“Metamorphoses” (The Brazen Age / The Iron Age ) – Ovid

     “British Industries. Steel“ 

 

              Richard Jack

 

                  _______

 

 

The Brazen Age
 

          To this came next in course, the brazen age:
          A warlike offspring, prompt to bloody rage,
          Not impious yet… 

 

brazen, of brass, the pride, and collective 

title, of the military, not to mention of

industrialists, CEOs, still 

 

yet…., or the Iron Age, follows

 

 

The Iron Age
 

          Hard steel succeeded then:
          And stubborn as the metal, were the men.
          Truth, modesty, and shame, the world forsook:
          Fraud, avarice, and force, their places took. 

 

remember conscience, from the Golden Age,

now, during this Iron Age, “fors[aken]”

 

          Then sails were spread, to every wind that blew.
          Raw were the sailors, and the depths were new: 

 

note “sails” here, a perfect example of a

metonymy, where the word means not 

only the cloth, the canvas that catches 

the wind, but also its larger self, the 

ship, which benefits from that integral

propulsive action, like the body the

heart 

 

          Trees, rudely hollow’d, did the waves sustain;  

 

hollowed out trees could manage to

remain above the water, could float

 

          E’re ships in triumph plough’d the watry plain.

 

our archetype here would again be Columbus,

however ignominiously

          Then land-marks limited to each his right:
          For all before was common as the light. 

 

though all land had earlier been common,

available to all to freely enjoy, now fences,

signposts prohibited collective access

          Nor was the ground alone requir’d to bear
          Her annual income to the crooked share, 

 

crooked, awry, disproportionate

          But greedy mortals, rummaging her store,
          Digg’d from her entrails first the precious oar; 

 

“greedy mortals”, mining, not only from

“the ground alone”, but from the earth’s 

very “entrails”, her “oar”, or ore

          Which next to Hell, the prudent Gods had laid;
          And that alluring ill, to sight display’d. 

 

the “prudent Gods” had set the precious 

metals near that unholy place to ward off,

however ineffectually, eventually, potential  

pilferers, plunderers 

 

          Thus cursed steel, and more accursed gold,
          Gave mischief birth, and made that mischief bold: 

 

or again “Truth, modesty, and shame, the 

world forsook: / Fraud, avarice, and force, 

their places took.“, lines 3 and 4 from the 

top

          And double death did wretched Man invade,
          By steel assaulted, and by gold betray’d, 

 

double death, assault and betrayal, invade, 

become components, properties, of Man

          Now (brandish’d weapons glittering in their hands)
          Mankind is broken loose from moral bands; 

 

immoralities follow

          No rights of hospitality remain:
          The guest, by him who harbour’d him, is slain,
          The son-in-law pursues the father’s life;
          The wife her husband murders, he the wife.
          The step-dame poyson for the son prepares;
          The son inquires into his father’s years. 

 

the stuff, at present, of all of our arts and 

literature, of our collective consciousness, 

we are the Iron Age

 

where

          Faith flies, and piety in exile mourns;
          And justice, here opprest, to Heav’n returns. 

 

“justice” has flown, fled, to Heaven,

to our universal, and grievous, 

distress

 

 

R ! chard

 

 

 

 

 

 

“Metamorphoses” (The Golden Age) – Ovid

    “Field of Poppies“ (1873) 

 

           Claude Monet

 

               _______

 

 

once the Creation is complete, Time 

becomes one of its components, ages, 

or eras, or epochs ensue giving credence 

to the fact of an evolutionary process,

instead of stasis a continuation of the 

inner workings of primordial Chaos still 

roils, bristles, but among more orderly 

elements now 

 

so that the first age, The Golden Age,

is positively blissful 

             The golden age was first; when Man yet new,
             No rule but uncorrupted reason knew: 

 

Evil was not yet even a concept 

             And, with a native bent, did good pursue. 

 

a native bent, naturally, by instinct, inately

 

             Unforc’d by punishment, un-aw’d by fear,
             His words were simple, and his soul sincere; 

 

therefore

             Needless was written law, where none opprest: 

 

where no one offended, laws were 

unnecessary

             The law of Man was written in his breast: 

 

a function of his emotions

             No suppliant crowds before the judge appear’d,
             No court erected yet, nor cause was heard: 

 

suppliant crowds, petitioners for justice

 

             But all was safe, for conscience was their guard. 

 

remember conscience, something that too

often now has fallen, it seems, by the 

wayside

 

though we’re a long way off at present, 

admittedly, from the Golden Age

             The mountain-trees in distant prospect please, 

 

please is a verb here, as in the mountain-trees 

bring pleasure

 

but

             E’re yet the pine descended to the seas: 

 

E’re, or before, the pine trees descended, 

grew closer to, gravitated toward, the water

 

compare here, ” About her coasts, unruly 

waters roar; / And rising, on a ridge, 

insult the shore.”, from earlier, where 

“water vies with earth for its place upon 

the strand”

 

instead of water, Earth encroaches here, 

an equally formidable opponent 

 

             E’re sails were spread, new oceans to explore: 

 

E’re, or before, ships set out to conquer,

see Columbus for the archetypal example

             And happy mortals, unconcern’d for more,
             Confin’d their wishes to their native shore. 

 

a world without an economy

             No walls were yet; nor fence, nor mote, nor mound,
             Nor drum was heard, nor trumpet’s angry sound: 

 

drums and trumpets at any distance 

would’ve been cause for alarm, or at

the very least caution

 

             Nor swords were forg’d; but void of care and crime, 

 

note the negative no, nor, nor hammered out

through the last three verses, describing by 

omission the state of the original age, 

what there was not

             The soft creation slept away their time. 

 

soft creation, not inclined to struggle

             The teeming Earth, yet guiltless of the plough,
             And unprovok’d, did fruitful stores allow: 

             Content with food, which Nature freely bred,
             On wildings and on strawberries they fed; 

 

the subject here throughout is the “teeming 

Earth”, the Earth, metonymized, becomes 

earthlings – therefore “they” replaces 

“teeming Earth” as subject in the last two 

lines – who’d feed on wildings, uncultivated 

plants, crab apples, for instance, strawberries

             Cornels and bramble-berries gave the rest,
             And falling acorns furnish’d out a feast. 

 

Cornels, shrubs 

             The flow’rs unsown, in fields and meadows reign’d: 

 

flowers bloomed unbidden, covering fields

 

see above 

 

I watch the cherry blossoms grace our 

streets with their opulence as I speak,

decking our April days with springtime, 

“still, even thousands of years later“,

a remnant, a bequest, of that golden 

past 

             And Western winds immortal spring maintain’d. 

 

like very Paradise, stretching into even 

immortality

             In following years, the bearded corn ensu’d
             From Earth unask’d, nor was that Earth renew’d. 

 

renew’d, tilled, harvested

             From veins of vallies, milk and nectar broke; 

 

valleys engender streams that create 

the conditions for milk and nectar

             And honey sweating through the pores of oak.

 

or our own indigenous syrup of maple

 

 

R ! chard

 

 

 

 

XXXlV. With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee – Elizabeth Barrett Browning‏

from “Sonnets from the Portuguese”

XXXlV. With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee

With the same heart, I said, I’ll answer thee
As those, when thou shalt call me by my name –
Lo, the vain promise! is the same, the same,
Perplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy?
When called before, I told how hastily
I dropped my flowers or brake off from a game,
To run and answer with the smile that came
At play last moment, and went on with me
Through my obedience. When I answer now,
I drop a grave thought, break from solitude;
Yet still my heart goes to thee – ponder how –
Not as to a single good, but all my good –
Lay thy hand on it, best one, and allow
That no child’s foot could run fast as this blood.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

_______________________

despite the fact that this poem is evidently
a continuation of the last one, her XXXlllrd,
“Yes, call me by my pet-name! let me hear“,
it is interesting to note that this XXXlVth
can stand entirely on its own, a separate
and independently cohesive entity, having
in this present iteration revisited all the
points that make the previously rendered
account wholly here a recapitulation, in all
even its intricate detail, superimposed upon
the other, or, more accurately here, after the
other, like skilled and artful embroidery, or
like Russian, maybe, nesting dolls

again it’s wise to watch the commas, and
read the lines as you would prose, if you’ll
pardon my, perhaps impertinent,
suggestion

but even then you’ll come up short, in the
second line at “those”, whose referents
are only inferred, though indeed still only
dimly, by the end of the poem

“those” are of course those she ran to, her
elders, and by extension their plural, note,
“eyes”, a wonderful, and shimmering, dare
I say, stitch, a reverberant metonymy, where
the “eyes” are not only those of one “some
face”, but apparently various also others, a
veritable prism ultimately in which she had
been severally reflected

and we’re just at line two, the second verse,
Elizabeth is manifestly a poet

in the third verse, “the same, the same”
juxtaposes twin statements, the point is
that these identities are now timeworn,
“[p]erplexed and ruffled by life’s strategy”,
by life’s disaffections and dislocations,
and become entirely opposite

but this remains

she says that her step is even more nimble,
now, fleeter, “no child’s step could run as
fast as this blood”, “this blood” being her
ardent, of course, devotion, she asks that
he be her purpose, “[n]ot as to a single
good, but all my good”

but isn’t that like saying God, in a world,
the Romantic Age, become then, if you’ll
remember, much more secular, this
position no longer a blasphemy, a heresy,
however unconsciously publically, even
scandalously, subversive

may he “[l]ay [his] hand on it”, she invokes,
his metaphysical hand on her metaphorical
heart, and “allow”, confirm, indeed consecrate,
this fervent declaration, which she has signed
with, assigned her last word to, note, her very
“blood”

Richard