To the Poem of a Flower
In front of darkness
That doesn't bloom a stem of a poem
Even though I burn my whole body
Staying up all night,
You are giving off
The mysterious scent
Like the poem of a fresh flower
Whose petals are in full bloom.
In your white and clean flower flesh,
The myth of Venus is heard
And in your flower eyes like jewels,
The legend of Emerald Lake glitters.
Please don’t open
Please don’t open
Your reddish flower lips,
‘Cause the whispers of love overflow
Even in the crack of the closed flower lips
And light a fire in the heart of darkness.
Darkness runs away
As you shine brilliantly,
But small embers
Left in the trembling heart
Are blooming
As a stem of a love poem
Venus Verticordia -- Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Venus Verticordia ("the changer of hearts") was an epithet of the Roman goddess that alluded to her ability to change hearts from lust to chastity. She was especially worshiped by married women, and the Veneralia festival was celebrated in her honor every April first. In 114 BCE three vestal virgins were condemned to death for transgressing the rigid Roman law against sexual intercourse, but they dedicated a shrine to Venus Verticordia in the hope that she would turn the hearts of women and girls against licentiousness and towards chastity. Following a method outlined in the Libri Sibyllini, a collection of oracular utterances in Greek hexameters that had been bought from a sibyl by the last king of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in the 6th century BCE and were subsequently consulted at momentous crises, 10 candidates were drawn by lot from 100 choose the one who would dedicate the statue; from these women, Sulpicia, the wife of Quintus Fulvius Flaccus and the daughter of Servius Sulpicius Paterculus was selected as the most chaste of all Roman maidens.(The Sulpicia gens was one of the oldest patrician families; only 9 years after the expulsion of the king, Servius Sulpicius Camerinus Cornutus was the first of the family to serve as consul; the gens Fulvia was one of the leading plebeian families, which had obtained its sacra -- its rites of sacrifice and prayer -- from Hercules.) IN Rossetti's 1868 painting, white roses (for purity) filled the background, while honeysuckle, representing sweetness and the bond of love, flourished in the foreground. The model was Alexa Wilding, one of the few of his models who never had any romantic connection to the painter even though she sat for more of his finished paintings than any other.
ReplyDeleteThanks for your detailed and sincere explanation!
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