§140. Within the Greek poetry, maidens also gamble throughout the meadows, hence topic has had a whole lot scholarly attract you to definitely complete talk the following is hopeless. ” As the Stehle Stigers demostrates, the fresh meadow was a place of virginity, also of their loss, the latest fate of its plant life synchronous compared to that regarding a beneficial maiden. The fresh vintage exemplory instance of the fresh new theme is actually, without a doubt, Persephone’s fateful selecting of your own vegetation in a lovely meadow and you can together with her family members. It’s got always been realized that one of the meadow’s defining attributes is actually the unproductiveness, and therefore stands inside clear contrast into the virility of the ploughed career. Much like the metaphor out-of ploughing is actually expressed about Athenian greatest dictum toward reason for matrimony, it is therefore implicit from the Russian individualized away from holding a great plough along side door of one’s newlywed’s bed room. The new bride’s audio, in contrast, should never be concerned with virility, doubting of the the loud quiet the truth that anything is given into bride to be during the payment for just what she manages to lose. The brand new matter of your own maiden’s musical in addition to bride’s lament was perhaps not age bracket, but natural beauty and its particular irrevocable losings, depicted as the absolute destruction.
Alternatively, the newest meadow is actually a good locus out of erotic potentiality and “waking sexual feel,” an appealing yet unsafe location for girls, where, given that Rosenmeyer sets it, there are not any men, however, “threats off predation hover on corners
§141. The fresh new haunts of the maidens was gorgeous and unproductive, be they insane places, such as for example meadows and you can forests, otherwise room which might be, in reality, expanded and you will secure. It latter choice is due to the fact common as former, however, possess additional connotations. Throughout the meadows, new maiden try unprotected along with the business from their ages-mates-it’s within mode one she are viewed by their own future husband, and you will out of this function one she could be snatched. The image from a safe flower yard, at the same time, commonly is due to the bride’s parents, with her sheltered and you may magnificent life throughout the adult house, that is coming to a conclusion while the absolutely given that to experience from inside the the brand new meadows. Here the absolute most hitting synchronous to the Russian relationship audio arrives again of Catullus 62, where in fact the chorus out-of maidens won’t give any benefit so you can wedding and compares a beneficial maiden so you’re able to a rose for the an excellent walled garden where neither cows neither plough can be threaten it. Even though it is safe, this new rose try stunning and fashionable, but the moment it is plucked it each other fades and you can is out off look at, no more “sweet” and you can “dear” so you’re able to boys and girls, a destiny like the fresh maiden:
Ut flos qui inside the saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro, quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber. multiple illum pueri, multae optavere puellae: idem jizz tenui carptus defloruit ungui, nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae: sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; spunk castum amisit polluto corpore florem, nec pueris iucunda manet, nec cara puellis.
Serve they to say that new meadow might have been appropriately demonstrated while the good “room filled up with Eros” and you may “build to own video game that lead to pleasure out-of amorous appeal,” but plus a gap that’s hardly the latest locus of sex
Identical to a rose increases invisible when you look at the an enclosed backyard, unknown in order to cows, uprooted because of the no plough, a rose that breezes caress, sunlight strengthens, the new precipitation rears. Of numerous youths, many maidens desire it- One same flower immediately following it withers, plucked because of the a flaccid nail, Zero youths, no maidens attention: Only so a good maiden, as long as this woman is unaltered, is actually precious to their unique relatives; Shortly after she loses the pure flower, their unique muscles defiled, She will not will still be enjoyable so you can youths, neither precious so you can maidens.
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