"TIIHONUS" AND "MARPESSA."

Otago Witness, Issue 2651, 4 January 1905, Page 69

"TIIHONUS" AND "MARPESSA."

The analogy beween Tennyson's "Tithokus" and Stephen Phillips's " Marpessa " seems so close that "Tithonus" must have been in the youngei poet's mind on writing this fine Olympian idyll, which certainly marks the zenith of classic poetry in England this decade. And yet, though the .motif is the same, and treated from the same philosophic standpoint, there is a characteristic freedom of technique, a graceful prodigality of words, that redeems Stephen Phillips from, the slightest imputation, of being a copyist, his, indeed, being in many respects the reverse of a Tennysonian "style. The two poems were written ,at periods of youth when, the authors' ages could* not have been 10 years apart ; yet in each case the distinctive barriers of style were already fixed. In "Tithonus" the marvellously /close pruning of phrase and the double distilled compression of thought blend the strength of 'Tennyson's maturity with the glow of his youth. Stephen Piallips is*almost> as perspicuous, but has th<? - graceful^ ordered discursiveness of a mind more" feminine. . "Tithonus," a mere fragment of, poesy, is a glorious conifer of scng, rounded upward to the inevitable conclusion ; " Marpessa " spreads about its noble branches like some meadow-growing ! oak, each branch' a wonder of foliage j*-yeV it is the single, heaven-painting conifer that ! strikes the memory for ever. ,V .The story of "Tithonus" is the counterdi?velopment -of that of "Marpessa >? — the sOltL-j.oldi story 'of the fatal wedlock of withf- immortals. Since poetry '/began this 'has been a strangely-recurrent tl'eme';. how 1 early it was- stamped even upon, the Jewish- mind T?e know from that | ,lon"g-miitaken •reading of Genesis regarding.] thW^sons of ,God beholding the .beauty «of the daughters of men, .On this single pas-;, sage what -a wealth of wild and . lovely I legend .has c been founded ! To it we owe Byron's beautiful "Heaven and Earth," Moore's pretty, but fibreleas and .sentimental ; '•'Loves' -of the , Angels," » and "that fovely fragment 'of Julia's,, "the Child Angel." We : ■have a iint- of it in "Kubla Khan," where Coleridge" speaks of. tlte "woman wailing fur iher demon -lover/ Again- and ~ again Greek myth gathers-round this idea, as in the story", of Zeus and Semele ; nor is it. wanting in the VediG legends. In the Polynesian we have* it in the tale of Ina and Marama, the Moon God, which has lately been beautifully re-told by our own New Zealand poet, Mr Arthur Adams. I* is worthy of note that this story of Marama .is almost the only one where t.l»e mutual love of god and mortal is portrayed as other than disastrous ; and Mr Adams's acceptance of it as such is unique in. moclernf poetry. One would fain question whether this difference arises from any essential difference in the Polynesian temperament' or from the possible fact of Polynesian thought being isolated so long from it»- .-early environment, thus preserving a simpler, cruder conception of the relation between men and gods, quite in keeping with the .half -conscious Pantheism of early savagery, though, far removed from the later develbpment&Qf *" the higher human consciousness. ./-For without doubt the reading of" "Tithonus" and "Marpessa" is that accepted by ; the modern mind'," expressed to the 'highest 1 canons of modern art -- - - - Every reader af .poetry is familiar with ''-Tithonus," that" fragment which, written J in -Tennyson's youth, and designed as a j kind of companion piece to' "Ulysses," was j neglected arid left unpublished- for a. quarter of a century,, when his genius had already \ received its- meed in .England 1 , It is the I plaint of the aged consort of Eos the Dawn ! -Goddess, whose disvoted love had secured for him during his splendid early manhood' the gift of everlasting life, but not everlasting youth. Never has the mortal weakness of age been so spiritually, so tenderly, depicted ; it is as if written with an angelic pen dipped in the very wine of the dawn. Its sadness is uplifted from tbat native Earth, now so ardently desired' ; • it is breathed in those alien heights where the failing Tithonus withers in the arms of Eos, Here at the quiet limit of the world, A white-haired shadow roaming like a dream The eves/silent spaces of the East, Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of mom. j What subtle grace dwells in the old man's memory of the recurrent manifestation of Eos, to all else the world-wide rosy ; mystery of dawn, to him alone the added mystery and glory of the spirit-bride. His failing, his yearning for rest is the grief of Eos, as she departs to guide the wild team of whom he speaks :, Wlio shake the darkness from their loosened manes, And heat the twilight into flakes of fire. In the plaintive weakness of age he sighs; ! "Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears And make nic tremble lest a saying learnt In days far off on that dark earth be true? "The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts.' ' L The passionate memory of love's vigils long past, when with other eyes he watched tbe "lucid outline forming round" returning Eos, is but a heaviness now to the passionless pilgrim who has missed by divine mischance the appointed shrine of death ; still, he makes his moan to the faithful and, alas! helpless goddess j

1 Yet hold me not for ever in thine East. How can my nature longer mix with thine? Ooldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet Upon thy glimmering thresholds. This grey passion of ebbing, but endless, life, for ever mocked with eternal and selfrenewing youth, is the central idea of "Marpessa" also. But here the Greek legend differs, and gives the counter-end-ing ; the wise and lonely maiden Marpessa, being given her choice of union with Apollo or her human lover, Idas, chooses the latter, and averts the doom of too daring human af'ection, transplanted to celestial courts. The tropic noonday scene in which the three are .met for Marpessa's decision irresistibly recalls the kindred passage in "CEnone," where the goddesses repair to the slopes of Ida to receive the judgment of Paris, though for once Stephen Phillips does not linger, but dismisses the nature selling of the drama in one rich sentence: When the long day that glideth without cloud, The summer day, was at her blue deep hour.Of lilies, musical with busy bliss, When every light trembled as with excess, And heat was frail, and every bush and flower "Was drooping in the glory overcome, They three together rneV. But Tennyson's description out-vies in colour, However sparing .of luscious tinting hs was in after years ; . and is carried away on that lovely and impossible flower-mosaic of his : And at their feet the. crocus brake like fire, • Violet, amaracusj and asphodel, Lotos and lilies. In the tropic noonday spell of "Marpessa" one misses, -too, the life-bringing wind that stirred the ivy festoons across the gnarled boughs on Ida, though all unable to breathe strenuous counsel into the darkening mind of the over-flattered Paris. And so the spirit drama of Marpessa begins in the hush of the old Hellenic summer. (To be continued.)