Subtitle

A CONFLUENCE OF DAYS, WEEKS AND YEARS

by Jonathan Vold

Friday, May 27

TWL, Lines 77-93: Upon The River Of Cydnus

77     The Chair she sat in, like a burnished throne,
78     Glowed on the marble, where the glass
79     Held up by standards wrought with fruited vines
80     From which a golden Cupidon peeped out
81     (Another hid his eyes behind his wing)
82     Doubled the flames of sevenbranched candelabra
83     Reflecting light upon the table as
84     The glitter of her jewels rose to meet it,
85     From satin cases poured in rich profusion.
86     In vials of ivory and coloured glass
87     Unstoppered, lurked her strange synthetic perfumes,
88     Unguent, powdered, or liquid — troubled, confused
89     And drowned the sense in odours; stirred by the air
90     That freshened from the window, these ascended
91     In fattening the prolonged candle-flames,
92     Flung their smoke into the laquearia,
93     Stirring the pattern on the coffered ceiling.

77. A BURNISH’D THRONE: Eliot: “Cf. Antony and Cleopatra, II, ii, l. 190.”

See Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.190, 195-201.  Antony’s friend Enobarbus describes Cleopatra:

“she purs’d up his heart, upon the river of Cydnus.
...The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne,
Burn'd on the water: the poop was beaten gold;
Purple the sails, and so perfumed that
The winds were love-sick with them; the oars were silver,
Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made
The water which they beat to follow faster,
As amorous of their strokes.”

IMOGEN’S CHAMBERS: See also Shakespeare, Cymbeline  2.4.84-94, 102-105, where Iachimo allusively describes what he saw of Imogen’s chambers to her husband Posthumous:

“...First, her bedchamber,
Where, I confess, I slept not, but profess
Had that was well worth watching--it was hanged
With tapestry of silk and silver; the story
Proud Cleopatra, when she met her Roman,
And Cydnus swelled above the banks, or for
The press of boats or pride: a piece of work
So bravely done, so rich, that it did strive
In workmanship and value; which I wondered
Could be so rarely and exactly wrought,
Since the true life on't was–
....The chimney
Is south the chamber, and the chimney-piece
Chaste Dian bathing: never saw I figures
So likely to report themselves.”

Dian is the wood goddess Diana, whom the hunter Actaeon saw naked while she was bathing in the forest.  See Ovid, Metamorphoses 3:206-312.  For other allusions to Actaeon and Diana, see lines 10 and 197.

80. A GOLDEN CUPIDON: Enobarbus (see note 77) continues, at Antony and Cleopatra 2.2.202-208:

“...O'er- picturing that Venus where we see
The fancy outwork nature: on each side her
  Stood pretty dimpled boys, like smiling Cupids,
With divers-coloured fans, whose wind did seem
To glow the delicate cheeks which they did cool,
And what they undid did.”

Venus was the mother of Cupid and Aeneas, further alluded to in the lines to follow (see note 92, with reference to Virgil, Aeneid.  Compare the undoing and doing by the “Cupids” with the Pia being made and unmade at line 293.

See also Cymbelline 2.4.111-115 (see note 77):

“.... The roof o' the chamber
With golden cherubins is fretted: her andirons–
I had forgot them--were two winking Cupids
Of silver, each on one foot standing, nicely
Depending on their brands.”

87. STRANGE PERFUMES, which are “stirred by the air” (line 89), establish the atmosphere of this section, full of meaningful words made empty in their presentation. See note 76.5.  For the “vials of ivory” (line 86), compare the ivory pieces standing between the chess players at note 138.

92. THE LACQUEARIA: Eliot: “Laquearia. V. Aeneid, I. 726:
‘dependent lychni laquearibus aureis incensi, et noctem flammis funalia vincunt.’”

See Virgil, Aeneid 1.726-727, where laquearibus, a paneled ceiling, is translated as “gilded roofs”:

“From gilded roofs depending lamps display
Nocturnal beams, that emulate the day.”

DIDO AND AENEAS: This passage is from Virgil’s telling of the tragic romance of Carthigian Queen Dido and Aeneas from Troy; see also line 307 and notes 12, 34, 70, 231 and 307.  For the full story, see Virgil, Aeneid Books 1 and 4.  After leaving a besieged Troy, Aeneas, in search of a new homeland, came to Carthage, home of Juno, goddess of marriage. To welcome him, Dido, the Queen of Carthage, had prepared a lavish banquet.  With the intervention of Venus, Aeneas’s mother, and Cupid, his brother, Dido became smitten with Aeneas.  This would prove fateful for both Dido and Carthage.  Dido fell in love with Aeneas, and for a time they would even live together, but Aeneas would never marry her and would leave Carthage without her, ultimately finding his own place as the founder of Rome. Dido, left behind, would kill herself, and eventually Carthage would be defeated and destroyed by the Romans in the Battle of Mylae (see note 70).

Compare Dido’s feast with the royal engagement efforts for the granddaughter of Catherine the Great, wisest woman in Europe (note 45).  See also the failed efforts of Hellawes the Sorceress to seduce Sir Lancelot (note 388).

DYSFUNCTIONAL COUPLES populate, or dispopulate, the poem beyond Dido and Aeneus.  See lines 111-126 (empty talkers) and 139-172 (Lil & Albert), and notes 34 (Isolde & King Mark), (Adolf and Alexandra), 99 (Tereus & Procne), 128 (Hamlet & Ophelia) 145 (Lilith & Adam), 198 (Agamemnon & Clytemnestra), 279 (Lord Robert Dudley & Amy Robsart), 293 (Pia de Tolemei) 365 (the traveling bones wife), 388 (Hellawes and Lancelot) and 408 (howling wives, men on death beds).  For more blissful rivers, see notes 165 (a lustfully-paced courtship), 176 (a double marriage) and 291 (wedding bells).

ELIOT’S MARRIAGE was especially dysfunctional.  His wife, Vivienne Haigh-Wood, was perpetually troubled from 1915 until her death in 1947.  They separated in 1932 and were permanently estranged in 1938 when she was committed to a mental hospital.  See the preface to Eliot, Letters, quoting T.S. Eliot:

“To her, the marriage brought no happiness. To me, it brought
the state of mind out of which came The Waste Land.”

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