls might live.
But Heav’n is pleas’d, nor ought we to complain,
That we, th’ examples of mankind, remain.
cou’d our father, Jove, Deucalion asks,
breathe into me his inspiration, his old
arts, his informing fire, so that I could
reconstitute Man, retrieve him, and
supply the perisht people with new, and
presumably more honourable, souls
He said; the careful couple joyn their tears:
He said, or this he spoke, and the
couple joyn their tears
And then invoke the Gods, with pious prayers.
Thus, in devotion having eas’d their grief,
From sacred oracles they seek relief;
And to Cephysus’ brook their way pursue:
Cephysus, or Cephissus, was a river god,
associated with the river Cephissus, which
runs through Central Greece
The stream was troubled, but the ford they knew;
the ford, the way across the stream
With living waters, in the fountain bred,
living waters would gush from a
spring, around which a fountain
would’ve been built
They sprinkle first their garments, and their head,
Then took the way, which to the temple led.
The roofs were all defil’d with moss, and mire,
The desart altars void of solemn fire.
Before the gradual, prostrate they ador’d;
The pavement kiss’d; and thus the saint implor’d.
the gradual is a hymn sung within
the context of a full religious service
desart here is again desert, but in
this instance signifying deserted
the saint, an anachronism here,
for saints were not at all even a
concept at the time of Ovid,
would’ve been Themis, goddess,
at Delphi, on Mount Parnassus,
of Divine Justice
R ! chard
April 5, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 102
“To Be Titled“ (1987) –
Jean-Michel Basquiat
__________
next, according to Ovid, inspired, presumably,
by the Gods, is what happens before the world
is created
Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
which is to say, the earth
And Heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of Nature; if a face:
the “face of Nature” was “One”, an
indistinguishable, perhaps not even, “face”
Rather a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unfram’d,
Of jarring seeds; and justly Chaos nam’d.
this undifferentiated agglomeration, this “lifeless
lump” was called Chaos
note the “seeds”, however, potential, though
“jarring”, or conflicting, the genesis for what
is to follow
No sun was lighted up, the world to view;
No moon did yet her blunted horns renew:
the horns of the moon are visible when the
crescent moon lies flat on the horizon, in
the shape of a smile, presenting “horns”,
the twin elevated extensions
Nor yet was Earth suspended in the sky,
Nor pois’d, did on her own foundations lye:
or lie
Nor seas about the shores their arms had thrown;
But earth, and air, and water, were in one.
see again Chaos here
Thus air was void of light, and earth unstable,
And water’s dark abyss unnavigable.
No certain form on any was imprest;
All were confus’d, and each disturb’d the rest.
For hot and cold were in one body fixt;
And soft with hard, and light with heavy mixt.
next, the first metamorphosis
stay tuned
R ! chard
April 3, 2020
“Metamorphoses” – Ovid, 101
“Primavera“ (1478)
Sandro Botticelli
_________
a friend expressed some interest in Ovid’s
Metamorphoses recently after I’d sung for
a few moments its praises, had told her I
was revisiting it after some time with the
intention of duly, this time, completing it,
given that, hey, we’ve got lots of time, at
present, all of us, on our hands, by very
mandate
it sounds wonderful, she briefed me after
I’d sent her the appropriate link, but there
are some parts I don’t understand
I’ll help, I said, only too eager to share
the delights of this inprobable treasure,
a gift nearly two thousand years old,
with the magic still of very revelation
Metamorphoses is a creation story, the
equivalent of the Bible for those who
revered the Roman deities, the same
deities that the Greeks revered, but
transplanted, renamed, to Roman
stock, like the Puritans did their
Christian seed at Plymouth Rock
Ovid, 43 BC to 17/18 AD, was a Roman
poet, paying fealty to Augustus, Emperor
of Rome, 63 BC to 14 AD, therefore his
Roman goddesses, gods, and his,
contemporary, Latin
which was translated into English early
in the Renaissance, but found its best
expression, to my mind still, in the
eminent hands of Sir Samuel Garth,
John Dryden, Alexander Pope, Joseph
Addison, William Congreve, among
others in, already, 1717
listen
The Creation of the World
Of bodies chang’d to various forms, I sing:
Ovid is saying my topic is transformation, very
metamorphoses, plural of metamorphosis
Ye Gods, from whom these miracles did spring,
Inspire my numbers with coelestial heat;
‘Till I my long laborious work compleat:
And add perpetual tenour to my rhimes,
Deduc’d from Nature’s birth, to Caesar’s times.
poets have traditionally called upon their related
muses to inspire them to accomplish their task,
Ovid invokes his Gods, compare Shakespeare’s
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend / The
brightest heaven of invention, his prologue to
Henry V
“Ye Gods”, Ovid says, “from whom these
miracles did spring”, those everyday wonders
that surround us, inspire me, he asks, that I
might “compleat”, which is to say complete,
his poem, “this long laborious work”
his “numbers” are his years, “coelestial”, or
celestial, “heat”, is inspiration
“tenour to my rimes” means rhythm, weight,
to his poetry
“Nature’s birth”, or the beginning of time, to
“Caesar’s time”, Ovid‘s own period under
Augustus
Ovid asks the Gods to fuel him with the
fire to tell the story of the world from its
very beginning to his own epoch,
Caesar’s
how’s that for a project
enough for now
but stay tuned for, to follow, the Creation,
capital C, I tell you
R ! chard
March 13, 2020
on love – “Nature Boy”
unidentified
_______
for Danielle and Joe
a few nights ago, friends came over, a
young couple, in the bloom of youth,
relatively speaking, half, approximately,
my age, I’m seventy, for a glass of wine
during a conversation about the many
knickknacks scattered about my
apartment, pictures, paintings,
assorted paraphernalia, memorabilia,
they asked, was there one piece of
information I could give them,
something not just physical, but
metaphysical, that could lead to a
good and meaningful life
after cautioning that any answer would
be way too complex, the question way
too broad, I nevertheless trotted out,
convivially, a few words of ready
wisdom, a couple of trusted and true
maxims I hold in store for such
occasions, personal precepts,
however seemingly flippant, I
faithfully and diligently live by
pray for grace, for instance, make sure
your tie’s on right, the only two
practicable positions in any
predicament, I’ve found
later, after privately thinking more
about it, I realized there is indeed a
specific answer, I’d been singing it
already for a while, to help me deal
with recent, and even accumulated,
loss, it is the punchline to this
wonderfully enchanted
composition, called Nature Boy
the greatest thing you’ll ever learn,
it knowingly advises
January 1, 2020
“The Boulevard of Broken Dreams”
“Lipstick“ (1908)
Frantisek Kupka
__________
whenever my heart is broken, I’ve recently
noted, I’ve learned to sing a corresponding
song, it didn’t happen by design, but
organically, it seems, as a response to my
periods of anguish, a song would come up,
each time, to contain the dimensions of my
rue
I need to learn the notes, which are usually
tonal and melodic, with the characteristic
that they pretty consistently span a vocal
range that requires some intimate attention,
work that tears me away, studiously and
diligently, from my own private concerns,
in order to consider, through his, her, very
articulated lyrics, those of another, not to
mention the response of my proposed
audience
I have developed quite a repertoire
recently, this has been my aria
I was especially impressed by the
irony in the composition, the
songsmith laughing at himself,
melodramatizing his sentiments,
taking the sting out of his despair,
if you’ll pardon the allusion,
with over-the-top, it must be
admitted, metaphors, allegories
I mean, I walk along a street of
sorrows, a boulevard of broken
dreams, you need a big floppy
hat, and very red lipstick to pull
that one off
you ought to see me
enjoy
R ! chard
November 9, 2019
“Death is nothing at all…” – Henry Scott Holland
“St Paul’s Cathedral“
Thomas Hosmer Shepherd
_____________
upon learning of the recent demise
of my younger sister, my only sibling,
a friend sent me the following passage
“Death is nothing at all. It does not count. I have only slipped away
into the next room. Nothing has happened. Everything remains
exactly as it was. I am I, and you are you, and the old life that we
lived so fondly together is untouched, unchanged. Whatever we
were to each other, that we are still. Call me by the old familiar
name. Speak of me in the easy way which you always used. Put
no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or
sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes that we
enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me, pray for me. Let my
name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be
spoken without an effort, without the ghost of a shadow upon it.
Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was.
There is absolute and unbroken continuity. What is this death
but a negligible accident? Why should I be out of mind because
I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you, for an interval,
somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well. Nothing
is hurt; nothing is lost. One brief moment and all will be as it was
before. How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we
meet again!”
it is usually presented as a poem, but
was part of a sermon, rather, given by
Henry Scott Holland, the very pastor
who composed it, at St Paul’s
Cathedral, in London, after the death
of Edward Vll
listen
it expresses well the experience I’ve
had with others of my beloved
departed
intimations of my sister are already
popping up in my reality, soon, I told
another friend, I’ll be talking to her
more often than when she was not
gone
much as is the case with my father,
for instance, away some 30 years
now, but an abiding presence,
however mystical, still, and,
it appears, forever
I consider myself profoundly
blessed
R ! chard
September 23, 2019
Piano Concerto no 2, opus 19 – Beethoven
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