9

INTIMATE VISIONS

Introduction

 

The monologues in this section are intensely personal, mostly expressing the isolation that comes in dreams and in moments of deep despair, and which has at times been very fashionable among literary women. With Sappho and Pierre Louys we move to dreams of engagement. These involve the dreamer, and so the listener, in fancies and sensations but are characterized nonetheless by their intimacy. It is particularly important in preparing any of these pieces that they not be allowed to become too private. A close confidante, a mirror, or even a friendly pet can serve as the necessary audience.

Queen Elizabeth’s I Grieve and Dare Not Show My Discontent is deceptive in its apparent simplicity. Possibly written in response to the departure of some favorite from court, this complaint has the added dimension of having been written by a queen not known for her “soft” and “melting” qualities, whose protestations of “I ... dare not” ring curiously false. She assumes a role, plays a part, and anyone seeking to play her part must find and incorporate the fundamental sense of isolation that comes with power over others.

Writing under the pen-name “Orinda,” Katherine Philips was England’s most renowned female poet of the seventeenth century, and indeed for a couple of hundred years thereafter. One later critic praised her Ode Against Pleasure by stating: “That must have been a noble spirit which in such a licentious and gaudy era as the reign of Charles II could conceive and embody [these verses],” mentioning further that she was “as exemplary in the discharge of her domestic duties as she was celebrated for her practical abilities. ”

Christina Rossetti’s Passing andGlassing is a kind of sombre “mirror, mirror, on the wall” that reflects ageing, loneliness, and resignation, even futility; and Echo is a call to one long dead to reunite with her in her dreams, a macabre sentiment beautifully executed. Further conversations with the dead inform the work of Emily Brontë, here represented by the poem Remembrance, an apology for forgetting, and an excerpt from Wuthering Heights that vividly depicts a nightmarish tug of war, through a broken casement window, with the ghost of the twenty-years-gone waif, Catherine Linton. Anna Kingsford’s precarious expedition along her dream sea cliff harbors practical advice concerning her daughter’s education ... she is invited, then instructed, to let go. And her “underground laboratory” dream is an outburst of personal revulsion against vivisection that can easily function today as a powerful protest against animal testing and the luxury fur trade. It should be especially noted that while much of this material deals with dreams and other nonphysical manifestations, there should be nothing the least bit vague in the presentation of any of it. Actors are cautioned to keep their work specific, for it is the intense clarity of the vision that will create the illusion of unreality.

For the reclusive Emily Dickinson, observations on faith and eternity were a common pastime and this trio of verses spans much of her literary life. The first addresses the prospect of heaven in a light and modest fashion. The second is a somewhat grisly catalogue of the commonplace accoutrements of death. And the last sends an intricate, disjointed message across some great distance, catching living and dead with the delicate thread of words.

A prime model of the isolated woman, Hawthorne’s Hester Prynne, branded with the scarlet “A” for her adultery and shunned by common folk, nevertheless obsessively imagines a bond to others and their secret shame. And the heroine of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper becomes haunted by patterns on her wall: ”... each breadth stands alone, the bloated curves and flourishes—a kind of debased Romanesque’ with delirium tremens—go waddling up and down in isolated columns of fatuity.” She not only believes that the pattern moves, she becomes convinced that there is a woman inside trying to escape; and then, of course, in true schizophrenic fashion, she becomes that woman. The piece is completely’bizarre, but can make a fascinating presentation if a commitment is made either to complete stillness—suggesting that the narrative is being told at a later time or was, perhaps, completely imagined—or to the creeping activity described in the story, in which case the movement must remain constant throughout the telling.

Equally fascinating is Margaret Atwood’s convoluted tour of the Royal Ontario Museum, with all of history becoming a projection of her private world. The Park is one of Gareth Owen’s Nineteen Fragments of a young, near-suicidal woman’s psyche. In this case, the call for “music,” “harmony,” and “peace” transcends the specific situation and strikes a desperately common chord for many.

Out of the darkness of dreams can come light and clarity, as is the case with Sappho’s little prayer, her rationalization. A native of Mytilene on the Greek island of Lesbos around 600 B.C., she led a women’s literary coterie dedicated to Aphrodite. Among the ancients, she enjoyed the title of “The Poetess”—placing her in the same rank as Homer, who was known as “The Poet—and was admired even by Plato, who referred to her as the tenth Muse. Her extant poems, mostly quite short, are characterized for the most part by an alarming candor, an active engagement of the senses, and a purity of vision uncluttered by cumbersome literary devices.

In 1894 French poet and classicist Pierre Louys published his Chansons de Bilitis, inspired by Sappho and attributed to Bilitis, an invented persona about whom he even wrote a biographical sketch. The seven brief prose poems I have chosen encompass a life, at once ancient, alien, and familiar as any dream. Affirmations of all life, they are refreshingly sensuous and devout, full of striking images and unusual metaphors.

Queen Elizabeth I I Grieve and Dare Not Show My Discontent

I grieve and dare not show my discontent;
I love, and yet am forced to seem to hate;
I do, yet dare not say I ever meant;
I seem stark mute, but inwardly do prate:
I am, and not; I freeze, and yet am burn’d,
Since from myself, my other self I turn’d.

 

My care is like my shadow in the sun,
Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it;
Stands and lies by me, does what I have done;
This too familiar care does make me rue it:
No means I find to rid him from my breast,
Till by the end of things it be supprest.

 

Some gentler passions slide into my mind,
For I am soft and made of melting snow;
Or be more cruel, Love, and so be kind,
Let me float or sink, be high or low:
Or let me live with some more sweet content,
Or die, and so forget what love e’er meant.

Orinda (Katherine Fowler Philips) Ode Against Pleasure

There’s no such thing as pleasure here,
’Tis all a perfect cheat,
Which does but shine and disappear,
Whose charm is but deceit:
The empty bribe of yielding souls,
Which first betrays, and then controls.

 

Tis true, it looks at distance fair,
But if we do approach,
The fruit of Sodom will impair,
And perish at a touch;
It being than in fancy less,
And we expect more than possess.

 

For by our pleasures we are cloy’d
And so desire is done;
Or else, like rivers, they make wide
The channels where they run;
And either way true bliss destroys,
Making us narrow, or our joys.

 

We covet pleasure easily,
But ne‘er true bliss possess;
For many things must make it be,
But one may make it less.
Nay, were our state as we would choose it,
’Twould be consum’d by fear to lose it.

 

What art thou, then, thou winged air,
More weak and swift than fame?
Whose next successor is despair,
And its attendant shame.
Th’ experienc’d prince then reason had
Who said of Pleasure,—“It is mad.”

Christina Rossetti Passing and Glassing

All things that pass
Are woman’s looking-glass;
They show her how her bloom must fade,
And she herself be laid
With wither’d roses in the shade;
With wither’d roses and the fallen peach,
Unlovely, out of reach
Of summer joy that was.

 

All things that pass
Are woman’s tiring-glass;
The faded lavender is sweet,
Sweet the dead violet
Cull’d and laid by and car’d for yet;
The dried-up violets and dried lavender
Still sweet, may comfort her,
Nor need she cry Alas!

 

All things that pass
Are wisdom’s looking-glass;
Being full of hope and fear, and still
Brimful of good or ill,
According to our work and will;
For there is nothing new beneath the sun;
Our doings have been done,
And that which shall be was.

Echo

Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.

 

O dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.

 

Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again though cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.

Emily Brontë Remembrance

Cold in the earth, and the deep snow piled above thee!
Far, far removed, cold in the dreary grave!
Have I forgot, my Only Love, to love thee,
Severed at last by Time’s all-wearing wave?

 

Now, when alone, do my thoughts no longer hover
Over the mountains on Angora’s shore;
Resting their wings where heath and fern-leaves cover
That noble heart for ever, ever more?

 

Cold in the earth, and fifteen wild Decembers
From those brown hills have melted into spring—
Faithful indeed is the spirit that remembers
After such years of change and suffering!

 

Sweet Love of youth, forgive if I forget thee
While the World’s tide is bearing me along:
Sterner desires and darker hopes beset me,
Hopes which obscure but cannot do thee wrong.

 

No other Sun has lightened up my heaven;
No other Star has ever shone for me:
All my life’s bliss from thy dear life was given—
All my life’s bliss is in the grave with thee.

 

But when the days of golden dreams had perished
And even Despair was powerless to destroy,
Then did I learn how existence could be cherished,
Strengthened and fed without the aid of joy;

 

Then did I check the tears of useless passion,
Weaned my young soul from yearning after thine;
Sternly denied its burning wish to hasten
Down to that tomb already more than mine!

 

And even yet, I dare not let it languish,
Dare not indulge in Memory’s rapturous pain;
Once drinking deep of that divinest anguish,
How could I seek the empty world again?

from Wuthering Heights

I remember I was lying in the oak closet, and I heard distinctly the gusty wind, and the driving of the snow; I heard, also, the fir-bough repeat its teasing sound, and ascribed it to the right cause: but it annoyed me so much, that I resolved to silence it, if possible; and, I thought, I rose and endeavoured to unhasp the casement. The hook was soldered into the staple: a circumstance observed by me when awake, but forgotten. “I must stop it, nevertheless!” I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass, and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch; instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand! The intense horror of nightmare came over me: I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed, “Let me in—let me in!” “Who are you?” I asked, struggling, meanwhile, to disengage myself. “Catherine Linton,” it replied shiveringly ... “I’m come home: I’d lost my way on the moor!” As it spoke, I discerned, obscurely, a child’s face looking through the window. Terror made me cruel; and, finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off, I pulled its wrist on to the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes: still it wailed, “Let me in!” and maintained its tenacious grip, almost maddening me with fear. “How can I!” I said at length. “Let me go, if you want me to let you in!” The fingers relaxed, I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it, and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer. I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour; yet, the instant I listened again, there was the doleful cry moaning on! “Begone!” I shouted, “I’ll never let you in, not if you beg for twenty years.” “It is twenty years,” mourned the voice: “twenty years. I’ve been a waif for twenty years!” Thereat began a feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward. I tried to jump; but could not stir a limb; and so yelled aloud, in a frenzy of fright.

Anna Kingsford The Child on the Cliff

Having fallen asleep last night while in a state of great perplexity about the care and education of my daughter, I dreamt as follows.

I was walking with the child along the border of a high cliff, at the foot of which was the sea. The path was exceedingly narrow, and on the inner side was flanked by a line of rocks and stones. The outer side was so close to the edge of the cliff that she was compelled to walk either before or behind me, or else on the stones. And, as it was unsafe to let go her hand, it was on the stones that she had to walk, much to her distress. I was in male attire, and carried a staff in my hand. She wore skirts and had no staff; and every moment she stumbled or her dress caught and was torn by some jutting crag or bramble. In this way our progress was being continually interrupted and rendered almost impossible, when suddenly we came upon a sharp declivity leading to a steep path which wound down the side of the precipice to the beach below. Looking down, I saw on the shore beneath the cliff a collection of fishermen’s huts, and groups of men and women on the shingle, mending nets, hauling up boats, and sorting fish of various kinds. In the midst of the little village stood a great crucifix of lead, so cast in a mould as to allow me from the elevated position I occupied behind it, to see that though in front it looked solid, it was in reality hollow. As I was noting this, a voice of some one close at hand suddenly addressed me; and on turning my head I found standing before me a man in the garb of a fisherman, who evidently had just scaled the steep path leading from the beach. He stretched out his hand to take the child, saying he had come to fetch her, for that in the path I was following there was room only for one. “Let her come to us,” he added; “she will do very well as a fisherman’s daughter.” Being reluctant to part with her, and not perceiving then the significance of his garb and vocation, I objected that the calling was a dirty and unsavoury one, and would soil her hands and dress. Whereupon the man became severe, and seemed to insist with a kind of authority upon my acceptance of his proposition. The child, too, was taken with him, and was moreover anxious to leave the rough and dangerous path; and she accordingly went to him of her own will and, placing her hand in his, left me without any sign of regret, and I went on my way alone.

The Laboratory Underground

I dreamed that I found myself underground in a vault artificially lighted. Tables were ranged along the walls of the vault, and upon these tables were bound down the living bodies of half-dissected and mutilated animals. Scientific experts were busy at work on their victims with scalpel, hot iron and forceps. But, as I looked at the creatures lying bound before them, they no longer appeared to be mere rabbits, or hounds, for in each I saw a human shape, the shape of a man, with limbs and lineament resembling those of their torturers, hidden within the outward form. And when they led into the place an old worn-out horse, crippled with age and long toil in the service of man, and bound him down, and lacerated his flesh with their knives, I saw the human form within him stir and writhe as though it were an unborn babe moving in its mother’s womb. And I cried aloud—“Wretches! you are tormenting an unborn man!” But they heard not, nor could they see what I saw. Then they brought in a white rabbit, and thrust its eyes through with heated irons. And as I gazed, the rabbit seemed to me like a tiny infant, with human face, and hands which stretched themselves towards me in appeal, and lips which sought to cry for help in human accents. And I could bear no more, but broke forth into a bitter rain of tears, exclaiming—“O blind! blind! not to see that you torture a child, the youngest of your own flesh and blood!”

And with that I woke, sobbing vehemently.

Emily Dickinson Going to Heaven!

Going to Heaven!
I don’t know when—
Pray do not ask me how!
Indeed I’m too astonished
To think of answering you!
Going to Heaven!
How dim it sounds!
And yet it will be done
As sure as flocks go home at night
Unto the Shepherd’s arm!

 

Perhaps you’re going too!
Who knows?
If you should get there first
Save just a little space for me
Close to the two I lost—
The smallest “Robe” will fit me
And just a bit of “Crown”—
For you know we do not mind our dress
When we are going home—

 

I’m glad I don’t believe it
For it would stop my breath—
And I’d like to look a little more
At such a curious Earth!
I’m glad they did believe it
Whom I have never found
Since the mighty Autumn afternoon
I left them in the ground.

There’s Been a Death

There’s been a Death, in the Opposite House,
As lately as Today—
I know it, by the numb look
Such Houses have—always—

 

The Neighbors rustle in and out—
The Doctor—drives away—
A Window opens like a Pod—
Abrupt—mechanically—

 

Somebody flings a Mattress out—
The Children hurry by—
They wonder if it died—on that—
I used to—when a Boy—

 

The Minister—goes stiffly in—
As if the House were His—
And He owned all the Mourners—now—
And little Boys—besides—

 

And then the Milliner—and the Man
Of the Appalling Trade—
To take the measure of the House—
There’ll be that Dark Parade—

 

Of Tassels—and of Coaches—soon—
It’s easy as a Sign—
The Intuition of the News—
In just a Country Town—

I Cannot Live with You

I cannot live with You—
It would be Life—
And Life is over there—
Behind the Shelf

 

The Sexton keeps the Key to—
Putting up
Our Life—His Porcelain—
Like a Cup—

 

Discarded of the Housewife—
Quaint—or Broke—
A newer Sevres pleases—
Old Ones crack—

 

I could not die—with You—
For One must wait
To shut the Other’s Gaze down—
You—could not—

 

And I—Could I stand by
And see You—freeze—
Without my Right of Frost—
Death’s privilege?

 

Nor could I rise—with You—
Because Your Face
Would put out Jesus’—
That New Grace

Glow plain—and foreign
On my homesick Eye—
Except that You than He
Shone closer by—

 

They’d judge Us—How—
For You—served Heaven—You know,
Or sought to—
I could not—

 

Because You saturated Sight—
And I had no more Eyes
For sordid excellence
As Paradise

 

And were You lost, I would be—
Though My Name
Rang loudest
On the Heavenly fame—

 

And were You—saved—
And I—condemned to be
Where You were not—
That self—were Hell to me—

 

So We must meet apart—
You there—I—here
With just the Door ajar
That Oceans are—and Prayer—
And that White Sustenance—
Despair—

Nathaniel Hawthorne from The Scarlet Letter

From first to last Hester Prynne had always this dreadful agony in feeling a human eye upon the token; the spot never grew callous; it seemed, on the contrary, to grow more sensitive with daily torture.

But sometimes, once in many days, or perchance in many months, she felt an eye—a human eye—upon the ignominious brand, that seemed to give a momentary relief, as if half of her agony were shared. The next instant, back it all rushed again, with still a deeper throb of pain; for, in that brief interval, she had sinned anew. Had Hester sinned alone?

Her imagination was somewhat affected, and, had she been of a softer moral and intellectual fibre, would have been still more so, by the strange and solitary anguish of her life. Walking to and fro, with those lonely footsteps, in the little world with which she was outwardly connected, it now and then appeared to Hester,—if altogether fancy, it was nevertheless too potent to be resisted, she felt or fancied, then,—that the scarlet letter had endowed her with a new sense. She shuddered to believe, yet could not help believing, that it gave her a sympathetic knowledge of the hidden sin in other hearts. She was terror-stricken by the revelations that were thus made. What were they? Could they be other than the insidious whispers of the bad angel, who would fain have persuaded the struggling woman, as yet only half his victim, that the outward guise of purity was but a lie, and that, if truth were everywhere to be shown, a scarlet letter would blaze forth on many a bosom besides Hester Prynne’s? Or, must she receive those intimations—so obscure, yet so distinct—as truth? In all her miserable experience, there was nothing else so awful and so loathsome as this sense. It perplexed, as well as shocked her, by the irreverent inopportuneness of the occasions that brought it into vivid action. Sometimes the red infamy upon her breast would give a sympathetic throb, as she passed near a venerable minister or magistrate, the model of piety and justice, to whom that age of antique reverence looked up, as to a mortal man in fellowship with angels. “What evil thing is at hand?” would Hester say to herself. Lifting her reluctant eyes, there would be nothing human within the scope of view, save the form of this earthly saint! Again, a mystic sisterhood would contumaciously assert itself, as she met the sanctified frown of some matron, who, according to the rumour of all tongues, had kept cold snow within her bosom throughout life. That unsunned snow in the matron’s bosom, and the burning shame on Hester Prynne’s,—what had the two in common? Or, once more, the electric thrill would give her warning,—“Behold, Hester, here is a companion!”—and, looking up, she would detect the eyes of a young maiden glancing at the scarlet letter, shyly and aside, and quickly averted, with a faint, chill crimson in her cheeks; as if her purity were somewhat sullied by that momentary glance. 0 Fiend, whose talisman was that fatal symbol, wouldst thou leave nothing, whether in youth or age, for this poor sinner to revere?—such loss of faith is ever one of the saddest results of sin. Be it accepted as a proof that all was not corrupt in this poor victim of her own frailty, and man’s hard law, that Hester Prynne yet struggled to believe that no fellow-mortal was guilty like herself.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman from The Yellow Wallpaper

We shall sleep downstairs tonight, and take the boat home tomorrow.

I quite enjoy the room, now it is bare again.

How those children did tear about here!

This bedstead is fairly gnawed!

But I must get to work.

I have locked the door and thrown the key down into the front path.

I don’t want to go out, and I don’t want to have anybody come in, till John comes.

I want to astonish him.

I’ve got a rope up here that even Jennie did not find. If that woman does get out, and tries to get away, I can tie her!

But I forgot I could not reach far without anything to stand on!

This bed will not move!

I tried to lift and push it until I was lame, and then I got so angry I bit off a little piece at one corner—but it hurt my teeth.

Then I peeled off all the paper I could reach standing on the floor. It sticks horribly and the pattern just enjoys it! All those strangled heads and bulbous eyes and waddling fungus growths just shriek with derision!

I am getting angry enough to do something desperate. To jump out of the window would be admirable exercise, but the bars are too strong even to try.

Besides, I wouldn’t do it. Of course not. I know well enough that a step like that is improper and might be misconstrued.

I don’t like to look out of the windows even—there are so many of those creeping women, and they creep so fast.

I wonder if they all come out of that wallpaper, as I did? But I am securely fastened now by my well-hidden rope—you don’t get me out in the road there!

I suppose I shall have to to get back behind the pattern when it comes night, and that is hard!

It is so pleasant to be out in this great room and creep around as I please!

I don’t want to go outside. I won’t, even if Jennie asks me to.

For outside you have to creep on the ground, and everything is green instead of yellow.

But here I can creep smoothly on the floor, and my shoulder just fits in that long smooch around the wall, so I cannot lose my way.

Why, there’s John at the door!

It is no use, young man, you can’t open it!

How he does call and pound!

Now he’s crying for an axe.

It would be a shame to break down that beautiful door! “John, dear!” said I in the gentlest voice, “the key is down by the front steps, under a plantain leaf!”

That silenced him for a few moments.

Then he said—very quietly indeed, “Open the door, my darling!”

“I can’t,” said I. “The key is down by the front door, under a plantain leaf!”

And then I said it again, several times, very gently and slowly, and said it so often that he had to go and see, and he got it, of course, and came in. He stopped short by the door.

“What is the matter?” he cried. “For God’s sake, what are you doing?”

I kept on creeping just the same, but I looked at him over my shoulder.

“I’ve got out at last,” said I, “in spite of you and Jennie! And I’ve pulled off most of the paper, so you can’t put me back!”

Now why should that man have fainted? But he did, and right across my path by the wall, so that I had to creep over him every time!

Margaret Atwood A Night in the Royal Ontario Museum

Who locked me

 

into this crazed man-made
stone brain
where the weathered
totempole jabs a blunt
finger at the byzantine
mosaic dome

 

Under that ornate
golden cranium I wander
among fragments of gods, tarnished
coins, embalmed gestures
chronologically arranged,
looking for the EXIT sign

 

but in spite of the diagrams
at every corner, labelled
in red: YOU ARE HERE
the labyrinth holds me,

 

turning me around
the cafeteria, the washrooms,
a spiral through marble
Greece and Rome, the bronze
horses of China

 

then past the carved masks, wood and fur
to where 5 plaster Indians
in a glass case
squat near a dusty fire

 

and further, confronting me
with a skeleton child, preserved
in the desert air, curled
beside a clay pot and a few beads.

 

I say I am far
enough, stop here please
no more

 

but the perverse museum, corridor
by corridor, an idiot
voice jogged by a pushed
button, repeats its memories

 

and I am dragged to the mind’s
deadend, the roar of the bone-
yard, I am lost
among the mastodons
and beyond: a fossil
shell, then

 

samples of rocks
and minerals, even the thundering
tusks dwindling to pinpoints
in the stellar
fluorescent-lighted
wastes of geology

Gareth Owen The Park

The park where the children play
Creates itself each day
For her eyes; defines itself
In a way which she cannot.
Dishevelled bushes
And a worn green
Are charged with sardonic malevolence.
There is much crying in her
But all is separate.
Her heel is worn on the right side
And her stockings wrinkle.

 

It is uncomfortable in this place,
There is no comfort here—
I think they call it the world—
It is too much in my mind,
I wish to be taken away.
Will the dark angel come today,
Will he keep the appointment?
But there is naught but staring.

I am crying out for music,
For harmony to draw a bow
Across the strings of me.
Cry out the music.

Let me stretch myself upon you,
Wind me about in a child’s song
Called peace.

Sappho No

Oneiris, god of dreams, son of blackest night, you who lingers longest as morning’s light lifts the last of sleep from my eyes ...

 

Soothing god, you’ve shown me the strain, the discord that comes of separating burning wish from action ..

 

I think I shall not flout your truth, your visions; and, sustained by the Blessed Ones, I shall not spurn the thing for which I moan.

 

When I was little, I was never so silly as to turn my back on a toy my mother held out to me ...

 

So, may the Blessed Ones arrange occasion, quickly, to place me in the way of what I crave ... I pray with expectation, as one who often honors them in poetry and song.

Pierre Louys from Les Chansons de Bilitis

III. Maternal Advice

My mother bathes me in darkness, she dresses me in bright sunlight and arranges my hair in lamplight; but if I walk out into the moonlight she tightens my belt with a double knot.

She says to me: “Play with virgins, dance with little children; do not look out of the window, run from the promises of young men and fear the counsel of widows.

“One evening, someone will take you, as all are taken, amidst a great procession of ringing dulcimers and amorous flutes.

“That evening, when you go away, Bilito, you will leave me three gourds of gall: one for the morning, one for midday, and the third, the most bitter, the third for the days of festival.”

VII. The Passer-by

As I was seated in the evening before the door of the house, a young man passed by. He looked at me, I turned away my head. He spoke to me, I did not answer.

He wanted to approach me. I took a sickle from the wall and I would have slit his cheek if he had advanced one step.

Then, retreating a little, he started to smile and blew a breath toward me across his hand, saying: “Receive this kiss,” and I cried out! And I wept! So much so that my mother came running.

Alarmed, believing that I had been stung by a scorpion ... I wept: “He kissed me.” My mother also kissed me and embraced me and carried me away in her arms.

XXIX. The Pan-pipe

For the day of Hyacinthus he gave me a syrinx made of carefully cut reeds joined with white wax as sweet to my lips as honey.

He taught me to play, seated on his knees; but I trembled a little. He played after me; so softly that I could scarcely hear him.

We had nothing to say to each other, so near were we one to the other; but our languid songs replied to each other and, by turns, our lips joined on the flute.

It is late. There! the green frogs are singing, heralding the night. My mother will never believe that I have stayed so long looking for my lost belt.

XCI. Funeral Song

Sing a funeral song, muses of Mytilene, sing! The earth is sombre like a mourning-cloak and the yellow trees shiver like cut tresses.

Heraios! O sad, sweet month! the leaves fall gently like snow, the sun penetrates more and more into the clearing forest.... I no longer hear anything but silence.

See, they have carried to the tomb Pittakos, heavy with years. Many are dead that I knew. And she who lives is to me as if she were no more.

This is the tenth autumn I have watched die upon this plain. It is time for me also to disappear. Weep with me, muses of Mytilene, weep upon my footprints!

XCII. Hymn to Astarte

Mother inexhaustible, incorruptible, creatrix, first-born, self-begotten, self-conceived, your issue alone, taking joy in yourself, Astarte!

O perpetually fecund, O virgin and nourisher of all, chaste and lascivious, pure and possessive, ineffable, nocturnal, sweet, breather of fire, foam of the sea!

You who grant secret mercies, you who unite, you who love, you who seize the multiplying species of savage beasts with furious desire, and join sexes in the forests!

O Astarte, irresistible, hear me, take me, possess me, O moon, and, thirteen times each year, wrest from my bowels the libation of my blood!

XCIII. Hymn to the Night

Black masses of trees as immovable as mountains. Stars filling up an immense sky. A warm breeze like human breath caresses my eyes and my cheeks.

O Night, who beget Gods! how sweet you are upon my lips! how warm you are in my hair! how you enter into me this night, and how heavy I am grown with all of your springtime.

The flowers that shall bloom shall all be born of me. The wind that blows is my breath. The perfume that penetrates is my desire. All stars are in my eyes.

Your voice ... is it the roar of the sea? Is it the silence of the plain? Your voice; I do not understand it, but it knocks me head over heels, and my tears wash both my hands.

The Tomb of Bilitis: First Epitaph

In the country where fountains arise from the sea, and where river beds are made from leaves of rick, I, Bilitis, was born.

My mother was Phoenician; my father, Damophylos, was Hellene. My mother taught me the songs of Byblos, sad as the first dawn.

I have adored Astarte at Cypros. I have known Psappha at Lesbos. I have sung as I have loved. If I have lived well, Passer-by, tell your daughter so.

And do not sacrifice the black goat for me; but in sweet libation, milk her over my tomb.