From the sands of Naxos (Dia):
Many thanks are due to the kindred spirit who named, through cultured percipience, my unknown painting. Titian's Bacchus and Ariadne. That makes at least two representations of the god of wine and patron of the bacchanalia in V's gallery.
The allusions made by the iconography should now seem a bit clearer, no?
Consider the inspiration for Titian's work, Ovid's Ars Amatoria (Book I Part XV: At Dinner Be Bold), and Miss Portman's character transformation in the film:
Ah, Bacchus calls to his poet: he helps lovers too,
and supports the fire with which he is inflamed.
The frantic Cretan girl wandered the unknown sands,
that the waters of tiny sea-borne Dia showed.
Just as she was, from sleep, veiled by her loose robe,
barefoot, with her yellow hair unbound,
she called, for cruel Theseus, to the unhearing waves,
her gentle cheeks wet with tears of shame.
She called, and wept as well, but both became her,
she was made no less beautiful by her tears.
Now striking her sweet breast with her hands, again and again,
she cried: ‘That faithless man’s gone: what of me, now?
What will happen to me?’ she cried: and the whole shore
echoed to the sound of cymbals and frenzied drums.
She fainted in terror, her next words were stifled:
no sign of blood in her almost lifeless body.
Behold! The Bacchantes with loose streaming hair:
Behold! The wanton Satyrs, a crowd before the god:
Behold! Old Silenus, barely astride his swaybacked mule,
clutching tightly to its mane in front.
While he pursues the Bacchae, the Bacchae flee and return,
as the rascal urges the mount on with his staff.
He slips from his long-eared mule and falls headfirst:
the Satyrs cry: ‘Rise again, father, rise,’
Now the God in his chariot, wreathed with vines,
curbing his team of tigers, with golden reins:
the girl’s voice and colour and Theseus all lost:
three times she tried to run, three times fear held her back.
She shook, like a slender stalk of wheat stirred by the wind,
and trembled like a light reed in a marshy pool.
To whom the god said: ‘See, I come, more faithful in love:
have no fear: Cretan, you’ll be bride to Bacchus.
Take the heavens for dowry: be seen as heavenly stars:
and guide the anxious sailor often to your Cretan Crown.’
He spoke, and leapt from the chariot, lest she feared
his tigers: the sand yielded under his feet:
clasped in his arms (she had no power to struggle),
he carried her away: all’s easily possible to a god.
The Cretan girl is none other than Ariadne, the same who helped Theseus slay the Minotaur--only to be left (pregnant?) on the shore as he sailed away. Bacchus made her a bride, and potentially gave her the clap.
Ovid went on, btw, to paint quite the picture of seduction:
When Bacchus’s gifts are set before you then,
and you find a girl sharing your couch,
pray to the father of feasts and nocturnal rites
to command the wine to bring your head no harm.
It’s alright here to speak many secret things,
with hidden words she’ll feel were spoken for her alone:
and write sweet nothings in the film of wine,
so your girl can read them herself on the table:
and gaze in her eyes with eyes confessing fire:
you should often have silent words and speaking face.
Be the first to snatch the cup that touched her lips,
and where she drank from, that is where you drink:
and whatever food her fingers touch, take that,
and as you take it, touch hers with your hand.
Sweet nothings in the film of wine, eh? Kind of reminds me of Ben Jonson's To Celia. But, then again, he would eschew the drink for a mere kiss.
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on Monday, April 17, 2006 at 4:10 PM.
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I don't know why I didn't just say I thought the girl was a Munch painting, cause that's what I thought, and that's what she is. Maybe it's that the colors seemed off, too dark in the virtual gallery. Anyway, the piece is aptly called "Puberty" (1895), and it is by that depressive Norwegian. His "Madonna" is quite lovely, as well.
The cards (this will prove messy. Are you sure I shouldn't be trying to write this in French?): Just so you know, the Celtic Cross is among the most common of spreads. Also, you are missing one card - there should be a "crossing" card over the one in the very center, in your case over the six of swords, which represents a spiritual journey, as one might expect from the iconography), "a quiet passage through a difficult time.". This missing card would tell us what is impeding the impulse at the center of your reading. What's getting in the way?
The cards are quite consistent in their themes of strong male authority figures and longing and loss inregards to love. Also, spiritual journeying and musings - not necessarily distinct from the theme of love.
My tarot reading friend (she's been doing it for about 20 years), said that she thought you might have been a little smitten with the aspiring director. The fact she asked your birthdate suggests she was interested in you (my thought, not the cards). Naturally, I was a little jealous. The cups represent matters of the heart. The knight of cups reversed potentially represents you, and a failed romantic advance. Did you feel you fumbled a bit in your dealings with the avant-gardist? This interaction causes "a change in his way of relating to women. He thought he knew what he wanted, and now he's not so sure. Her interest in things occult inspired him to be more introspective about such matters."
Emperor in the "recent past." He is the authoritarian Father, stability, rules of society, law, sometimes archaic and unjust, sterility of life overrun with rules (a rogue often flowers). Go beyong the rules to find a personal code of conduct. This is echoed in the Hermit and Hierophant which is the next card in the deck following the Emperor.) It also represents having and maintaining good boundaries, order, and valuing the analytical over the emotional.
The nine of pentacles, in the position of possible outcomes, speaks to self awareness, and the ability to distinguish what matters in life. Reversed as it is, it warns of failure from lack of discipline, abandoned projects, energy not put towards useful purpose. (This by NO means suggests you shouldn't keep up with your blog and correspondents.) It can also mean not knowing what we want or what really matters to us.
Nine of cups in the "near future" - physical contentment, feasting, ordinary pleasures, enjoying what you have. which can serve you well after periods of long hard work.
You have the hermit card in the position of "self" - how have you been contributing to your situation? "A withdrawal from the outer world with the purpose of activating the inner mind." This figure is a spiritual guide, but have you been hiding out or withdrawn a bit? Or maybe you tend to try to guide others?
In the place of "environment" you have the wheel of fortune - changes around you, changes within you. opportunity.
hopes and fears - five of cups, struggle and pain. The figure, wrapped in a black cape of grief, is looking at the upset cups (something lost, the romantic opportunity? has he himself knocked them over, through carelessness or neglect? ), with his back to the two still upright (new beginnings). There will be acceptance, and the realization of what he doesn't now see.
Outcome - The Hierophant, the pope or high priest. He represents law the 'outer way' of churches and dogma, and education. But he also has a more esoteric meaning, the 'initiation into the secret doctrine.' This is perhaps a call to a spiritual path, and not one simply dictated by a doctrinaire figurehead. "To really discover God, you must undergo some uncomfortable confrontations with your own psyche." It is the ultimate responsibility for our own lives to put ourselves in charge of our own morality. The keys crossed at his chest are the keeys to the inner and outer ways, the feminine and the masculine, sun and moon. Maybe it represents your way of knowing members of the opposite sex? The hierophant and the hermit are wise, but in the Tarot deck, it is the High Priestess who knows the secrets of duality. The hierophant's keys do not fit her lock.
I'm guessing by your "year of the monkey" posting that you were born in 1980. Now, all we need is a birth time and place, and then your life will be ALL FIGURED OUT.
Yeah, right.
Thanks for the illumination of the meaning of Titian's painting. I do remember Ariadne's skein and the labyrinth, but not her ties to Bacchus.
Sometimes it is a fortiori not left to chance, and sometimes it feels like grace. You prepare, you hone, you mend, you practice, so that when the inspiration comes, you can be a conduit and not get in the way. Not so much from you as through you.
I put some artwork up in an adjacent blog to the charm school. did you poke around there? i'm scared but curious to know your thoughts on that.
only weird for you to hate Hawaii for your rent heart if the tearing didn't occur there. i don't hate it, though it broke mine, but i don't blame you for feeling that way. you won't any more on the someday when someone sews it back up for you.
Jesus, Ben Johnson? Really? You are something else.
Knowledgeable as you are about mythology, I feel compelled to share a dream I had some years ago. Perhaps I'll post it on my blog. Too tired to write it now.
I believe that painting was spoofed on the cover of the Crash Test Dummies CD "God Shuffled His Feet." How's that for culture?
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