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Patricia Johnson, in her study (1996) of Metamorphoses 5, points out that Ovid departs from more traditional depictions of the deities of love in elegiac poetry by conflating Roman political aggression with mythical sexual aggression, and by constructing Venus' role in the rape [of Proserpina] through allusions to poetic as well as political works, primarily the Aeneid, the Homeric Hymn to Demeter, and Cicero's Verrines. Venus's is a boundless imperium sexuale, the flipside of what Leslie Cahoon (1988) calls the Roman libido dominandi, the drive to conquer. [...] [In Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae,] Venus also appropriates the language of war, e.g., subagere and ducere triumpho - an Ovidian maneuver, whereby a typical elegiac technique that draws from the epic tradition is transplanted back with an imperialist flavor into epic. But recognizing the intervening medium of elegy is necessary for appreciating this warlike Venus. Deployed in Ovid's elegy, the metaphor of love as war can achieve such power because of the inherent ontological irony (though opposites, love and war describe each other) and the generic tension (the epic in the elegiac). Genre as a literary institution normalizes certain uses of language as "proper" or "natural" (that is naturalizing them as literal) and marks other uses as metaphorical. For example, "besieging" an enemy in an epic is literal, while "besieging" an unrequited love in an elegy is metaphorical. Moreover, the direction of signification in a particular metaphor is determined by genre as well. In elegiac poetry, which describes love in terms of war, the direction is from war to love, with martial signs "carried over" (metaphora) into the amorous realm. In Ovid's and Claudian's descriptions of Venus, however, the metaphor loses its existence as metaphor explicitly, for the determining institution of genre has been reversed: "love as war" now becomes "war as 'love as war.'" In other words, in the tautology of "war as war," a second-order metaphor (i.e., metaphor of a metaphor) masquerades as a literal expression that negates the intervening term of love. This maneuver teases the reader with the elusive direction of the metaphor - if there is even one - asking [them] to recognize the epic in the epic-in-elegy.

- from "Hellish Love: Genre in Claudian's De raptu Proserpinae," S-C Kevin Tsai; emphases mine

#s c kevin tsai

Your fetid breath has corrupted the city ... A green of gangrene, a green of poison Swarms, and night crawls like a reptile. The crowd recites a prayer in chorus, A fervent delirium burning the lips, A glacial frisson amid the sweat, Toward your lividity, Our Lady of Fevers! Shadow has consecrated its evil gleam to you, The blue phosphors are your frail candles, And the fire follets gild your altar, Virgin who smiles at the death of virgins, Who remains deaf to the obscure appeal, Madonna to whom matins and vespers Rise up shivering, Our Lady of Leprosies! Your cathedral, with walls corroded by lichens Sickens the evening with its vapid warmth. On the soiled beds of hideous couplings, The moisture of sick hands sweats. Scaly lepers and the moribund Mingle their sighs with the shrieks of ospreys And kiss your knees, Our Lady of Wounds! Your tragic elect have inclined their foreheads Beneath the divine wind of your litanies. And amid the incense and the sacred songs And the flow of acrid fluids, Exhales a reek of pestilence. The pus and the blood and pale tears Have blessed your naked feet, Our Lady of Gasps!

- from A Woman Appeared to Me, Renée Vivien transl. Brian Stableford

#renée vivien

I spoke to her very quietly, in a voice weakened by all the fears of first love: "You are not like the One of whom I dreamed, and yet I find in you the incarnation of my most distant desires. You are less beautiful and stranger than my dream. I love you but i already have the certainty that you will never love me. You are the suffering that enables the scorn of happiness. I saw you today for the first time, and I am the shadow of your shadow. ... I will be what you make of me."

- from A Woman Appeared to Me, Renée Vivien transl. Brian Stableford

#renée vivien

fragbot

"I said to you once: Only love me just enough to illuminate my existence." "And I wasn't wise enough to obey you." She was carrying orchids as avid as unassuaged lips. She detached them and shredded them one by one with her long, implacable fingers.

- from A Woman Appeared to Me, Renée Vivien; transl. Brian Stableford

#renée vivien #a woman appeared to me #her long implacable fingers huh renée

How naive... or should I say, foolish? Me... love you...?! Me... Me...?! Please don't insult me like that!! Ugh! How repulsive!! ... Here's a little tidbit for you! Do you want to know why I've kept you by my side? It was because you fueled my sense of superiority!! I liked looking at you—it felt good. You were so vulgar, so unsightly. You were so pathetic that you honestly thought a decent person could ever love you. Yes!! Looking at you sent shivers of joy and pride through me!! You were below me!! Your blood was baser than mine!! I wanted to keep you by my side forever!!

- from Oniisama e..., Riyoko Ikeda

#riyoko ikeda

But now... Now, she and I are equal! No, I've beaten her! I'm the one who's always been there in her heart! I've beaten her in the end! Oh, what to do. Knowing my friend's secret makes me so happy I can't stand it! I can just see her, alone and miserable, looking at my picture. Poor Juri. Poor, pathetic Juri.

- from "The Thorns of Death," Revolutionary Girl Utena

#revolutionary girl utena

if i can just grip the edges of it. if i can close my fist and catch the blade on the inside. ghost-helen, helen made of mist and light, who ran and ate and returned my body when the stage went dark. if i could shake myself awake, i don't think i'd try.

- from "and another thing about the affair," Maria Zoccola

#maria zoccola

i don't know if you have ever started growing away from yourself. a ribbed shuck peeled down, inch by inch, from the gold. shadows on the dirt: corn bending toward the harvester, leaning forward in relief.

- "helen of troy folds laundry in a dim room," Maria Zoccola

#maria zoccola

as in the dampest part of winter, when rain flushes down from a sky with spring growing in its eye like a cataract not yet thick enough to film, wetting branches already spongy with snowmelt and too old to bargain another year's sap from the mother trunk, and the wind blows with sudden exclamation against the topmost bough, and that bough tumbles down, knocking here and there and falling square against a second limb, snapping it from the tree, and both limbs —sopped with rot and soft with death— drop together to the pine needle core of the forest floor and lie atop the other, unmoving and jointly locked, decomposing by turns—just so did i first lay eyes on him. just so did we begin.

- "helen of troy meets the big cheese," Maria Zoccola

#maria zoccola

she's sitting on the tub edge, which is across from the sink, the mirror comes down a long way, so even while she's sitting she can see how her hair is tangled around her ears and the crown of her head. she's waiting for the thing that's coming, the slow creep of movement over the skin, like standing in a puddle with long jeans, feeling the damp climb higher by degrees. she thinks she will be able to see the change in the mirror in the bathroom, and then later in the mirror in the bedroom, and later still in the dark glass of storefronts and car windows, the places she walks out in the world among people who might now know her for one of their own, or else for a foreigner come among them by hidden means, but she's wrong; there is no change. she is exactly the same, except for the tangled hair and the marks along her hips where he bruised her, even though he tried not to.

- "(interlude: the swan describes the next hour)," Maria Zoccola

#maria zoccola

every bird in the sky begged to be my man. each worm in the dirt longed to wife me. when i swan in shallow creeks, leeches encircled my ring finger in black bands. i shimmered with a magic of hair or ankle, some perfection of sex that bent to my neck in powdered down, cutex-sharp at nails and toes, coats of flashing fuchsia frost. rats swarmed from their roofly nests. deer massed in the leaves before my blind, and then came the boys, pickup trucks and heavy bass, paper cups to hold brown spit. they snarled and swore and muddied the lawn, they bloodied the lawn, they held each other and rutted in the lawn, sun-scald sweating them dry, undershirts yanked off, rivers of skin like the milk of my own hunger. i took their gifts. i counted them: dolly on vinyl, dolly on cassette, remington bolt-actions and tripods of gold, mud-covered jeeps with half-paid notes, a basket of rags with a cygnet inside. they offered themselves, their mothers' farms, their fathers' bread, their bodies new-spun from childhood clay. come down to us, they howled to my window. we'll pelt you like the forest fox. we'll strip you clean, we'll lick you raw. you'll see why trees lie down for the axe. i listened. i went. i never came back.

- "helen of troy is asked to the spring formal," Maria Zoccola

#maria zoccola

Love is just like a bubble… It pops to the surface, lingers for an instant, and is soon gone. Life’s fleeting instant is like a bubble too. So, all of us in that brief bubble seek to love and be loved… Its beauty lies in its brevity. But we must never despise it for being merely ephemeral. Wouldn’t you agree? That’s how we should look at it.

- from “The Transient Game,” Oniisama e…

#oniisama e

kallistoi

i've been reading claudian's de raptu proserpinae and am really struck by his style. it's so maximalist, with a really keen eye for small details!!! i wanted to try a hand a translating some of his very long sentences in a kind of angela-carter-esque style to really get across the lushness of all that subordination. i'm particularly drawn to the refusal of my edition's editor (claire gruzelier for oup) lay down a full stop anywhere she could put a (semi)colon or a comma

first, here's ceres on her way to mt. ida to meet cybele, her chariot drawn through the sky by dragons (drp 1.179-189):

when that most faithful of mothers concealed her child - a pledge to be preserved - here [in sicily], she made off, carefree, to the gods of phrygia and sought turret-crowned cybele, directing the sinuous limbs of her dragons, who streak the clouds through which they pass with their wing-dragging and make their reins wet with domesticated venom; a crest covers each one's brow, verdant marks embroider their spotty hides, ruddy gold flashes between their scales. now, they swim through the zephyrs with their coils; now, flying lower, they slice the fields. the wheel fertilizes the furrowed soil with white dust as it sinks. its path yellows with ears of grain, its tracks lay the foundation for crops that rise up; corn clothes the course, a fellow-traveler. hic ubi servandum mater fidissima pignus abdidit, ad Phrygios tendit secura penates turrigeramque petit Cybelen sinuosa draconum membra regens, volucri qui pervia nubila tractu signant et placidis umectant frena venenis: frontem crista tegit; pingunt maculosa virentes terga notae; rutilum squamis intermicat aurum. nunc spiris Zephyros tranant, nunc arva volatu inferiore secant. cano rota pulvere labens sulcatam fecundat humum: flavescit aristis orbita; surgentes condunt vestigia fruges; vestit iter comitata seges.

and mt. ida, when she arrives (drp 1.202-213)

here: the august seat of the goddess and the awe-inspiring cliff of her well-tended temple, which pine darkens with its dense fronds and, with its cone-bearing boughs, beats the time for a creaking song, though no wind stirs its groves. within: terrible revels, and the frenzied shrines roar with choral commotion. ida is a bacchanal of keening; gargara sets its thronging woods aslant. once ceres was spotted, the bull-roarers rein in their lowing; the choruses fell silent; not a single corybant clashed his sword; no boxwood pipe, no bronze cymbal makes a sound and the lions deaden their alluring manes. cybele, who had been taking her pleasure in the innermost sanctuaries, emerged and laid low the turrets on her head, bowed for a kiss. hic sedes augusta deae templique colendi religiosa silex, densis quam pinus opacat frondibus et nulla lucos agitante procella stridula coniferis modulatur carmina ramis. terribiles intus thiasi vaesanaque mixto concentu delubra gemunt; ululatibus ide bacchatur; tumidas inclinant gargara silvas. postquam visa ceres, mugitum tympana frenant; conticuere chori; corybas non inpulit ensem; non buxus, non aera sonant blandasque leones summisere iubas. adytis gavisa cybele exilit et pronas intendit ad oscula turres.

#claudian

The first mention of the nouerca, and first indication that this role will be dramatically defining for Phaedra, occurs in the opening choral ode, an acclamation of the all-pervasive power of Natura and Amor. The Chorus finishes its catalogue of Love’s victories with a final generalization: ‘What more can I sing? Love’s care conquers wicked stepmothers’ (quid plura canam? | uincit saeuas cura nouercas, 356–7) ... The Chorus’ introduction of the nouerca through the rhetorical device of praeteritio (quid plura canam?) seems fairly innocuous in context: a standard persuasive strategy that uses silence, a ‘refusal’ to explain, to emphasize a point, drawing listeners into a community of understanding and consensus (e.g. ‘of course you all know already what we mean...’). It’s notable then that the next reference to the nouerca has precisely the same rhetorical and ideological conguration. In his agon with the Nurse, Hippolytus also cites the stepmother as proof, this time not of love’s power, but of feminine (and human) evil: ‘As to stepmothers I am silent: they are a thing no gentler than wild beasts’ (taceo nouercas: mitius nil sunt feris, 558). As before, the climactic position of stepmothers in Hippolytus’ inventory of evil (again, the plural indicates a stock type) and his outraged pose of ‘refusing’ to speak about them ideologically positions his listeners as a like-minded community, thus closing off further explication—even mentioning nouercae, Hippolytus implies, is ‘uncalled for’. The striking parallel in these first two references to nouercae suggests they are more than merely contingent examples of Seneca’s rhetorical style; rather, they inaugurate a subtle yet programmatic pattern in the play whereby the nouerca is incorporated into rhetorical tropes or clichés that represent her as beyond words, as ‘silencing’ all further discourse, the extreme exemplum which speaks for itself. Seneca’s placing of this generalizing rhetoric in his characters’ mouths has increasingly ironic implications as his plot unfolds ... When Phaedra finally confesses her desire (which, unlike the Euripidean Phaedra, she does in person, in speech), Hippolytus’ language recalls, intentionally or not, the rhetorical formulae he and the Chorus deployed earlier in ‘not mentioning’ nouercae, but it is as if they have assumed a new, devastating meaning: he brands his stepmother’s desire nefas (678), ‘unspeakable’ ... [This] signals the larger tendency of Senecan tragic rhetoric to push to the limit and ‘crack open’ rhetorical (and social) norms: in the escalation from well-worn cliché (‘I say nothing of stepmothers’) to the language of the damned, to what cannot be said (Hippolytus’ nefas), Seneca exposes the fear and horror that lurk behind (and are suppressed and controlled by) seemingly banal rhetorical types and tropes.

- from Reproducing Rome: Motherhood in Virgil, Ovid, Seneca, and Statius, Mairéad McAuley

#mairéad mcauley

guldaastan

i genuinely hate how people have to sit and write a post that stands out while boosting a fundraiser because most people won't bat an eye at the misery and inhumane conditions Palestinians are living in.

i see people making art and telling others to use it because fundraisers with art are generally reblogged more often. i see people using colored text in order to make the post more eye catching.

palestinians on instagram are using popular audios and stitch trending reels at the beginning to make the world pay attention to them. imagine having to make something look entertaining in order to survive.

they are living under constant threat of israeli airstrikes, bombing, scarcity of food and disease. many have lost a lot in the past few months.

palestinians on tumblr are posting their pictures and the horrible conditions in which they are living. they travel long distances for internet connection only to be called a scammer by some privileged ass who cannot locate gaza on a map.

here are some verified gfms. please share the linked posts. it's the bare minimum we can do from the comforts of our home.

@amjadshiltawu: link to the post

vetted

@dima96yousef: link to the post

vetted

@tamer200333: link to the post

vetted

@ahmed8311: link to the post

vetted (#161)

@saratahrawi: link to the post

vetted

gothhabiba

Last week, the Relief for Rafah (R4R) community kitchen provided a water truck, and cooked and distributed food for the residents of Al-Junaina, Rafah.

R4R need money to continue their efforts providing people with food, water, and medicine in Rafah. Ramadan begins tomorrow, and people need food and water to break their fasts.

Relief for Rafah (R4R) is a mutual aid initiative featuring team members from the US and Gaza. We are fundraising to support families in Al-

Ramadan Kareem 🕌✨🌒

gothhabiba

R4R have only raised about $400 this Ramadan. Mohammed, one of the organisers, told me that about $4,000 would be needed!

gothhabiba

$880 / $4,000

kallistoi

[image description: the first image shows two photos of a death mask mold from the 2nd century gallo-roman tomb of claudia victoria in lyon. the second image includes illustrations of the mold in profile and frontal views with the caption, "masque de claudia victoria, trouvé a lyon." the illustrations from henri thédenat's 1886 publication on the molds. end description.]

Both concave impressions and the convex casts created from them are referred to as “death masks,” confusing the distinction between direct impression and subsequent image. Attempts to distinguish concave from convex “death masks” have resorted to tellingly imprecise metaphors: the hollow concave forms are said to be “negatives,” and the lifelike faces they produced are their “positive” casts. This technical language is borrowed from photography. Also borrowed are assumptions about relative value ... But what happens if we suspend, for a moment, these questions of source and reproducibility, negatives and positives, a larger chaîne opératoire, and instead pay attention to the curious visual qualities of the concave casts as artifacts in and of themselves? What exactly does a (photographic) system that produces—choose your word—transfers, reversals, inversions, or “negatives” have to do with the relationship between a mold and its resultant cast that together suffer no such transposition or lateral reversal and can thus be perfectly aligned like a hand that fits snugly inside a glove? By offering these objects as grave goods, leaving them with the deceased, the ancients clearly recognized them as valuable artifacts and not simply forgettable detritus that linked the face of the deceased to a lifelike ancestral image. The most recent photographs of the Lyon mold demonstrate the ineluctably ambivalent nature of its physical appearance—an ambivalence that extends to the physical appearance of all such objects. Whether one glances at the first photograph of the mask in a fraction of a second or examines it for several minutes with scrupulous care, the viewer will almost certainly see a normal face whose features protrude from a recessed surface. In reality, however, the perception of convexity is an illusion. A second photograph of the same side of the mask introduces subtle yet crucial differences in light and shadow (in particular, around the sunken eyes) whose discernment may detract from but not quite nullify the overall effect—one that might have been significantly intensified when viewed in the darkened space of the tomb, lit only by the flickering light of sputtering oil lamps. In a classic study on nature and illusion coedited with Ernst Gombrich, the neuropsychologist Richard Gregory coined this phenomenon the “Hollow Face Illusion.” The brain, even if it knows intellectually that the mask is hollow, is unable to overcome completely the countermanding sense data until the mold is subjected to the test of touch or turned at a considerably oblique angle. Even then, the face continues to befuddle the person who views and handles the mask, for the reversal of its depth creates a motion parallax so that the features appear to rotate in the opposite direction from which it is turned, causing the face to seem as though it were turning to watch the observer. So powerful is the illusion, Gregory observes, that it “is best demonstrated not with a photograph of, say, a hollow face, but with the hollow mold itself." Our present-day experience with these uncanny artifacts may help explain how they were viewed in antiquity and why most of the surviving molds have been found in tombs. Did the apparent shifting of the face in the mold—the way in which it wavers between convexity and concavity—dramatize the relation to the deceased as a kind of ghostly presence whose susceptibility to the empirical evidence of vision and touch hangs in a state of permanent and disquieting suspense? Unlike the wax, plaster, and marble images produced from them, many of which seem to have been freestanding busts, these loosely shaped casts had to be held to be seen, and so their uncanny effects depended on an intimate interaction with the faces of the dead. We can even return to [the scholarship on the molds by Florence] Dupont and suggest that the concave plaster molds were the ultimate example of the imago: they were seals, impressions, statues, likenesses, copies, reflections, and ghosts all at once.

- from "Roman Death Masks and the Metaphorics of the Negative," Patrick R. Crowley

#patrick r crowley

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