The Anathemata
Mabinog’s Liturgy (continued)
Well, run and fetch Calypso3
out for to see
she ’ill be only moping
over an old tale
in the half-light
on the back balcony
that gives towards the sea.a
She’s sibylline enough
she too knows dendrite beauties.b
And little Persephone
those Five she’ld love to pluck.c
David Jones notes
In his book Cumaean Gates Mr Jackson Knight, on page 30, writes, ‘Calypso is very much like a sibyl’ and on page 32 he develops this idea. In his Vergil’s Troy , page 93, the same author refers to the possible connection between Calypso (‘she that covers’) and the name Helen and the association of that name with moon-goddess and tree-goddess. It will be recalled that Zeus compelled Calypso to let her lover Ulysses sail home to Ithaca and leave her on the seashore of Ogygia after she had enjoyed him for eight years.
additional notes
a ‘the back balcony that gives towards the sea’ is also the scene of DJ’s painting Manawydan’s Glass Door.
b Calypso knew a fine tree when she saw one because she chose the trees for Ulysses’s boat.
c It was as the Greek goddess Persephone was tempted to pluck a flower of surpassing beauty that the earth yawned and Hades, king of the underworld, snatched her away.
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