SEMELE-STIMULA

Bernard Picart,1731
photo credit: wiki

IN REMARKABLE DEATH

None can look upon the face of god and live
              ~ Dante, Paradiso, canto twenty-one


In a temerity bequeathed her
you inherit corn spirit.

Let her wisdom precede you―Go!
Find your father.


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notes

1. For depictions of Semele in mythology and in art see Mythography which notes the following:  1.The name, “Semele” is not native to Greek language.  2. Although “there is some controversy about the precise origin of this legendary figure, one thing about Semele is certain - her story….quite popular in Greek myth.” It is a tale of remarkable death.
2. For Semele/Stimula see http://www.mythologydictionary.com/semele-mythology.html  for a scant synopsis of the myth. See also Ovid, “Fasti” trans. Anne Wiseman p. 118 for the ‘stimulae’ (Stimula) version of the myth.
3. Dante uses the myth to warn against temerity when approaching the sacred. See notes for canto twenty-one p 459 of Anthony Esolen’s “Paradise” translation. But also, Dante understands one must approach.
4. To experience the historical soul of indigenous peoples now telling their own narratives about a time of great upheaval that causes the archetypal activism of this feminine principle in the form of images of Selu, the corn maiden or first woman/mother of Cherokee polis to erupt in the visions and dreams of  19thC Cherokee people, visit http://nativeamericannetroots.net/diary/564

5. Handel’s “Semele”

AND BIRDS SING

LOCAL VOCAL

pastel dawn in thin light
lyrebird darts from under
thick & woody cover
& hummers hover


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A FRACTURED TALE

RAPUNZEL THREW THINGS

No plus for her prince as he drew near
So high held that she couldn't hear
Temporize m'lady with beautiful hair
Rapunzel throw down your underwear


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notes


1. The name, Rapunzel means rampion.

Rampion   A leafy plant in the same group as spinach and lettuce, rampion is an autogamous plant. If it is not fertilized with the help of insects, it can split a column within the plant to fertilize itself. The split column will "curl like braids or coils on a maiden's head, and this will bring the female stigmatic tissue into contact with the male pollen on the exterior surface of the column" (Thompson 1989).

2. What Rapunzel’s mother wanted was forbidden food. What Rapunzel wanted, so high up in a tower with no contact to the outside world was worldly experience; she wanted to fall like her mother into the world; what Rapunzel wanted was to become, become Rapunzel, become “fleshed”.

3.  Considering the archetypal angel, the angel of person, the pattern in this tale seems similar to the tale of Demeter & Persephone. Persephone distinguishes herself from her mother; her consciousness is not the grain goddess. Her pattern reflects a life which cannot be snuffed out. After her ordeal in Hades, she claims authority moving between two realms, a chthonic dimension within a human, earthy one, vegetal soul and animal spirit. Both.  And, significantly, such self-resonance is something else.  Suppose this is that to which the term “feminine principle” applies and that the nature of this principle is perhaps what Jung means when he uses the term, psychoid. See Mark Dotson’s Soul Spelunker http://soulspelunker.com/2015/01/the-psychoid-archetype-2.html . Suppose what happens within rampion soul in the story describes an event in the soul by the soul for its own sake.

4.  See Annotations For Rapunzel, Sur La Lune http://www.surlalunefairytales.com/rapunzel/notes.html for foot note one and four.

Some scholars believe Maiden in the Tower stories have their roots in the story of Saint Barbara. Saint Barbara was locked in a tower by her father when she disobeys him and refuses marriage offers from eligible suitors. You can read more about Barbara on the following webpage: http://www.catholic-forum.com/saints/saintb01.htm

5. For a modern Maiden in the Tower story see Richard Lance Williams, “Woman In The Tower” http://www.amazon.com/Woman-Tower-Stories-Wounded-Child/dp/0981744354

6. The line “Rapunzel throw down your underwear” is an adaptation from a version of the story,  “Falling For Rapunzel” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e3fXDFwjkv0 

7.  Original Fractured Fairy Tale of Rapunzel 

DEAD & BREAKFAST

IN VOLTAIRE'S CUL DE SAC

With the village mostly dead
and the journey oddly harmless
impasse awaits like breakfast
in a night garden.


2015 Voltaire's Cul de Sac Is No Dead Ending
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