SpokenVerse | Bavarian Gentians by D H Lawrence (read by Tom O'Bedlam) @SpokenVerse | Uploaded May 2013 | Updated October 2024, 25 minutes ago.
The poem talks about Persephone and Pluto. To be pedantic, in Greek mythology Persephone was abducted by Hades, not Pluto because that's his Latin name. If you're going to call him Pluto then you should call her Proserpina. The Romans hijacked Greek mythology. They changed all the names but that doesn't fool anybody. Aphrodite became Venus, Zeus became Jupiter. Not that it matters. There are lots of instances in literature where the Greek and Latin names are confused..
The gentian picture is from this page, which has a variant of this poem.
christophervolpe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/bavarian-gentians.html
The picture of Lawrence's statue holding a gentian is from Dr. Tony Shaw's blog, which has more information about Lawrence:
tonyshaw3.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_01_archive.html
Rape of Proserpina , a statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1622.
Carved, so incredibly, from a block of marble - look at the dimpling of her flesh under his fingers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Proserpina
I should mention that the meaning if the word "rape" has changed. It used to mean abduction, as in the Rape of The Sabine Women. It didn't imply forced sexual intercourse.
However, if a man and a woman had spent time together without any chaperon sexual intercourse was presumed. There was a polite name for it, a euphemism, it was called Propinquity - the word no longer has that meaning and it has been adopted by psychologists. The presumption persisted until recent times - for instance, in the Victorian era and later, if a man employed a woman as his housekeeper her reputation was tarnished by it.
Heracles and Persephone by Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786 - 1846)
(Which ain't Pluto, but what matter, a fine painting is an illustration)
Not every man has gentians in his house
in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness was awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness,
shedding darkness on the lost bride and groom.
The poem talks about Persephone and Pluto. To be pedantic, in Greek mythology Persephone was abducted by Hades, not Pluto because that's his Latin name. If you're going to call him Pluto then you should call her Proserpina. The Romans hijacked Greek mythology. They changed all the names but that doesn't fool anybody. Aphrodite became Venus, Zeus became Jupiter. Not that it matters. There are lots of instances in literature where the Greek and Latin names are confused..
The gentian picture is from this page, which has a variant of this poem.
christophervolpe.blogspot.co.uk/2012/02/bavarian-gentians.html
The picture of Lawrence's statue holding a gentian is from Dr. Tony Shaw's blog, which has more information about Lawrence:
tonyshaw3.blogspot.co.uk/2012_02_01_archive.html
Rape of Proserpina , a statue by Gian Lorenzo Bernini 1622.
Carved, so incredibly, from a block of marble - look at the dimpling of her flesh under his fingers.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Rape_of_Proserpina
I should mention that the meaning if the word "rape" has changed. It used to mean abduction, as in the Rape of The Sabine Women. It didn't imply forced sexual intercourse.
However, if a man and a woman had spent time together without any chaperon sexual intercourse was presumed. There was a polite name for it, a euphemism, it was called Propinquity - the word no longer has that meaning and it has been adopted by psychologists. The presumption persisted until recent times - for instance, in the Victorian era and later, if a man employed a woman as his housekeeper her reputation was tarnished by it.
Heracles and Persephone by Benjamin Robert Haydon (1786 - 1846)
(Which ain't Pluto, but what matter, a fine painting is an illustration)
Not every man has gentians in his house
in Soft September, at slow, Sad Michaelmas.
Bavarian gentians, big and dark, only dark
darkening the daytime torch-like with the smoking blueness of Pluto's gloom,
ribbed and torch-like, with their blaze of darkness spread blue
down flattening into points, flattened under the sweep of white day
torch-flower of the blue-smoking darkness, Pluto's dark-blue daze,
black lamps from the halls of Dis, burning dark blue,
giving off darkness, blue darkness, as Demeter's pale lamps give off light,
lead me then, lead me the way.
Reach me a gentian, give me a torch
let me guide myself with the blue, forked torch of this flower
down the darker and darker stairs, where blue is darkened on blueness.
even where Persephone goes, just now, from the frosted September
to the sightless realm where darkness was awake upon the dark
and Persephone herself is but a voice
or a darkness invisible enfolded in the deeper dark
of the arms Plutonic, and pierced with the passion of dense gloom,
among the splendor of torches of darkness,
shedding darkness on the lost bride and groom.
