A hypothetical depiction of the Temple of Hera at Samos.Three Perspectives from Samos: Sonnets by Margaret Coats The Society November 22, 2021 Beauty, Culture, Poetry 22 Comments . Three Perspectives from Samos Poet’s note: The Greek island of Samos, in the region of Ionia, was the reputed birthplace of the goddess Hera, and the scene of her marriage to Zeus. It was also the birthplace of the philosophers Pythagoras and Epicurus, and it boasted a sibyl. Sibyls were known in antiquity for predicting disasters, but in early Christian tradition, they were considered prophetesses to the Greeks, corresponding to the Hebrew minor prophets. Each was endowed with some small piece of knowledge about the coming of Christ. . The Lyrist Here Rhea bore a daughter azure-eyed, Beneath a lygos tree along the shore, Near Ímbrassos’ wild rocky riverside Where lilies bloom that white-armed Hera wore. Eurhýthmy of old Ocean shaped her speech, And Tethys taught her songs of dew and air. With Oceanids she frolicked on the beach; They swam fresh-robed in freely streaming hair. Rare virgin with all beauty that endears A goddess to her brother Zeus espoused, Fair Samos for three hundred nuptial years Your secret satisfying romance housed, And after, laid a temple’s sacred zone Around your colonnaded golden throne. . The Citizen Smooth driftwood sits as image of her cult, Not carved in queenly majesty, but found, And yearly as processions there exult, It’s washed in waves, by lygos branches bound. Still, there are sumptuous statues for display; Rich votive offerings deck her treasuries, And chapels prosper on the Sacred Way In prayer for children, household, health, hearts’ ease, And wealth! The world seeks out this favored isle, Competes with us in reverential hope: With cows we sacrifice a crocodile, Seed-fruits that Hera loves, and antelope. Ionia has built this monument; We glory in its marvelous extent. . The Sibyl Dreamers who sleep in columned porches, think How self-indulgent is competitive Idolatry! This fane will quake and sink, And water bury cherished things you give, But on your aspirations I have mused, And seen how gracious hours advance refined. This handsome stone for homes can be re-used, And holier customs honor womankind; Marriage will be divinely dignified; Of what I speak, a cradle is the sign: Pythagoras might study it with pride, And Epicurus judge it sweet as wine. Beside it kneels the graces’ full possessor; She prays as universal intercessor. . . Margaret Coats lives in California. She holds a Ph.D. in English and American Literature and Language from Harvard University. She has retired from a career of teaching literature, languages, and writing that included considerable work in homeschooling for her own family and others. NOTE TO READERS: If you enjoyed this poem or other content, please consider making a donation to the Society of Classical Poets. The Society of Classical Poets does not endorse any views expressed in individual poems or commentary. Share this:Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)Click to print (Opens in new window)Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)Click to share on WhatsApp (Opens in new window)Click to email a link to a friend (Opens in new window)Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)Trending now: 22 Responses Joseph S. Salemi November 22, 2021 These are three finely crafted and intricate sonnets. They make demands on the reader, as serious poems frequently do. This is the first time I have seen the word “lygos” (the sacred tree of Hera) used in English, and “Eurhythmy” can be taken in two ways: the modern sense of a harmony of word and dance; or the ancient sense of a pleasing design and proportion in buildings. Because the line refers to Hera’s speech, I guess the first option is probably correct. The triple arrangement of lyrist, citizen, and sibyl is striking: a poet speaks of the mythological background of Hera’s birth and marriage; an inhabitant of Samos speaks of religious ceremonies in his city; and the sibyl looks forward to the supercession of paganism in the coming of Christ and the triumph of His Mother as “universal intercessor.” A poetic complex of this nature takes several readings to grasp fully. I still am a bit perplexed by line 6 in the third sonnet: “And seen how gracious hours advance refined.” I’m not sure if “refined” is a post-positioned adjective that goes with “hours,” or if it is the object of the verb “advance” in some manner. Reply Julian D. Woodruff November 22, 2021 Intricate indeed, Margaret, full of lovely though restrained alliteration. I think “advance refined” must be the sibyl speaking of the years to come, or future age, though as a prophetess seeing it in the present (advance), but also somehow also already accomplished maybe (refined). As for the cradle as a sanctifying sign, it would seem (as I read these poems) that fecundity (prayer for children) may have been more important (and sacred?) than marriage. Reply Margaret Coats November 22, 2021 Thanks, Joe, for your appreciative comments and for clarifying the plan of this group of poems to others. I used the Greek “lygos” because there is just no other term to specify Hera’s tree. “Osier” and “chaste tree” are English translations, but those describe larger tree families found in wider areas. “Lygos” itself was the correct technical term in botany until just a few years ago, when scientific reclassification decided on a name suggesting neither Greece nor Hera. Thus I am preserving an obsolete word from our English word hoard. Line 6 in the third sonnet is, as you say, a rare foreign usage like the Latin adverbial accusative. You know the construction. “Refined” could modify “hours” as “gracious” does, but I am thinking rather, “gracious hours advance in a refined manner.” I realize this pushes the limits of English, but hope it is acceptable in the mouth of the sibyl making a prophecy. Reply Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Julian, thanks for confirming that my “refined” meaning is available, if not entirely clear, to readers. You are correct to understand it as a sibylline utterance, speaking of something to be manifested in a time frame beyond that of ordinary persons. And you are quite perceptive to notice that fecundity is Hera’s major gift. She and Zeus are the sky gods among the Olympians. Zeus holds the threats (lightning, thunder, storms) while Hera is in charge of beneficial fecundating aspects (rain, dew, gentle winds and breezes). In a great commercial center such as Samos in its heyday, Hera’s gifts would have been considered vital to every household. The most common votive objects found in the temple zone are small boats, clearly presented in the hope for safety and prosperity. Hera may have represented everything to be wished for in home and family, but the Christian dignity of sacramental marriage was so far beyond ancient ideas that even Christians failed to understand it fully for centuries. Reply Brian Yapko November 22, 2021 Margaret, I agree fully with Dr. Salemi and Julian: all three of these poems are masterfully done, intricate and quite intriguing. I don’t have enough Classical training to appreciate – let alone unravel — all of your allusions and references. However, you’ve sent me to the internet to do some research (always a good thing) and my unfamiliarity with some of your references – at least for me – actually infuses them with an ancient, exotic feel which I think serves your poetry well. Certainly it allows for me to appreciate the progression from an unfamiliar pagan world in the first poem to a world being prepared for Christianity in the third. Predictably (given my interest in Biblical subjects) The Sibyl is my favorite of the three. Forgive me if I’m off on my reading, but my take on your “hours…refined” phrase is as follows. It is initially ambiguous as it refers to be the earthbound aspirations of the Dreamers but it seems to move on from the Dreamers to refer to the concept of time itself (Creation, perhaps?) To paraphrase, the sibyl sees how the future will unfold – it will be improved with grace (you use “grace” words twice in this sonnet to describe what’s coming) – metaphorically similar to the process of refining fine olive oil or wine in the ancient world. As the poem proceeds, this process of refinement is – ahem – clarified: it is with Christ’s advent the world will be perfected. The few old temples that aren’t washed away may perhaps be consecrated as churches. What has been lacking in civil dignity will be sanctified. All of this is augured by a cradle (which I take to mean a manger) beside which kneels the universal intercessor, who I take to be the Virgin Mary and who will become the ultimate possessor of grace. What a splendid melding of pagan and Christian imagery and thought! Reply Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Thank you, Brian. I think we sometimes need to get out of our own times and try for that ancient, exotic feel if we are to perceive the depths of our own religious impulses. I am glad you mentioned the “dreamers” here, because our contemporary religion seems to provide no sacred place where the worshiper can spend a night and hope for a message from God. Yet all ancient religions practiced the ritual of going to a temple and (after appropriate spiritual preparation) sleeping there, in the hope of receiving a dream of comfort or revelation. Many Bibilical psalms seem to report the experience, giving the petition offered by the worshiper, and sometimes ending with the joy received in the morning, when the person awakes with a conviction that God has visited him. The Samos temple today contains only a single column, but I am convinced from archeology that it was a much more vast edifice than the one of which Evan has found a picture. The array of columns for which there is post-hole evidence suggests an enormous space of multiple colonnades. The area must have been largely used for persons to visit the vicinity of the cult image, as all sacrifices took place on a huge outdoor altar. The many small temples on the Sacred Way toward the town were also mere oratories and treasuries. All of this has disappeared. As I have the Sibyl hint, the stone at the seashore and riverside site was undoubtedly carried away during Christian centuries for use in buildings elsewhere. An amazing example of refinement and rebuilding! As for the symbolic cradle, I would say that on Christmas Day, Joseph would have begun making something more suitable than a manger, where God’s Son could rest in comfort! Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 23, 2021 Many Roman buildings were dismantled and their stones used for other purposes. These include a large part of the Colosseum of Nero, and the Septizonium of Severus, which was taken down as late as the Renaissance period so that its columns could be used for some papal project. Sally Cook November 22, 2021 To paraphrase Joe S., This is a tough one ! Very beautiful and precise phrasing. Your lines are more clear and crisp than most trantslations I’ve read. Question: I’ve a friend who asks questions and receives answers to thema ll the time, but refused to admit she is praying to God. I believe she thinks she is querying some nebulous entity. Excuse me, but didn’t pagans believ in the coming of Christ? And does it really matter what they called him so long as they believed? I’m confused. Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 22, 2021 Many later Christian readers took Vergil’s fourth eclogue as a celebratory prediction of the birth of Christ (it was written in about 50 B.C.) But there are differing interpretations of the eclogue’s meaning. Reply Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Sally, you are quite right that the pagans should have believed in the coming of Christ. If we look at what is called the First Gospel (Genesis 3:15), pronounced by God Himself to Adam and Eve after their Original Sin, everyone should have known that God planned to send a Redeemer. But with human frailty and the passage of long eras and the envy of evil spirits trying to draw human beings away from God, disbelief happened. God did not give up His planned mercy, but renewed it in various ways. I have been reading about Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue that Joseph Salemi mentions above. It is said to be the most heavily analyzed passage in ancient literature. Current scholars suggest that Virgil quoted the Cumaean Sibyl as directly as he could (seeing that the text had burned twice before his time). But it was a famous ancient oracle, and readers would be much more interested in the obscure ecstatic prophecy than in any paraphrase or clarification by the great poet. By the medieval period, Christian scholars had identified Greek sibyls who (unlike many pagans) were considered inspired by the true God and thus worthy of notice. These include the Cumaean Sibyl quoted by Virgil and the Samian Sibyl whom I write about in this group of poems. There is no text for me to quote, just the supposition that her knowledge of Christ had to do with His presence in a cradle. That, and her background milieu at Samos, turned into my sonnet. Reply Allegra Silbersteinb November 22, 2021 Thank you for these lovely sonnets…they made a great beginning to my day…Allegra Reply Margaret Coats November 24, 2021 Thank you, Allegra, for noting your appreciation. Reply C.B. Anderson November 22, 2021 I cannot disagree at all with anything the previous commenters wrote, and I have little to add, except that if you are looking for a light read, then these poems are not for you, and that if the reader loses focus for even a moment, then much will be lost. So many allusions! I have no illusions about my own ability to keep up, but I love the challenge of poetry that is “classical” in more than one sense of the word. Reply Margaret Coats November 24, 2021 Glad you like the challenge, C. B. It is a dilemma to write poems referring to Mediterranean classical culture in these days when it is largely absent from education and general reading. Here I am writing about a major Olympian and one place closely associated with her, yet without a glossary full of allusions there is little to say. Even to those who have read a Greek epic and some myth, she is usually the simple stereotype of a jealous, betrayed wife. In this group of three poems, I am setting out a picture derived in part from ancient poem fragments and in part from imagined views of persons dwelling at Samos in antiquity. It takes a deep imaginary plunge into those gorgeous little coves and historic harbors still attracting us to the Aegean islands. Reply C.B. Anderson November 24, 2021 All of us, not just A.E. Stallings, are Greek, whether we know it or not. James A. Tweedie November 23, 2021 Both sybils and prophet/seers interpret the “signs of the times” (which often seem as scrambled as the prismatic view through a kaleidoscope) and interpret them in terms of the unfolding present, which often—in retrospect—appears to be applicable to future events of which the soothsayer was unaware. This is, I think, because truth reflects itself over time and across cultures. This is, according to C.S. Lewis, is how his pursuit of classical mythology led him to embrace the Christian faith—not because of the contrast between the two, but because of the archetypical parallels that were present in antiquity but revealed and fulfilled in Christ. Margaret’s poems follow this same understanding and, as it did with Lewis, leads her (and us) to Mary as intercessor and, of course, to her Son, who is so much more. Three poems both marvelously conceived and brilliantly executed. Reply Margaret Coats November 26, 2021 Thank you, James, for this carefully considered response on how classical and Christian come into relation. Lewis is certainly one of many examples of the artist and scholar who has explicitly taken up the question. When we consider past education in our English-speaking culture, it seems that hardly anyone could have been untouched by both classical and Christian. I myself like the approach of anthropologist Mircea Eliade, who looks at the question of human religious impulses even more broadly. His ultimate argument is that modern man who suppresses religious instincts, is inhumanly starved for the Sacred–whether one considers sacred space or sacred time. Eliade came from Eastern Europe, where he saw simple villagers living out very complex relations with everything in life through their traditional religion. He did field work in “primitive” places on every continent, and found the same rich religious life of which “modern man” is self-deprived. Not to say he didn’t notice serious differences, but we have always said “grace builds on nature,” about the development of Christianity in any person or society. I suppose that is a necessary underlying question when it comes to paganism past or present. Reply Joseph S. Salemi November 27, 2021 Part of the problem in the Anglophone world is the lingering residue of Low-Church Puritanism, which has always had a strong animus against any mention of “the pagan false gods.” For every classically-trained John Milton or Jonathan Edwards, there were hundreds of hellfire parsons who railed against “idolatry.” Most people don’t know this, but there was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the sticks who refused to wear his award, because it had the face of the goddess Athena on it. Adam Sedia December 6, 2021 I’m a rather late commenter on these, but I have to echo the sentiments already expressed: these are some of the most exquisite sonnets I’ve read in a while. They are dense, but not opaque; the craftsmanship is superb; the language is lush and evocative. Marvelous! Reply Margaret Coats December 6, 2021 Thank you, Adam. I know these poems may be “difficult” for some readers, and that makes me all the more appreciative of you who take some time to describe your favorable opinion. Reply Mike Bryant December 6, 2021 Margaret… then let me say my opinion is most favorable. This from a plumber… so take it for what it’s worth. 🙂 Margaret Coats December 7, 2021 Thanks, Mike. I have a great deal of respect for the opinion of plumbers, as my father was one. He appreciated beautiful things, though his taste in reading ran more to history than to poetry. Leave a Reply Cancel ReplyYour email address will not be published.CommentName* Email* Website Notify me of follow-up comments by email. Notify me of new posts by email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
Joseph S. Salemi November 22, 2021 These are three finely crafted and intricate sonnets. They make demands on the reader, as serious poems frequently do. This is the first time I have seen the word “lygos” (the sacred tree of Hera) used in English, and “Eurhythmy” can be taken in two ways: the modern sense of a harmony of word and dance; or the ancient sense of a pleasing design and proportion in buildings. Because the line refers to Hera’s speech, I guess the first option is probably correct. The triple arrangement of lyrist, citizen, and sibyl is striking: a poet speaks of the mythological background of Hera’s birth and marriage; an inhabitant of Samos speaks of religious ceremonies in his city; and the sibyl looks forward to the supercession of paganism in the coming of Christ and the triumph of His Mother as “universal intercessor.” A poetic complex of this nature takes several readings to grasp fully. I still am a bit perplexed by line 6 in the third sonnet: “And seen how gracious hours advance refined.” I’m not sure if “refined” is a post-positioned adjective that goes with “hours,” or if it is the object of the verb “advance” in some manner. Reply
Julian D. Woodruff November 22, 2021 Intricate indeed, Margaret, full of lovely though restrained alliteration. I think “advance refined” must be the sibyl speaking of the years to come, or future age, though as a prophetess seeing it in the present (advance), but also somehow also already accomplished maybe (refined). As for the cradle as a sanctifying sign, it would seem (as I read these poems) that fecundity (prayer for children) may have been more important (and sacred?) than marriage. Reply
Margaret Coats November 22, 2021 Thanks, Joe, for your appreciative comments and for clarifying the plan of this group of poems to others. I used the Greek “lygos” because there is just no other term to specify Hera’s tree. “Osier” and “chaste tree” are English translations, but those describe larger tree families found in wider areas. “Lygos” itself was the correct technical term in botany until just a few years ago, when scientific reclassification decided on a name suggesting neither Greece nor Hera. Thus I am preserving an obsolete word from our English word hoard. Line 6 in the third sonnet is, as you say, a rare foreign usage like the Latin adverbial accusative. You know the construction. “Refined” could modify “hours” as “gracious” does, but I am thinking rather, “gracious hours advance in a refined manner.” I realize this pushes the limits of English, but hope it is acceptable in the mouth of the sibyl making a prophecy. Reply
Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Julian, thanks for confirming that my “refined” meaning is available, if not entirely clear, to readers. You are correct to understand it as a sibylline utterance, speaking of something to be manifested in a time frame beyond that of ordinary persons. And you are quite perceptive to notice that fecundity is Hera’s major gift. She and Zeus are the sky gods among the Olympians. Zeus holds the threats (lightning, thunder, storms) while Hera is in charge of beneficial fecundating aspects (rain, dew, gentle winds and breezes). In a great commercial center such as Samos in its heyday, Hera’s gifts would have been considered vital to every household. The most common votive objects found in the temple zone are small boats, clearly presented in the hope for safety and prosperity. Hera may have represented everything to be wished for in home and family, but the Christian dignity of sacramental marriage was so far beyond ancient ideas that even Christians failed to understand it fully for centuries. Reply
Brian Yapko November 22, 2021 Margaret, I agree fully with Dr. Salemi and Julian: all three of these poems are masterfully done, intricate and quite intriguing. I don’t have enough Classical training to appreciate – let alone unravel — all of your allusions and references. However, you’ve sent me to the internet to do some research (always a good thing) and my unfamiliarity with some of your references – at least for me – actually infuses them with an ancient, exotic feel which I think serves your poetry well. Certainly it allows for me to appreciate the progression from an unfamiliar pagan world in the first poem to a world being prepared for Christianity in the third. Predictably (given my interest in Biblical subjects) The Sibyl is my favorite of the three. Forgive me if I’m off on my reading, but my take on your “hours…refined” phrase is as follows. It is initially ambiguous as it refers to be the earthbound aspirations of the Dreamers but it seems to move on from the Dreamers to refer to the concept of time itself (Creation, perhaps?) To paraphrase, the sibyl sees how the future will unfold – it will be improved with grace (you use “grace” words twice in this sonnet to describe what’s coming) – metaphorically similar to the process of refining fine olive oil or wine in the ancient world. As the poem proceeds, this process of refinement is – ahem – clarified: it is with Christ’s advent the world will be perfected. The few old temples that aren’t washed away may perhaps be consecrated as churches. What has been lacking in civil dignity will be sanctified. All of this is augured by a cradle (which I take to mean a manger) beside which kneels the universal intercessor, who I take to be the Virgin Mary and who will become the ultimate possessor of grace. What a splendid melding of pagan and Christian imagery and thought! Reply
Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Thank you, Brian. I think we sometimes need to get out of our own times and try for that ancient, exotic feel if we are to perceive the depths of our own religious impulses. I am glad you mentioned the “dreamers” here, because our contemporary religion seems to provide no sacred place where the worshiper can spend a night and hope for a message from God. Yet all ancient religions practiced the ritual of going to a temple and (after appropriate spiritual preparation) sleeping there, in the hope of receiving a dream of comfort or revelation. Many Bibilical psalms seem to report the experience, giving the petition offered by the worshiper, and sometimes ending with the joy received in the morning, when the person awakes with a conviction that God has visited him. The Samos temple today contains only a single column, but I am convinced from archeology that it was a much more vast edifice than the one of which Evan has found a picture. The array of columns for which there is post-hole evidence suggests an enormous space of multiple colonnades. The area must have been largely used for persons to visit the vicinity of the cult image, as all sacrifices took place on a huge outdoor altar. The many small temples on the Sacred Way toward the town were also mere oratories and treasuries. All of this has disappeared. As I have the Sibyl hint, the stone at the seashore and riverside site was undoubtedly carried away during Christian centuries for use in buildings elsewhere. An amazing example of refinement and rebuilding! As for the symbolic cradle, I would say that on Christmas Day, Joseph would have begun making something more suitable than a manger, where God’s Son could rest in comfort! Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 23, 2021 Many Roman buildings were dismantled and their stones used for other purposes. These include a large part of the Colosseum of Nero, and the Septizonium of Severus, which was taken down as late as the Renaissance period so that its columns could be used for some papal project.
Sally Cook November 22, 2021 To paraphrase Joe S., This is a tough one ! Very beautiful and precise phrasing. Your lines are more clear and crisp than most trantslations I’ve read. Question: I’ve a friend who asks questions and receives answers to thema ll the time, but refused to admit she is praying to God. I believe she thinks she is querying some nebulous entity. Excuse me, but didn’t pagans believ in the coming of Christ? And does it really matter what they called him so long as they believed? I’m confused. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 22, 2021 Many later Christian readers took Vergil’s fourth eclogue as a celebratory prediction of the birth of Christ (it was written in about 50 B.C.) But there are differing interpretations of the eclogue’s meaning. Reply
Margaret Coats November 23, 2021 Sally, you are quite right that the pagans should have believed in the coming of Christ. If we look at what is called the First Gospel (Genesis 3:15), pronounced by God Himself to Adam and Eve after their Original Sin, everyone should have known that God planned to send a Redeemer. But with human frailty and the passage of long eras and the envy of evil spirits trying to draw human beings away from God, disbelief happened. God did not give up His planned mercy, but renewed it in various ways. I have been reading about Virgil’s Fourth Eclogue that Joseph Salemi mentions above. It is said to be the most heavily analyzed passage in ancient literature. Current scholars suggest that Virgil quoted the Cumaean Sibyl as directly as he could (seeing that the text had burned twice before his time). But it was a famous ancient oracle, and readers would be much more interested in the obscure ecstatic prophecy than in any paraphrase or clarification by the great poet. By the medieval period, Christian scholars had identified Greek sibyls who (unlike many pagans) were considered inspired by the true God and thus worthy of notice. These include the Cumaean Sibyl quoted by Virgil and the Samian Sibyl whom I write about in this group of poems. There is no text for me to quote, just the supposition that her knowledge of Christ had to do with His presence in a cradle. That, and her background milieu at Samos, turned into my sonnet. Reply
Allegra Silbersteinb November 22, 2021 Thank you for these lovely sonnets…they made a great beginning to my day…Allegra Reply
C.B. Anderson November 22, 2021 I cannot disagree at all with anything the previous commenters wrote, and I have little to add, except that if you are looking for a light read, then these poems are not for you, and that if the reader loses focus for even a moment, then much will be lost. So many allusions! I have no illusions about my own ability to keep up, but I love the challenge of poetry that is “classical” in more than one sense of the word. Reply
Margaret Coats November 24, 2021 Glad you like the challenge, C. B. It is a dilemma to write poems referring to Mediterranean classical culture in these days when it is largely absent from education and general reading. Here I am writing about a major Olympian and one place closely associated with her, yet without a glossary full of allusions there is little to say. Even to those who have read a Greek epic and some myth, she is usually the simple stereotype of a jealous, betrayed wife. In this group of three poems, I am setting out a picture derived in part from ancient poem fragments and in part from imagined views of persons dwelling at Samos in antiquity. It takes a deep imaginary plunge into those gorgeous little coves and historic harbors still attracting us to the Aegean islands. Reply
C.B. Anderson November 24, 2021 All of us, not just A.E. Stallings, are Greek, whether we know it or not.
James A. Tweedie November 23, 2021 Both sybils and prophet/seers interpret the “signs of the times” (which often seem as scrambled as the prismatic view through a kaleidoscope) and interpret them in terms of the unfolding present, which often—in retrospect—appears to be applicable to future events of which the soothsayer was unaware. This is, I think, because truth reflects itself over time and across cultures. This is, according to C.S. Lewis, is how his pursuit of classical mythology led him to embrace the Christian faith—not because of the contrast between the two, but because of the archetypical parallels that were present in antiquity but revealed and fulfilled in Christ. Margaret’s poems follow this same understanding and, as it did with Lewis, leads her (and us) to Mary as intercessor and, of course, to her Son, who is so much more. Three poems both marvelously conceived and brilliantly executed. Reply
Margaret Coats November 26, 2021 Thank you, James, for this carefully considered response on how classical and Christian come into relation. Lewis is certainly one of many examples of the artist and scholar who has explicitly taken up the question. When we consider past education in our English-speaking culture, it seems that hardly anyone could have been untouched by both classical and Christian. I myself like the approach of anthropologist Mircea Eliade, who looks at the question of human religious impulses even more broadly. His ultimate argument is that modern man who suppresses religious instincts, is inhumanly starved for the Sacred–whether one considers sacred space or sacred time. Eliade came from Eastern Europe, where he saw simple villagers living out very complex relations with everything in life through their traditional religion. He did field work in “primitive” places on every continent, and found the same rich religious life of which “modern man” is self-deprived. Not to say he didn’t notice serious differences, but we have always said “grace builds on nature,” about the development of Christianity in any person or society. I suppose that is a necessary underlying question when it comes to paganism past or present. Reply
Joseph S. Salemi November 27, 2021 Part of the problem in the Anglophone world is the lingering residue of Low-Church Puritanism, which has always had a strong animus against any mention of “the pagan false gods.” For every classically-trained John Milton or Jonathan Edwards, there were hundreds of hellfire parsons who railed against “idolatry.” Most people don’t know this, but there was a Congressional Medal of Honor winner from the sticks who refused to wear his award, because it had the face of the goddess Athena on it.
Adam Sedia December 6, 2021 I’m a rather late commenter on these, but I have to echo the sentiments already expressed: these are some of the most exquisite sonnets I’ve read in a while. They are dense, but not opaque; the craftsmanship is superb; the language is lush and evocative. Marvelous! Reply
Margaret Coats December 6, 2021 Thank you, Adam. I know these poems may be “difficult” for some readers, and that makes me all the more appreciative of you who take some time to describe your favorable opinion. Reply
Mike Bryant December 6, 2021 Margaret… then let me say my opinion is most favorable. This from a plumber… so take it for what it’s worth. 🙂
Margaret Coats December 7, 2021 Thanks, Mike. I have a great deal of respect for the opinion of plumbers, as my father was one. He appreciated beautiful things, though his taste in reading ran more to history than to poetry.
