Richibi’s Weblog

         “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