Death of a Naturalist and Door into the Dark by Seamus Heaney

Source of book: I own Opened Ground, selected poems from 1966 through 1996. 

My wife found this mint condition “used” copy of the book for me. As is my practice, I am reading through it systematically. Since both of Heaney’s first two collections (or at least the excerpts in this book) are fairly short, I decided to read both. Since both were published in the 1960s, I will consider it a decade of reading. 

I admit to being a fan of Seamus Heaney, both for his poetry and the way he read it. My first real introduction was through The Spirit Level, which remains my favorite of his books. “Mint” in particular is one of my all time favorite poems. I also enjoyed his translation of Beowulf, which adds so much to the story because of its keen ear for sound and rhythm. 

The collection kicks off with what is probably Heaney’s best known poem, “Digging.” Here is the classic video of him reading it. 

The title for the first collection comes from a poem about the young poet losing his appetite for collecting frog eggs after fearing the frogs would have their revenge on him. I won’t quote the whole thing, but it is an amusing poem. 

Here are the ones which I liked best:

“Personal Helicon”

As a child, they could not keep me from wells

And old pumps with buckets and windlasses.

I loved the dark drop, the trapped sky, the smells

Of waterweed, fungus and dank moss.

One, in a brickyard, with a rotted board top.

I savoured the rich crash when a bucket

Plummeted down at the end of a rope.

So deep you saw no reflection in it.

A shallow one under a dry stone ditch

Fructified like any aquarium.

When you dragged out long roots from the soft mulch

A white face hovered over the bottom.

Others had echoes, gave back your own call

With a clean new music in it. And one

Was scaresome, for there, out of ferns and tall

Foxgloves, a rat slapped across my reflection.

Now, to pry into roots, to finger slime,

To stare, big-eyed Narcissus, into some spring

Is beneath all adult dignity. I rhyme

To see myself, to set the darkness echoing.  

Yep, I’m a bit like that myself. 

“The Peninsula”

When you have nothing more to say, just drive

For a day all round the peninsula.

The sky is tall as over a runway,

The land without marks, so you will not arrive

But pass through, though always skirting landfall.

At dusk, horizons drink down sea and hill,

The ploughed field swallows the whitewashed gable

And you're in the dark again. Now recall

The glazed foreshore and silhouetted log,

That rock where breakers shredded into rags,

The leggy birds stilted on their own legs,

Islands riding themselves out into the fog,

And drive back home, still with nothing to say

Except that now you will uncode all landscapes

By this: things founded clean on their own shapes,

Water and ground in their extremity.

I love exploration, whether on foot or by car, and Heaney makes this one come alive. In these days when a lot of my favorite places are closed to slow Covid-19, I am enjoying poems about places. I look forward to better days ahead. 

This next one is a fascinating, multi-layered poem that gets better with each reading. The title, “Undine,” refers to a water sprite in European mythology. As the inspiration (in part) for The Little Mermaid, undines cannot gain a soul unless they marry a human. However, they will die of the human is unfaithful to them. In this poem, Heaney melds the legend of the undine with a farmer cleaning out his ditch. The language does so many things. It evokes the smell of mud and earth and stagnant water. But it is also shockingly sexual. Bringing together all those elements: the earth, mythology, and sex in a way that unexpectedly works is one of Heaney’s best skills. 

“Undine”

He slashed the briars, shoveled up grey silt

To give me right of way in my own drains

And I ran quick for him, cleaned out my rust.

He halted, saw me finally disrobed,

Running clear, with apparent unconcern.

Then he walked by me. I rippled and I churned

Where ditches intersected near the river

Until he dug a spade deep in my flank

And took me to him. I swallowed his trench

Gratefully, dispersing myself for love

Down in his roots, climbing his brassy grain ---

But once he know my welcome, I alone

Could give him subtle increase and reflection.

He explored me so completely, each limb

Lost its cold freedom. Human, warmed to him.

The second half of the second collection has a lot of poems about the “lough” (Irish version of “loch”) and the surrounding bog. Two of those poems seemed particularly lovely to me. Enjoy.

“Relic of Memory”

The lough waters

Can petrify wood:

Old oars and posts

Over the years

Harden their grain,

Incarcerate ghosts

Of sap and season.

The shallows lap

And give and take:

Constant ablutions,

Such a drowning love

Stun a stake

To stalagmite.

Dead lava,

The cooling star,

Coal and diamond

Or sudden birth

Of burnt meteor

Are too simple,

Without the lure

That relic stored—

A piece of stone

On the shelf at school,

Oatmeal coloured.

“Bogland”

We have no prairies

To slice a big sun at evening--

Everywhere the eye concedes to

Encrouching horizon,

Is wooed into the cyclops' eye

Of a tarn. Our unfenced country

Is bog that keeps crusting

Between the sights of the sun.

They've taken the skeleton

Of the Great Irish Elk

Out of the peat, set it up

An astounding crate full of air.

Butter sunk under

More than a hundred years

Was recovered salty and white.

The ground itself is kind, black butter

Melting and opening underfoot,

Missing its last definition

By millions of years.

They'll never dig coal here,

Only the waterlogged trunks

Of great firs, soft as pulp.

Our pioneers keep striking

Inwards and downwards,

Every layer they strip

Seems camped on before.

The bogholes might be Atlantic seepage.

The wet centre is bottomless. 

That line “an astounding crate of air” describing the elk fossil is brilliant and unforgettable. I love the whole poem and its imagery. 

I’m not sure what else to say about Heaney. I love his style, including the peculiar use of enjambment across stanzas. The poems are fairly traditional, yet not exactly regular or rhymed. I am never disappointed to read Seamus Heaney. 

Circe by Madeline Miller

Source of book: I own this. 

Circe was one of last year’s book selections for our book club. I was unable to attend that meeting (although my wife did), so I never got around to reading it. However, she convinced me that it was really good, and, since she bought a copy, I figured I would want to read it. In the meantime, our club read The Song of Achilles, the first book by Miller, which was quite enjoyable. The consensus of our club, however, was that Circe was even better. In what has to be an interesting coincidence, the club also read The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood last year, so fully three of our twelve books were remixes of Greek mythology. I guess things go in cycles.

In any event, I can concur with the consensus that, of the three, Circe is the best. Fans of The Odyssey will be familiar with the Circe of mythology, of course. The daughter of the sun (aka Helios) is banished to the island of Aeaea (or Aiaia in the book - English spellings have been changed in the last few years, and I’m still not used to it…) for her experiments in sourcery. She is visited by Odysseus and his crew, but is outwitted by Odysseus with the assistance of Hermes. She sleeps with him, naturally, and (in later myths) bears him children. 

In addition to The Odyssey, Miller draws from a few episodes in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, other myths, and fills in the rest of the story with some interesting alternate ideas of her own. The story is written from the point of view of Circe, and, like The Song of Achilles, imagines that the bards have been less than honest. Because history is generally written by the winners, so to speak, the characters who serve as foils to the heroes and gods are assigned base motives and painted as mere villains. Like Patroclus, the lover of Achilles, Circe functions in Homer’s legends as an episode, or at best a muse, in the life of the hero. 

As a nymph, Circe exists on the lesser level of godhood. She is descended from Helios, a Titan - not one of the Olympians - and is thus aligned with the older gods, including Prometheus. (Hey, I just read some great works about him!) She also lacks the power of either the true Titans or the Olympians. Basically, she is immortal, but has to get by on guile, seduction, or whatever she can find for herself. In her case, it is “sorcery,” a combination of botanical knowledge, a few spells, and a lot of will. 

Miller does take a few liberties with the backstory. Circe is allowed to participate in a few mythological episodes in which she isn’t mentioned in the classical myths. For example, she gives comfort to Prometheus, transforms Glaucus into a god, and assists in the birth (and imprisonment) of the Minotaur - the monster born to her sister Pasiphae. These incidents do serve to explain some of the other myths, like how Circe came to possess a loom crafted by Daedalus, and why she had a falling out with Scylla. 

One of the things I love about Miller is her ability to draw together the various myths and make them fit together for modern readers who were not, perhaps, raised in the Classical tradition. Here in the US, it is pretty rare for any of us to have learned Greek and Latin and read the ancients in the original languages. That was (and to a degree is) an artifact of the British upper class, and of a bygone era for the rest of us. In my case, at least I read this stuff in my teens and twenties - and own a Bulfinch’s Mythology for reference. (In addition to a few others - I have a well stocked library, shall we say.) But remembering all the family trees isn’t an easy thing. That is why I find Miller’s ability to weave the relationships into the story so seamlessly to be a delight. 

This book has, in my view, two major themes. The first is a feminist one. Circe is a nymph, a female demigoddess, which means her function in life (or whatever immortals call it) is to be pretty, marry well, and use her feminine wiles to her advantage. Which is pretty much how it is even for the Olympians other than Athena and Artemis, if you think about it. Even Hera pretty much exists to be the embodiment of the female heridan, endlessly jealous of the younger, nubile women that her randy husband is endlessly bonking and impregnating. Circe refuses to play the game, and naturally incurs the wrath of the patriarchal and petty gods. 

The other theme is the nature of humanity. Circe, like Prometheus, has a natural sympathy for mortals. She takes it one further in this book by looking with an honest eye at the advantages of mortality and the disadvantages of immortality. With immortality, there seems to be no real need for - or even possibility of - growth and change. By nature, the gods are everlasting, and their petty disputes and jealousies and obsessions are unchanging. It is mortals who, by very virtue of their limited lives, must seek to become something. In the classical Greek ethos, this was fame - the one way that mortals can gain immortality. 

In exploring the psyche of Circe, Miller looks at deeper (to our modern psyches) questions. Does the very transient nature of our lives as humans give us an impetus toward change and growth? Is the fact that our relationships - even the most permanent and timeless - are destined to end motivate us to form stronger bonds? Is the pain of having mortal children enough to make an immortal eschew immortality? (That last one is one of the interesting questions posed by Paradise Lost: would Adam have chosen immortality over Eve?) And, ultimately, is immortality boring? If all outside relationships are fleeting, because mortals die, is eternity just eternal ennui? 

These are some of the “imponderables” which we cannot stop pondering. 

The two themes together make for a compelling re-telling of a timeless story. Reading Homer through a 21st Century lens can be horrifying. The objectification of women, and the assumption that they exist to serve as foils to the male heroes is problematic, as my teens have informed me after reading parts of The Odyssey. And they are, to a degree, correct. But there is a reason that the myths endure. Part of that reason is that myths aren’t static. Or, at least, they shouldn’t be. Circe has fascinated writers for more than 2500 years for a reason. Some reactionary medieval theologians have used her as a warning against sorcery and female sexuality, but others have seen in Homer’s tale a warning against intoxication, or an example of an egalitarian pairing. All good myths combine timeless evocation of human nature and psychology with a flexibility and adaptability to new times and circumstances. This is how C. S. Lewis can transform the myth of Cupid and Psyche into a powerful and devastating work that spoke to my late grandmother (who I never met) and myself two generations apart. It is how Percy Bysshe Shelley can take the Prometheus myth and write a paean to the universal siblinghood of humankind, while his wife Mary can invent the genre of Science Fiction and warn of the dangers of technological prometheanism. It is why Antigone in the hands of Anne Carson can resonate so well today with the question of law versus ethics, conflicting duties, and fairness versus anarchy. This is why I love the classics even as I cringe at the misogyny and militarism. And also why I am endlessly frustrated by the stupidity and moral nihilism of a literalist and theonomist approach to that other example of ancient literature: the Hebrew scripture and the new testament. The truth of mythology doesn’t lie in its cultural specifics, but in its timeless adaptability to the truth of human nature as expressed across cultures and times. 

I really wish I had been able to participate in the discussion of this book - alas, I had a camping trip planned for that weekend. I imagine this would have been a fascinating discussion, based on our discussions of related books about mythology. 

Although there were plenty of great lines, there is one which particularly stood out as astute. Circe isn’t a true prophet, like some of the gods and mortals. But she has a sort of prophetic ability which shows itself throughout the book. Here is what she says about it:

Among the gods there are a few who have the gift of prophecy, the ability to peer into the murk and glimpse what fates will come. Not everything may be foreseen. Most gods and mortals have lives that are tied to nothing; they tangle and wend now here, now there, according to no set plan. But then there are those who wear their destinies like nooses, whose lives run straight as planks, however they try to twist. It is these that our prophets may see. 

This is so very true. As both an attorney and as a person who observes things, I have found I have an uncanny ability to predict marriages that will eventually fail (to use one example.) Just as Circe predicts that Jason will ultimately cast Medea aside, with catastrophic results, it isn’t that difficult to see cases where disaster is hanging around the necks of people I meet. Forget the fates: their own choices doom them to disaster. And, like Circe, there isn’t much I can do to change their destiny. This applies to clients, naturally, but also to friends and family all too often. As the old saw goes, your character becomes your destiny. 

Circe was definitely an interesting take on the old myths, with compelling characters, good writing, and thoughtful questions. I hope Miller takes on more myths in the future. 

***

It is impossible to discuss mythology without at least mentioning some amazing art it has inspired. Circe has been represented by many over the years, but the best must be John William Waterhouse, who painted not one, but two iconic depictions of the goddess. (In addition to his Greek myths, he painted Arthurian stuff - his Lady of Shallott has to be the best known of that legend.) 

 Circe Offering the Cup to Odysseus is an amazing depiction. She dominates the picture, with Odysseus merely reflected in the mirror, a hesitant character to her supreme confidence. (And why not? She holds a potion in her glass, and one of his crewmen as a pig sits beside her feet.) The sheer garment teases at her nude figure, with her areolas visible and tempting. This picture fits far more with Miller’s portrayal of Circe as powerful, sexual, and not at all a stooge of Odysseus than Homer’s version. 

  

Equally moving is Circe Invidiosa, which portrays the moment when Circe, jealous of Scylla for stealing the affections of Glaucus, poisons the pool where she bathes. Again, what is barely visible - the transformation of Scylla under Circe’s feet - is part of the power. But it is Circe’s fierce expression which you can’t take your eyes off of. Waterhouse is fantastic at capturing the emotions of Circe in both pictures. 

Speaking of Scylla, and that whole thing with Gaucus, I have actually seen this picture in person. Laurent de La Hyre - Glaucus and Scylla. This one is at the Getty, which is one of our favorite places to visit. 

***

Just for fun, here is the list of books that our book club has read. At least the ones I have read too. Most of these were read for the club, but a few were ones I read previously - those posts pre-date the club discussion - and some I read afterward, because I missed the discussion. 

Daisy Jones and the Six by Taylor Jenkins Reid

Calypso by David Sedaris

The Air You Breathe by Frances de Pontes Peebles

The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer

The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson

There There by Tommy Orange

Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng

Be Frank With Me by Julia Claiborne Johnson

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Educated by Tara Westover

Stiff by Mary Roach

A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles

Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

The Marsh King’s Daughter by Karen Dionne

Rosemary’s Baby by Ira Levin

Never Mind by Edward St. Aubyn

All the Birds in the Sky by Charlie Jane Anders

Artemis by Andy Weir

Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer

The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt

The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov 

The Radium Girls by Kate Moore

Prometheus Bound and Prometheus Unbound

Source of book: I own a Heritage hardback with both of these works paired. 

The Greek myths continue to speak to us today - after all, they are an example of how we humans use stories as our most powerful way of grappling with the imponderables. While the language (even in translation) of the ancient Greeks often seems unfamiliar, the eternal questions still ring true. 

 Prometheus Bound by Peter Paul Rubens

The story of Prometheus has fascinated for at least three thousand years. One of the Titans, he and his family ruled the world before the Olympian gods overthrew them. Prometheus stole fire and gave it to the humans, enraging Zeus, who chained Prometheus to a rock and sent an eagle to eat his liver.

Prometheus Bound is a play traditionally attributed to Aeschylus, but now believed by some scholars to have been written earlier by an unknown playwright. It was apparently the first in a trilogy, but, alas, the others have been lost to the ravages of time. From other writers, it is believed that the other plays completed the story through the release of Prometheus by Heracles and the reconciliation with Zeus. However, the philosophical ideas in those later plays remain unknown to us. I mention this because Prometheus Bound has little action, but a lot of philosophical discussion. 

Much later, English poet Percy Bysshe Shelley decided to write his own response and conclusion to the play, in an extended poem entitled Prometheus Unbound. At a library sale last year, I was able to purchase a gorgeous hardback containing both works, along with an insightful introduction by Rex Warner, the translator, and Mary Shelley’s afterword to her husband’s poem. 

While I have referred to the earlier work as a play and the later as a poem, this fails to describe both works adequately. They are actually quite similar in format, with very little action, and a lot of dialogue. It is believed, however, that the Greek play was indeed performed, while Shelley didn’t actually intend his work to be performed as a play. Either would be difficult to stage for modern audiences, honestly, because of the lack of dialogue and extensive symbolism. 

Aeschylus changes the Prometheus myth a bit from the earlier version by Hesiod. Rather than paint Prometheus as a trickster justly punished by the noble Zeus, he portrays Prometheus as a noble martyr, unjustly punished by Zeus despite all that Prometheus did for him. In Hesiod’s version, the result of Prometheus’ gift of fire was that humans had to work for their bread - and worse, they were given the first woman, Pandora, who would be a curse on males thereafter. (Misogynist much?) In contrast, Aeschylus has Prometheus give crucial assistance to Zeus, which Zeus resents later because it detracts from his glory. Also, Zeus decides to eliminate humanity. The gift of fire - and a warning - allows humankind to survive. And leaves Zeus nursing a nasty grudge. Hence, Prometheus is chained to the rock and gets his liver eaten. 

Prometheus has a secret, however: he knows how Zeus may eventually be overthrown. That secret will eventually lead to his release and reconciliation, but during this play at least, it only inflames Zeus’ rage. 

The link between the two plays comes from Prometheus’ revelation that fire wasn’t the only thing he gave to humanity. He also taught them the civilizing arts which allowed them to rise above their animal natures. In Shelley’s poem, this idea of Prometheus as the embodiment of human aspiration and progress is given full treatment. Prometheus is first tormented more by Jupiter (Shelley uses the Roman names, not the Greek ones), but change is on its way. Instead of having Jupiter and Prometheus reconcile, Shelley envisions Jupiter overthrown. The Oceanids, primarily Asia, Ione, and Panthea, figure prominently in the play, first visiting Demogorgon in the underworld, then riding out with the Demogorgon and the Hours to see the fall of Jupiter. The Earth itself turns against Jupiter and his arrogant boasting. The poem then switches focus to a hopeful view of progress and the future. 

In some ways, Shelley’s optimism seems dated - it is of its time, the heady 19th Century, when human progress seemed assured. And, in retrospect, this wasn’t entirely wrong. Humans have made tremendous ethical progress over the last few centuries, although it hasn’t been in a straight line. However, the old tribalism has never died (and indeed has had a good decade lately), and Prometheus Unbound, like other progress poems of the era seems a bit naive. 

But the language is certainly glorious. For that matter, there is nothing whatsoever wrong with envisioning better days, better things, better ideas. So much of the apocalyptic literature in the Bible, for example, is utopian in that sense. The lion and the lamb and all, swords into plowshares, and so on. We need the inspiration of the poets who envision a better world - which we can work toward creating. 

Although very different, the two works do fit together well, and I am glad I read them back to back. 

There are so many great lines, I have to quote a few, starting with Prometheus Bound. There is an exchange between the chorus and Prometheus early in the play, regarding how Prometheus went beyond just giving mankind fire. 

Chorus: But did you not perhaps go further than all this?

Prometheus: Yes. I stopped mortals from seeing their fate in advance.

Chorus: What cure did you find to charm away that sickness?

Prometheus: I settled unseeing hopes to dwell among them.

That’s brilliant. We do not know the future, but we have been given unseeing hope to envision a better future. (Again, Shelley takes this idea and runs with it.)     

Later in the play, Io visits Prometheus, on the run from a lustful Zeus and a vengeful Hera. I liked her description of how Zeus pursues her in her dreams.

There were always visions haunting my virgin bed

Night after night, and speaking kindly in my ears

With smooth sounds saying: ‘O most fortunate maiden,

Why keep so long your maidenhood, when you might make

The greatest match? Zeus is on fire with a shaft 

Of longing for you, and wants to join in love with you.

It is not for you, my child, to spurn aside the bed 

Of Zeus…’

Io, of course, is relevant to the story in different levels. She will be the ancestor of Herakles, who will free Prometheus. But she, like Prometheus, suffers unjustly as a result of the whims of the gods. Aeschylus also reveals her to be the potential spouse of Zeus who will lead to his downfall: her son with Zeus, if born, would overthrow him. But Aeschylus gets even more metaphorical with this. 

Io: And who will take from Zeus the sceptre of his power?

Prometheus: He will himself, he and his empty-headed plans.

Eventually, Io is driven from the scene by the Gadfly, sent by Hera to torment her. The chorus snarks a bit about the inadvisability of wedding a god. 

Wise, very wise was he

Who first found this ring true within his judgment

And with his tongue gave out the word:

Far the best thing is to wed within one’s station,

And, if one works for one’s living, not to long

For marriage with the glorious in wealth

Or with the families whose pride is birth.

Dang it! I guess fairy tales don’t come true. Actually, Aeschylus has a good point here: the rich - and the gods - are mostly assholes anyway. 

Those are the lines that stood out from Prometheus Bound. I found the philosophical questions to be fascinating, particularly the ageless Problem of Evil. 

Shelley, in his preface to Prometheus Unbound, makes it clear that he has no intention of following the outline of the known mythology. After all, even the Greek greats took liberties. “They by no means conceived themselves bound to adhere to the common interpretation or to imitate in story as in title their rivals and predecessors...Had I framed my story on this model, I should have done no more than have attempted to restore the lost drama of Aeschylus.” Furthermore, in Shelley’s view, reconciling Jupiter and Prometheus would have been to reconcile the champion of humankind with its oppressor. 

As an atheist, Shelley was controversial enough, but he took a pretty solid aim at religion from the opening lines, spoken by Prometheus in defiance of Jupiter. 

Monarch of Gods and Daemons, and all Spirits

But One, who throng those bright and rolling worlds

Which Thou and I alone of living things

Behold with sleepless eyes! regard this Earth

Made multitudinous with thy slaves, whom thou

Requitest for knee-worship, prayer, and praise,

And toil, and hetacombs of broken hearts,

With fear and self-contempt and barren hope. 

Looking back, this is how toxic religion works (in complete contrast to “pure religion” as described by Saint James): ruling with fear and self-contempt. In fact, that’s pretty much a good litmus test for toxic religion. If it relies on fear and telling you how bad you are, it’s toxic, and will have poisonous fruit. While I am not an atheist, I find that writers like Shelley tell the truth when it comes to the poison. 

Prometheus also responds later to Mercury, who has come to demand that Prometheus give up his information about Jupiter’s fate. He gives the usual “be humble and repent and submit” thing. Prometheus replies with an accusation:

                                                Evil minds

Change good to their own nature. I gave all

He has; and in return he chains me here 

Years, ages, night and day: whether the Sun

Split my parched skin, or in the moony night

The crystal-winged snow cling round my hair:

Whilst my beloved race is trampled down

By his thought-executing ministers.

Such is the tyrant’s recompense: ‘tis just:

He who is eval can receive no good;

And for a world bestowed, or a friend lost,

He can feel hate, fear, shame; not gratitude:

He but requites me for his own misdeeds. 

Mercury finally feels some pity, even as he cannot fathom why Prometheus defies the greater power. 

Prometheus: 

Pity the self-despising slaves of Heaven,

Not me, within whose mind sits peace serene,

As light in the sun, throned…

The chorus too is puzzled, and point out that mankind’s knowledge hasn’t been a universal blessing. After all, look at all the evil there is on earth - and all the evil that men do. And he isn’t even happy. 

Dost thou faint, mighty Titan? We laugh thee to scorn.

Dost thou boast the clear knowledge thou waken’dst for man?

Then was kindled within him a thirst which outran

Those perishing waters; a thirst of fierce fever,

Hope, love, doubt, desire, which consume him for ever. 

Looking on, Panthea and Ione see visions of the evil to come, including the sight of “a youth with patient looks nailed to a crucifix.” 

The heaven around, the earth below

Was peopled with thick shapes of human death, 

All horrible, and wrought by human hands,

And some appeared the work of human hearts,

For men were slowly killed by frowns and smiles. 

Prometheus himself is struck by the sight of Christ, and speaks some amazing words about that. 

Remit the anguish of that lighted stare;

Close those wan lips; let that thorn-wounded brow

Stream not with blood; it mingles with thy tears!

Fix, fix those tortured orbs in peace and death,

So thy sick throes shake not that crucifix,

So those pale fingers play not with thy gore.

O, horrible! Thy name I will not speak,

It hath become a curse. I see, I see

The wise, the mild, the lofty, and the just,

Whom thy slaves hate for being like to thee.

Just, wow. This is exactly what we are seeing unfold in our own time. Those who have bastardized the name of Christ hunt and hate those who most resemble Christ, and worship an orange idol who is the polar opposite of the one they claim to follow. 

But change is coming. Even the chorus admits it, and looks forward to the future. 

In the atmosphere we breathe,

As buds grow red when the snow-storms flee,

From Spring gathering up beneath 

Whose mild winds shake the elder brake,

And the wandering herdsmen know

That the white-thorn soon will blow:

Wisdom, Justice, Love, and Peace,

When they struggle to increase,,

Are to us as soft winds be 

To shepherd boys, the prophecy

Which begins and ends in thee. 

These pairings of four (or five) virtues or personified nobilities recur throughout in various forms. Here is another one, from Panthea:

Hither the sound has borne us--to the realm

Of Demogorgon, and the mighty portal,

Like a volcano’s meteor-breathing chasm,

Whence the oracular vapour is hurled up

Which lonely men drink wandering in their youth,

And call truth, virtue, love, genius, or joy,

That maddening wine of life, whose dregs they drain

To deep intoxication: and uplift,

Like Maenads who cry loud, Evoe! Evoe!

The voice which is contagion to the world. 

Much of the second half of the poem is very atmospheric, with a phantasmic and symbolic setting, and an ongoing conversation between Panthea, Asia, and Ione with various spirits. If you like romantic-era flights of poetic fancy, this is some of the most sublime. Here is just one word picture that I loved. 

Look how the gusty sea of mist is breaking

In crimson foam, even at our feet! It rises

As Ocean at the enchantment of the moon

Round foodless men wrecked on some oozy isle.

That swerve in the last line gets me. Suddenly, we have starving men on a desert island. 

Asia has the guts to question Demogorgon about the problem of evil. And Shelley does hit on a problem with monotheism in general: who created evil? There are no easy answers to this - which is why we are still talking about them thousands of years later. In Shelley’s view, mankind was originally born free - and Prometheus (as a metaphor) gave wisdom and strength to Jupiter, who failed to heed the warning to let mankind be free. Thus, mankind was shackled to tribalism and evil resulted. 

To know nor faith, nor love, nor law; to be

Omnipotent but friendless is to reign;

And Jove now reigned; for on the race of man

First famine, and then toil, and then disease,

Strife, wounds, and ghastly death unseen before,

Fell; and the unseasonable seasons drove

With alternating shafts of frost and fire,

Their shelterless, pale tribes to mountain caves:

And in their desert hearts fierce wants he sent,

And mad disquietudes, and shadows idle

Of unreal good, which levied mutual war,

So ruining the lair wherein they raged. 

Asia hopes to see better, of course. Demogorgon asks why she wants to know. 

                                    If the abysm

Could vomit forth its secrets...But a voice

Is wanting, the deep truth is imageless;

For what would it avail to bid thee gaze

On the revolting world? What to bid speak

Fate, Time, Occasion, Chance, and Change? To these

All things are subject but eternal Love.

The very end of the work sums up this theme that ultimately, Love must triumph. It is interesting that Shelley, though not religious, seems to be more in tune with the teachings of Christ than most “christians.” Here are the final stanzas of the poem, spoken by Demogorgon. 

This is the day, which down the void abysm

At the Earth-born's spell yawns for Heaven's despotism,

And Conquest is dragged captive through the deep:

Love, from its awful throne of patient power

In the wise heart, from the last giddy hour

Of dread endurance, from the slippery, steep,

And narrow verge of crag-like agony, springs

And folds over the world its healing wings.

Gentleness, Virtue, Wisdom, and Endurance,

These are the seals of that most firm assurance

Which bars the pit over Destruction's strength;

And if, with infirm hand, Eternity,

Mother of many acts and hours, should free

The serpent that would clasp her with his length;

These are the spells by which to re-assume

An empire o'er the disentangled doom.

To suffer woes which Hope thinks infinite;

To forgive wrongs darker than death or night;

To defy Power, which seems omnipotent;

To love, and bear; to hope till Hope creates

From its own wreck the thing it contemplates:

Neither to change, nor falter, nor repent;

This, like thy glory, Titan! is to be

Good, great and joyous, beautiful and free;

This is alone Life, Joy, Empire, and Victory!