The Anathemata
The Lady of the Pool (continued)
We are a water-maid
fetch us a looking-glass!
a comb of narwhal ivory, a trident
and a bower anchor—
and the Tower lion
nor twisk his lasher.
Here is our regnant hand:
this ring you see upon it were gave us long since by a’ ancient fisher; ’tis indulgenced till there be no more sea: kiss it.
No, no, on y’r marrow-bones—though you hooked behemoth, you shall kneel!
This bollard here
where keels tie, come from all quarters of a boisterous world, hand us to it to sit upon.
No Ægis?a
Why then, for where our marbly shoulders socket the swan whites of our neck, and for our lilied front, knot and splice the best soft-laid three-quarter inch halliard-hemp—and see it shapes
David Jones notes
additional notes
a Ægis: originally proper to Zeus, a shield of goatskin, terrible to behold, which struck terror into the ranks of fighting men. The Gorgon’s head is sometimes said to be in its centre. Homer describes Athene as ‘holding the precious aegis which is ageless and immortal: a hundred tassels of pure gold hang fluttering from it, tight-woven each of them, and each the worth of a hundred oxen’. This article seems to say everything that is known about it.
comments
Elen here mimes the transfiguration into Britannia with the appropriate symbols. Her impersonation is effective — but the siren/Britannia is counterfeit, like the unicorn’s horn earlier. Not gold tassels, but hemp rope for the Ægis.