Rolling stars Agamemnon 2-21.

The Agamemnon opens with the watchman's anticipation. He's on the look-out for the sumbolon, a prearranged fiery relay carrying the good news that Troy has been taken. He talks at some length about that long lonely wait, and how, doglike, he fights sleep, boredom, and dreams. But before that, he speaks of how he's come to understand the assembly of stars (astron).

ἄστρων κάτοιδα νυκτέρων ὁμήγυριν, 

5

καὶ τοὺς φέροντας χεῖμα καὶ θέρος βροτοῖς 

λαμπροὺς δυνάστας, ἐμπρέποντας αἰθέρι 

ἀστέρας, ὅταν φθίνωσιν, ἀντολάς τε τῶν. 

καὶ νῦν φυλάσσω λαμπάδος τό σύμβολον, 

αὐγὴν πυρὸς φέρουσαν ἐκ Τροίας φάτιν 

10

ἁλώσιμόν τε βάξιν:

I have learned well the gathering of the night´s stars, bringers of winter and summer to mankind, those radiant ruling stars conspicuous in the night sky, whenever fading or rising. 

So now I am still watching for the signal [sumbolon] of the flame, the gleaming fire that is to bear word from Troy and tidings of its capture. (Ag. 4-10 - Smyth Nagy - modified.)

In his aside, he looks up and first sees gatherings of stars bringing the frosts of winter and heat of summer. He uses two words for stars in this brief aside: Commonplace stars that form the gatherings are ἄστρων. Ruling stars conspicuous in the night sky, fading or rising, are ἀστέρας.

His nod to the heavens is brief, yet the watchman manages to include a nuanced appreciation of these fires in the sky -- the commoners bearing the seasons and temperatures, then, his tone heightens as he speaks of the radiant giants. It's a quick moment, and one might wonder why Aeschylus bothered. Why not just have the watchman speak of what he's waiting for, and why?

One possible motive for a seemingly gratuitous nod to the stars is its effect within this speech. It sets the gallery of lights up there as a stable and predictable but distant realm. It's a point of reference -- far, but not entirely beyond, our earthly existence; orders of magnitude larger, especially if we are likened to dogs. Stars bear larger tasks than we do, but even the brightest undergo regular routines of change. From his nightly chore the watchman feels on familiar terms with them.

As he turns from the night sky to the horizon and his work of watching, the fiery object of his watch, unbenknownst to him, is already racing across the dark waters between the Troad and Argos, about to blaze into view.

He speaks of fighting off sleep, trying to keep a sharp line between dream and waking, and wishes for this ponos to end:

νῦν δ᾽ εὐτυχὴς γένοιτ᾽ ἀπαλλαγὴ πόνων  

εὐαγγέλου φανέντος ὀρφναίου πυρός.  

But tonight may there come a happy release from these ordeals [ponoi] of mine!
May the fire with its glad tidings flash through the gloom!

The signal fire suddenly flashes out.

ὦ χαῖρε λαμπτὴρ νυκτός, 

Oh welcome, you blaze in the night . . .

He reads the light, welcoming it as the good news he's been expecting. This fire appearing out of the murk (φανέντος ὀρφναίου πυρός) is his lucky star. It will reorient Argos, it will the watchman's longeurs and bring the great ruler home.

But this star of good tidings won't have the enduring serene stability of the astron or the asteras. It'll be more comet than star.

A tentative interpretation: Aeschylus interpolates the watchman's view of the heavens on line 4 to establish the first moment of a pattern in the Agamemnon.  Those heavenly stars bearing gradual change seem distant and aloof, but what if that distance suddenly vanished? What comes rolling into view certainly seems a star blazing out of the East, double speaking of Troy past and of something veiled, yet to be disclosed.

In the Agamemnon, everything is connected to everything. The watchman's seeming "aside" about the stars proves more: it's a marker in the syntax of his world, where what seems far off, or a dream, can suddenly, powerfully turn from familiar vertical hierarchic stability into a jolting usurpation of fundamental human order.

Sign and symbol [sumbolon] carry a lot of freight in this play. The shining good news from Troy "means" the triumph of General Agamemnon, until the very same sign means the rising of his Queen and the murder of the conqueror of Troy wrapped in purple, in the bath.

The watchman underscores this in another simile:

ὅταν δ᾽ ἀείδειν ἢ μινύρεσθαι δοκῶ, 
ὕπνου τόδ᾽ ἀντίμολπον ἐντέμνων ἄκος, 
κλαίω τότ᾽ οἴκου τοῦδε συμφορὰν στένων 

. . . and whenever I care to sing or hum 
(and thus apply a remedy of song in place of sleep), 
then my tears start forth, as I bewail the fortunes of this house of ours, 

Whenever he tries to sing or hum a tune -- μινύρεσθαι can mean "to hum" or "warble" like a nightingale -- then this use of song as substitute (ἀντίμολπον) for sleep, which he intricately compares to chopping an herb's roots (ἐντέμνων) to prepare a stimulant, turns the song as it is sung into a wail.

Later the chorus will sing of heart pains dripping as we sleep; building wisdom from suffering while we're not even paying attention. The watchman's song comes out as an uncontrolled, arrhythmic croak. Beauty is undone in this house; the song and croaking sorrow are one.

At this moment, he sees the fire.

In contrast to the organic, vocal link of choking pain, disruption, and awareness he just experienced, the watchman, having seen the unambiguous sign of fallen Troy (ὡς ὁ φρυκτὸς ἀγγέλλων πρέπει --  as this beacon unmistakably announces l.30), speaks of a lucky roll in a game of chance. The ambiguity of the symbol resolves, he believes, into clear good news.

That purported clarity has him spring into a jig, prelude to the dance of the chorus that enters as he descends from the roof into the house to relay the sign to Clytaemnestra.

αὐτός τ᾽ ἔγωγε φροίμιον χορεύσομαι. 
τὰ δεσποτῶν γὰρ εὖ πεσόντα θήσομαι 
τρὶς ἓξ βαλούσης τῆσδέ μοι φρυκτωρίας. 

And I will join the khoros in a prelude upon my own account; 
for my lord’s lucky roll of the dice I shall count to my own score, 
now that this beacon has thrown me triple six. 

Best to stay awake in Argos, where a placid starry messenger moving on high turns to a burning comet moving over dark seas, seeming sign of a lucky cast. In the quicksilver light of symbol and signifier, presumptive closure bears watching.

"Non pur ne'miei occhi": A poet's doubt (Par. 18)

This reading of Paradiso 18 has 5 parts:

1. "Non pur ne'miei occhi": A poet's doubt -- this post
2. Diligence, delight, and the slippery slope of mimesis 
3. The grammar of Wisdom: Writing in Paradiso 18
4. Candid Raptor: The Poet as Ganymede in Par. 18
5. Venomous letters: The end of Paradiso 18

At the very moment in Paradiso 17 that the poet has finished listening to Cacciaguida's foretelling of his future, and immediately preceding the advice the old man will give him about the poem he'll go on to write, we have the image of weaving:

Poi che, tacendo, si mostrò spedita
l'anima santa di metter la trama
in quella tela ch'io le porsi ordita,

When by its silence showed that sainted soul
That it had finished putting in the woof
Into that web which I had given it warped, (17.100-102)

The image is of a tela - a web, or textile, which serves as the metaphor for the text they both are weaving. The poet puts down the warp (ordita), the old man provides the woof, or weft (trama). 

 Paradiso 17 ends with Cacciaguida's heartfelt encouragement to 

Make manifest thy vision utterly,
  And let them scratch wherever is the itch.

At this key moment of the canticle, we might assume that with these marching orders, the poet needed no further resolve to complete the poem, the very reason he was shown, in fact,

                                within these wheels,
Upon the mount and in the dolorous valley,
Only the souls that unto fame are known.

So it's all the more surprising when, at the opening of the next canto (18) we hear the poet, still on Mars, still tasting his great great grandfather's bittersweet word (verbo), now speak openly of abandoning his task:

Not only that my language I distrust,
  But that my mind cannot return so far
  Above itself, unless another guide it.

non perch' io pur del mio parlar diffidi,
ma per la mente che non può redire
sovra sé tanto, s'altri non la guidi.  (18.10-12)

Not only is Dante, like Theseus, helpless here to find his way back to memory without an Ariadne, he's also diffident about his parlar - his speaking. For one whose mission is to bring back his journey, a guide is on hand -- but for a poet to lack trust in his own speaking, this sounds like a crisis of faith.

To further complicate things, the guide whom he turns to -- "the Lady who to God was leading me" -- mirrors such love and beauty that he is entranced to the point of seduction:

her again beholding, my affection
  From every other longing was released.

While the eternal pleasure, which direct
  Rayed upon Beatrice, from her fair face
  Contented me with its reflected (secondo) aspect,

rimirando lei, lo mio affetto
libero fu da ogne altro disire,

fin che 'l piacere etterno, che diretto
raggiava in Bëatrice, dal bel viso
mi contentava col secondo aspetto.

Beatrice, the guide and symbol whose precise mission is to lead the pilgrim beyond himself, comes perilously close here to turning into the obstacle -- a Siren, Calypso, or Ariadne -- who threatens to waylay the hero, freeing him from desire to go beyond her.

Quite a predicament: a poet whose mastery of his own speech is uncertain; who, even if he felt secure, would yet be unable to remember what to say unless he has a guide; a guide who in this case happens to be so inherently beautiful as almost to blot out anything beyond her luminous self. Indeed, Beatrice verges on the opposite of a translucent symbol, teetering on becoming an end in herself, a Medusa before whom the poet would seize up, speechless, and end his odyssey right here.

This is not at all what canto 17 set us up for. At the same time, despite the clear details that would render some poets entirely aphasic -- the segmented self lacking confidence in his ability to be at one with speech and memory, entranced by a secondo who's so perfect her smile could persuade us she's the primo -- the text does not exhibit anything like the shattering doubt and anxiety found in Inferno 9, when the Furies called on Medusa to end the poet's progress then and there, once and for all.

All the threats a poet might fear are in play here, but Beatrice is no Siren. Instead of holding him captive, she directs Dante to look away from the very thing he just said he could not do without -- herself:

Conquering me with the radiance of a smile,
  She said to me, "Turn thee about and listen;
  Not in mine eyes alone is Paradise." 

Vincendo me col lume d'un sorriso,
ella mi disse: “Volgiti e ascolta;
ché non pur ne' miei occhi è paradiso.”

Non pur ne'miei occhi, says Beatrice. "Not in my eyes alone." If the poet were not who he is, we might hear him say, "Not a problem - you're paradisal enough for me."

Beatrice's direction is the opposite of what Virgil instructed him to do before Dis:

"Turn thyself round [i.e., away from Medusa], and keep thine eyes close shut," 

“Volgiti 'n dietro e tien lo viso chiuso;"

Here in Paradise, as Beatrice directed, he turns away from her, and sees Cacciaguida do something unprecedented in the poem: The old man speaks a name, and the hero so named shoots across the radius of the giant cross on the red planet. Words assume power, speech and act are one. 

né mi fu noto il dir prima che 'l fatto.

nor noted I the word before the deed.

For a poet struggling with his own power over his art, this would be a powerful thing to witness. The poet's last word about Cacciaguida -- who is singing, his face lit up with his soul's fervor -- is "artista."

The poet is openly coming to grips with the challenges to his power over his medium. Now that he's been given the warp and weft of his place in history, his future, and his mission as artist, it's as if he needs more than ever to make sure that he, as poet, can finish the job. He needs confidence, guidance, faith, and courage. In another post we'll see how the rest of canto 18 speaks to these literally literary matters.

Displaced fire: Heroides 16 in light of myth

"Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop." - H.L. Mencken

One choice Ovid had to make in Heroides 16 and 17 was how to have Paris's immediate challenge -- the seduction of Helen -- resonate within the overarching story in which the lovers play so key a role.

The poet weaves the larger mythical structure within fine details of Paris and Helen's letters. When Paris ponders whether he should speak, he speaks of fire:

Eloquar, an flammae non est opus indice notae,

     Et plus quam vellem iam meus extat amor?

Ille quidem lateat malim, dum tempora dentur

     Laetitiae mixtos non habitura metus,

Sed male dissimulo; quis enim celaverit ignem,

     Lumine qui semper proditur ipse suo?Si tamen expectas, vocem quoque rebus ut addam — 

     Uror! habes animi nuntia verba mei. 

Shall I then speak out? Or is it unnecessary to point to a flame that betrays itself? Hasn't my love already stood out more than I would wish? I'd prefer it to lie latent till time permits sheer joy unmixed with fear. But I dissemble poorly; for who can conceal a flame betrayed by its own light? If you nonetheless expect that I add voice to acts -- I am burning. You now have the words that herald my heart.

Paris has no choice. To ask whether he should speak, he must speak. In voicing his question and its implications, he gives away the store. Not surprising that eloquar, the root of "eloquence," can be read here as a rhetorical question.

This eliding of the confession of love with the act of loving is consonant with the elisions we looked at earlier, involving space, time, giving, and self. Not all articulation works that way. I can say "I am going to the gas station" many times over, but it doesn't get me there. Saying "I love you," however, does what it says. The delicate relation of speech to action here makes it essential that we explore Paris's statement in relation to the larger mythic structure in which it plays an essential part.

For the author of this letter, passion and love are embodied in flammae. The paradox of fire is that it cannot be concealed, since it produces light, the very thing that enables things to appear. If I burn, you will necessarily see it, he says, even if I wish to keep my love hidden. Paris burning is the thing, the rebus; "I burn" are verba added to the unspoken. To say "I burn" is to "shed light" -- the light of language, of pointing (indice) -- upon light. Saying "I burn" makes patent and explicit what was latent, implicit. Indeed the very word for latent, lateat, lies hidden within the word laetitiae, the explicit consummated delight of Paris and Helen. Ovid, like Freud, loved puns.

Fire is of course a key motif that runs throughout the mythic tapestry behind this tale. Pardon the compression here, but it's necessary:

Coda: Zeugma in Heroides 7

Near the very beginning of her letter to Aeneas, Dido twice uses a familiar trope, commonly known as zeugma. She will use it more times in the course of her letter.

Zeugma: A trope in which one verb governs several words, or clauses, each in a different sense. Example: “He stiffened his drink and his spine.” (A more elaborate description can be found here, and more examples here.)

Certus es ire tamen miseramque relinquere Didon

atque idem venti vela fidemque ferent.

certus es, Aenea, cum foedere solvere naves

quaeque ubi sint nescis, Itala regna sequi.

You are then resolved to depart, and abandon unhappy Dido;
the same winds will bear away your promises and sails.
You are resolved, Aeneas, to weigh your anchor and your vows,
and go in quest of Italy, a land to which you are wholly a stranger.

The repetition of this trope early on is noteworthy -- it is not the case with other of Ovid's letter writers that they exhibit this level of rhetorical facility right off the bat. In addition to two zeugmas, she also uses anaphora -- the repetition of the same opening words, certus es... certus es. Her speech abounds in rhetorical tropes. Let us not forget that Dido asks for only one thing in this letter: that Aeneas read her carmen. She's a born writer!