The Anathemata
Rite and Fore-time (continued)
first revetteda of anguish-heights1
matrixb for West-oppidac
for West-technic
for West-saga
down
under, sheet-darktd Hellespont?
pack for the Cyclades?e
And where, from the potent flotsam, florid she breached, with spume on her spear-flukes,2 the great fluked mammals blow? glaciation cones her own Thebes?3 loess drifts Leo-gate?f
David Jones notes
1 Troy was one of the first walled cities, We can therefore take it as archetypal of all defended sites, and the persistence and integral position of the story of Troy and of Helen in our Western tradition thus finds support in modem scientific archaeology; while our civilization remains the word ‘Troy’ will equate automatically with ‘love and war’.
2 When I wrote this I had an idea that in some presentation of the nativity of the goddess, she is shown with a spear or fish-hook, but I can get no confirmation of this and therefore suppose I am mistaken. I will let it remain, because, after all, a fish-spear is not inappropriate to her, whether as sea-goddess or goddess of love.
3 Aphrodite was patroness of the city of Thebes.
additional notes
b matrix: as used on page 50 note b.
c Latin for towns, especially walled towns such as Troy. DJ comments ‘For me, oppida evokes the powerful constructions of which Caesar talks about in the Gallic Wars, Vercingetorix etc. and also that huge defence work at Maiden Castle — after the Claudian invasion.’ (Hague, p. 40).
d An echo of Homer, who invariably refers to the sea as ‘wine-dark’. In this and the following line, DJ is thinking of the Hellespont and the Cyclades as being in a sea covered with pack ice: see page 58 note 1. Also Cyprus (where the goddess Aphrodite came ashore) and Thebes in the following lines.
e The Cyclades are a group of Aegean islands forming a circle (the name in English means ‘circular islands’) around the sacred island of Delos. According to the Greek mythology, Poseidon, God of the sea, furious at the Cyclades nymphs, turned them into islands.
f the fine wind-driven silt (loess) drifts over the famous Lion Gate at Mycenae.
see also
semantic structures
glossary
a revetted: of a wall or embankment, having a facing of masonry or other solid material
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