The falsified self, continued

PRISONER OF FREE WILL

There are worse jobs: shielded by tree bark from harassment, she is free to be beautiful, intellectual and adorable forever. 
But is she happy?

Mortal anguish made exquisite through artistic metamorphosis:  
detail of Bernini's Apollo and Daphne, Marble, 1622 - 25, Galleria Borghese, Rome.

The transformation of Daphne from chaste nymph into laurel tree is portrayed by both Ovid in poetic form and Bernini in sculpture as a sexual experience, even though it is ostensibly sex that she is running away from. Ovid emphasizes the languor of her surrender to a consummation she has prayed for, the death of carnal existence in exchange for spiritual and cerebral life. Revulsed by the lust her beauty stimulates in other people, perpetually in flight from sexual contact - and Ovid in Metamorphoses constantly reminds us how fast she is, one of those athletic women who outrun men in classical mythology - she is an ethereal, wistful being even before she is changed from human to plant form, a dutiful daughter who doesn't want to grow up and bear children of her own, who slips away from flesh-pains as gently as Sleeping Beauty, acquiescent to her new vocation as a symbol of other people's triumphs, conferring prestige without feelings or sensations of her own. There are worse jobs: protected by bark from sexual harassment, she is allowed to be decorative and intellectual forever. 

The significant point about Ovid's Daphne is that she wants to be changed, though she has no say in how or to what. Bernini's Daphne, pursued by Apollo, is traumatized, less of a conflicted personality than a victim of attempted assault, caught in the moment of violent transition....

The falsified self

HECUBA AND THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION

part two

Magic cloak

Fashionable sports' kit for female athletes, 
4th century AD. 
Detail of mosaic in a private room of
Villa Romana del Casale, Siciliy
where it is always warm enough to wear bikinis.

Awe and Wonder during Austerity for £27 million 

We know sporting spectacles have always been political, even before the first chariot race in the Colosseum. They have never promoted peace - ancient Greek city-states suspended civil wars to send athletic teams to compete at sacred sites, and then resumed killing each other as soon as the games were over - but they have been invaluable public pacifiers and propaganda tools for governments....

Disinterested used to mean impartial

HECUBA AND THE LANGUAGE OF EMOTION

part one

Every time a TV arts programme critic describes a film or performance as "visceral", I imagine piles of cocktail sausages, when I'm sure I should be seeing shining entrails. The word doesn't cut the mustard any more. I don't feel my fingers touching vile jelly, like Cornwall does when he plucks out Gloucester's eyes.

HECUBA TRANSFORMED BY GRIEF INTO A DOG

AFTER GOUGING OUT THE EYES OF POLYMESTOR IN REVENGE FOR THE DEATH OF HER YOUNGEST SON

detail of Johann Wilhelm Baur's illustration to Ovid's Metamorphoses,1659 edition

"....Hecuba,

....was driven mad by sorrow

and began barking like a dog...

Such mighty power had grief to wrench her soul"
Dante, Inferno 

When, in the cause of truthful citation, I put the quotation from the thirtieth Canto in Roman numerals, my blog was overrun by lascivious spybots...

World's End gentrification

                 “Mad bitch, mad bitch,

                     we hear that thing you do -

                          laughing that turns to crying -

                        mad bitch, it’s got to stop"....

RE-BEGOT

Please don’t ask me how I feel

because I don’t think you’ll believe me.

What I feel is bigger than me, inside and outside me,

dark matter swallowing and swallowed;
weight of emptiness, a heavy heart,
pulls down rocks and torrents
a storm raging that no-one else sees or hears,
a vacuum filled with shrieking motion.
Her death: event horizon.
My grief: crossing where I’m torn apart
This is not pathetic fallacy;
it is the geography of me....

Patriotism is not enough

GOD IS NOT AN ENGLISHMAN (OR SCOTS)

When Madame la Pompadour addressed Louis V as "France" in bed, it was not in tribute to his sexual heroics.....

Boy next door

Statue of a boy holding a basket of flowers, standing in a niche above a private doorway in Tunbridge Wells. 

Photo by Martin Huebscher Photography