Her
eyes like marigolds had sheathed their light,
And canopied in darkness sweetly
lay,
Till they might open to adorn the
day.
Narrator
Lucrece Stanza 57 Line 402
Right to the end of the book we go today, and the poem
Lucrece. This is our second visit to this pretty dark poem. Here’s the first post if you want to read it for a little background.
Keeping in mind that the other title for this poem is The
Rape Of Lucrece, we know what this poem is about. And the stanza that we take
today’s line from is a section, about a half dozen or so stanzas, that describe
Lucrece as she lies asleep in bed. Now that could be a nice scene if it were
not for the fact that what is being described is what the rapist is seeing and
this is just about to turn into a rape scene. So that’s a bit disturbing.
But it almost seems like Will wants to make you forget that context and just concentrate on the beauty of Lucrece. And he uses a lot of nature
references here to do that. A few lines earlier he was talking about her pure white hand
on the green blanket, comparing it to a daisy in the grass. And in today's Totally Random line we're talking about marigolds. Lots of flower
references, eh? It’s a pretty interesting section.
Her eyes are not just closed, they are ‘canopied in
darkness’. And when they open they won’t just be open, they will ‘adorn the
day’. My goodness Will’s wordplay is, is… well it’s beyond my ability to
describe his wordplay. Or perhaps wordwork. Or maybe wordArt. Yes, wordArt,
that’s what it is. Okay, that's right, Microsoft’s got
that one and uses it for their artsy font stuff. So, oh well.
In any event, today’s line, albeit a prelude to a rape, has
some absolutely beautiful language. And I think we could take this into a
discussion which has the potential of going in a few different directions;
perhaps a contrast of the beauty of this section of the poem with the uglilness
of rape? But I’ll leave that up to you. Read it, share it, discuss it.
Here's one more flower; not a marigold or a daisy. In fact, I have no idea whatsoever what kind of flower this is. Anybody?
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