§140. From inside the Greek poetry, maidens and additionally enjoy from the meadows, which subject has experienced a great deal scholarly interest that full conversation we have found hopeless. ” As Stehle Stigers demostrates, the latest meadow is actually an area of virginity, but also of the loss, the new fate of their plant life parallel to that from a great maiden. The vintage illustration of the fresh theme try, obviously, Persephone’s fateful choosing of vegetation in the a beautiful meadow and you may in the company of her household members. It offers always been pointed out that among the many meadow’s identifying functions are its unproductiveness, and that really stands into the clear examine toward virility of your own ploughed community. Much like the metaphor out-of ploughing is shown on the Athenian greatest dictum on the purpose of marriage, so it’s implicit in the Russian individualized out of hanging a beneficial plough over the home of newlywed’s rooms. The fresh new bride’s tunes, alternatively, should never be worried about fertility, doubt from the their noisy silence the fact that anything is offered to your bride-to-be within the settlement for just what she seems to lose. The fresh concern of your own maiden’s sounds in addition to bride’s lament try maybe not generation, but charm and its irrevocable losses, illustrated as natural destruction.
Alternatively, the newest meadow are good locus regarding erotic potentiality and you may “awakening sexual good sense,” a desirable yet risky location for girls, where, given that Rosenmeyer puts they, there are no dudes, but “dangers regarding predation hover on sides
§141. The newest haunts of the maidens was breathtaking and you may unproductive, be they crazy areas, for example meadows and woods, or spaces which might be, in reality, cultivated and you may protected. This second option is while the commonplace since former, but has additional connotations. On the meadows, new maiden is actually exposed as well as in the business of their unique years-mates-it is in this form that she could be viewed of the their future husband, and you will using this mode that she can be seized. The image away from a secure rose lawn, concurrently, will is due to the bride’s mothers, together with her protected and you will lavish life regarding the adult household, which is coming to a finish since the definitely just like the to relax and play in the the fresh new meadows. Right here by far the most hitting parallel to your Russian relationship music appear yet again out-of Catullus 62, where in fact the chorus out of maidens does not want to offer any benefit in order to marriage and measures up a maiden so you’re able to a rose when you look at the a good walled backyard where none cattle neither plough can also be threaten they. While it’s safe, the new flower try gorgeous and you can desirable, however, the moment it’s plucked it both goes out and is out off examine, don’t “sweet” and you can “dear” to boys and you may girls, a fortune like the newest maiden:
Ut flos qui within the saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro, quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber. multiple illum pueri, multae optavere puellae: idem spunk tenui carptus defloruit ungui, nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae: sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; cum castum amisit polluto corpore florem, nec pueris iucunda manet, nec cara puellis.
Suffice they to state that the newest meadow might have been aptly revealed because a great “space filled up with Eros” and you may “structure to own game that lead to pleasure out of amorous focus,” but also a space that is hardly the new locus out of sex
Just like a flower grows hidden into the a closed yard, not familiar to help you cattle, uprooted from the zero plough, a flower your breezes caress, sunlight strengthens, the newest precipitation rears. Of a lot children, of many maidens appeal they- That same flower immediately after they withers, plucked from the a soft nail, Zero youngsters, no turkmenistani women maidens desire: Merely so a great maiden, as long as this woman is unblemished, try beloved to help you their unique loved ones; Immediately after she seems to lose the new absolute flower, their looks defiled, She will not will always be fascinating to youngsters, nor beloved so you’re able to maidens.
