Aurora e Titone, by Francesco de Mura
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In Greek myth, Tithonus was a Trojan prince, the brother of King Priam. According to a poem of the early seventh century BC, the Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite (lines 218-238,) Tithonus’ youthful good looks attracted the attentions of Eos, the goddess of the dawn. Aphrodite had condemned Eos to lust after mortal men. Eos abducted Tithonus and kept him in her mysterious land in the east. She lavished him with gifts. Eos went so far in her generosity to Tithonus as to ask Zeus to make Tithonus immortal. That may have been going too far, or not far enough- Eos neglected to ask Zeus to stop Tithonus’ aging. So he grew old, lost all ability to move his limbs, and took to babbling incessantly. Eos locked him up in a golden chamber when this happened. The hymn’s detail about Tithonus’ babbling may be reflected in later traditions that represent him as a great singer. The fifth-century BC writer Hellanicus of Lesbos says that Eos took pity on him and turned him into a cicada, a creature whom the ancients suspected might be immortal. In the poem below, Aiken follows the modern tradition of representing Tithonus as a grasshopper rather than a cicada.
Arachne transformed, from a 1703 edition of the Metamorphoses of Ovid illustrated by Johann Wilhelm Bauer
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According to Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Arachne was a maiden from Lydia in Asia Minor who challenged the goddess Minerva (the Greeks would have said the goddess was Athena) to a weaving contest. When Arachne won this contest, the goddess responded with such fury that Arachne hanged herself. Taking pity on her victim, Minerva revived the girl in the form of a spider. Ovid represents Arachne as an innocent, though she has been thought of in other ways at other times. The story of Arachne’s encounter with Tithonus appears to be Aiken’s own invention. Aiken also takes some further liberties with the story, as you will see.
“The Wedding,” by Conrad Aiken
At noon, Tithonus, withered by his singing,
Climbing the oatstalk with his hairy legs,
Met grey Arachne, poisoned and shrunk down
By her own beauty; pride had shrivelled both.
In the white web- where seven flies hung wrapped-
She heard his footstep; hurried to him; bound him;
Enshrouded him in silk; then poisoned him.
Twice shrieked Tithonus, feebly; then was still.
Arachne loved him. Did he love Arachne?
She watched him with red eyes, venomous sparks,
And the furred claws outspread… “O sweet Tithonus!
Darling! Be kind, and sing that song again!
Shake the bright web again with that deep fiddling!
Are you much poisoned? sleeping? do you dream?
Darling Tithonus!”
And Tithonus, weakly
Moving one hairy shin against the other
Within the silken sack, contrived to fiddle
A little tune, half-hearted: “Shrewd Arachne!
Whom pride in beauty withered to this shape
As pride in singing shrivelled me to mine-
Unwrap me, let me go- and let me limp,
With what poor strength your venom leaves me, down
This oatstalk, and away.”
Arachne, angry,
Stung him again, twirling him with rough paws,
The red eyes keen. “What! You would dare to leave me?
Unkind Tithonus! Sooner I’ll kill you and eat you
Than let you go. But sing that tune again-
So plaintive was it!”
And Tithonus faintly
Moved the poor fiddles, which were growing cold,
And sang: “Arachne, goddess envied of gods,
Beauty’s eclipse eclipsed by angry beauty,
Have pity, do not ask the withered heart
To sing too long for you! My strength goes out,
Too late we meet for love. O be content
With friendship, which the noon sun once may kindle
To give one flash of passion, like a dewdrop,
Before it goes!… Be reasonable, — Arachne!”
Arachne heard the song grow weaker, dwindle
To first a rustle, and then half a rustle,
And at last a tick, so small no ear could hear it
Save hers, a spider’s ear. And her small heart,
(Rusted away, like his, to a pinch of dust,)
Gleamed once, like his, and died. She clasped him tightly
And sunk her fangs in him. Tithonus dead,
She slept awhile, her last sensation gone;
Woke from the nap, forgetting him; and ate him.
Spider eats cicada
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“Acceptance,” by Robert Frost
When the spent sun throws up its rays on clouds
And goes down burning into the gulf below,
No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud
At what has happened. Birds, at least, must know
It is the change to darkness in the sky.
Murmuring something quiet in her breast,
One bird begins to close a faded eye;
Or overtaken too far from his nest,
Hurrying low above the grove, some waif
Swoops in just in time to his remembered tree.
At most he thinks or twitters softly, “Safe!
Now let the night be dark for all of me.
Let the night be too dark for me to see
Into the future. Let what will be, be.”
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