tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892985775829064860.post4746482400932512318..comments2013-09-21T20:55:23.833-07:00Comments on The Year of Reading Classics: Orpheus & Eurydice (Georgics, IV. 453-526)Frisbeehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07394353185610393979noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892985775829064860.post-65449806170613346492010-12-07T07:44:08.542-08:002010-12-07T07:44:08.542-08:00What a great poem! Thank you so much. I haven...What a great poem! Thank you so much. I haven't read Carol Ann Duffy.<br /><br />Virgil or Ovid? They're so different. Few read The Georgics anymore. Most of the myths come down to us through Ovid, but Duffy's does have a Virgilian ring: Eurydice speaks for herserlf.Frisbeehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07394353185610393979noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2892985775829064860.post-31144049353553469962010-12-07T02:32:26.239-08:002010-12-07T02:32:26.239-08:00Ovid was enormously popular in the Renaissance. My...Ovid was enormously popular in the Renaissance. My feeling is today those people who would read both authors would probably (like Rushdie appears to) prefer Virgil. We like the Gluck opera; I have retained a memory of hearing Janet Baker since this extraordinarily moving aria as Orpheus, with that line: what shall I do without my wife?<br /><br />But then there's Carol Ann Duffy's "The Big O:"<br /><br />Girls, I was dead and down<br />in the Underworld, a shade,<br />a shadow of my former self, nowhen.<br />It was a place where language stopped,<br />a black full stop, a black hole<br />where words had to come to an end.<br />And end they did there,<br />last words,<br />famous or not.<br />It suited me down to the ground.<br />So imagine me there,<br />unavailable,<br />out of this world,<br />then picture my face in that place<br />of Eternal Repose,<br />in the one place you'd think a girl would be safe<br />from the kind of a man<br />who follows her round<br />writing poems,<br />hovers about<br />while she reads them,<br />calls her His Muse,<br />and once sulked for a night and a day<br />because she remarked on his weakness for abstract nouns.<br />Just picture my face<br />when I heard -<br />Ye Gods -<br />a familiar knock-knock-knock at Death's door.<br /><br />Him.<br />Big O.<br />Larger than life.<br />With his lyre<br />and a poem to pitch, with me as the prize.<br /><br />Things were different back then.<br />For the men, verse-wise,<br />Big O was the boy. Legendary.<br />The blurb on the back of his books claimed<br />that animals,<br />aardvark to zebra,<br />flocked to his side when he sang,<br />fish leapt in their shoals<br />at the sound of his voice,<br />even the mute, sullen stones at his feet<br />wept wee, silver tears.<br /><br />Bollocks. (I'd done all the typing myself,<br />I should know.)<br />And given my time all over again,<br />rest assured that I'd rather speak for myself<br />than be Dearest, Beloved, Dark Lady, White Goddess, etc., etc.<br /><br />In fact, girls, I'd rather be dead.<br /><br />But the Gods are like publishers, usually male,<br />and what you doubtless know of my tale<br />is the deal.<br /><br />Orpheus strutted his stuff.<br /><br />The bloodless ghosts were in tears.<br />Sisyphus sat on his rock for the first time in years.<br />Tantalus was permitted a couple of beers.<br /><br />The woman in question could scarcely believe her ears.<br /><br />Like it or not,<br />I must follow him back to our life -<br />Eurydice, Orpheus' wife -<br />to be trapped in his images, metaphors, similes,<br />octaves and sextets, quatrains and couplets,<br />elegies, limericks, villanelles,<br />histories, myths . . .<br /><br />He'd been told that he mustn't look back<br />or turn round,<br />but walk steadily upwards,<br />myself right behind him,<br />out of the Underworld<br />into the upper air that for me was the past.<br />He'd been warned<br />that one look would lose me<br />for ever and ever.<br /><br />So we walked, we walked.<br />Nobody talked.<br /><br />Girls, forget what you've read.<br />It happened like this -<br />I did everything in my power<br />to make him look back.<br />What did I have to do, I said,<br />to make him see we were through?<br />I was dead. Deceased.<br />I was Resting in Peace. Passe. Late.<br />Past my sell-by date .. .<br />I stretched out my hand<br />to touch him once<br />on the back of his neck.<br />Please let me stay.<br />But already the light had saddened from purple to grey.<br /><br />It was an uphill schlep<br />from death to life<br />and with every step<br />I willed him to turn.<br />I was thinking of filching the poem<br />out of his cloak,<br />when inspiration finally struck.<br />I stopped, thrilled.<br />He was a yard in front.<br />My voice shook when I spoke -<br />"Orpheus, your poem's a masterpiece.<br />I'd love to hear it again .. ."<br /><br />He was smiling modestly<br />when he turned,<br />when he turned and he looked at me.<br /><br />What else?<br />I noticed he hadn't shaved.<br />I waved once and was gone.<br /><br />The dead are so talented.<br />The living walk by the edge of a vast lake<br />near the wise, drowned silence of the dead.<br /><br /> (from _The World's Wife_)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com