Black-Figure

Among my first experiments in watercolour illustrations for poems...

 

BLACK-FIGURE

 

I am in profile, calm in the glaze,

One bare foot forward, proffering you

A hare.

 

You are detached, absentminded, hand

Outstretched for the receiving; your chin

Is bare,

 

A matt silhouette, with features etched

Into a cool acceptance

Of my troth.

 

*

 

Unfreeze the frame: you fumbling youth,

The hare jerks free, by jinks

Eludes us both.

 

Source material: A common theme of Attic black and red figure vases is the giving of a hare as a love-token, sometimes by a man to a woman, but more often by a man to a youth. Eros himself is sometimes depicted with a hare, indicating that the hare is a symbol of amorous intent. Dead hares were also given to victorious Olympic athletes; perhaps they were not presented alive in order to avoid the embarrassment implied above. The verb “to jink” is applied to the hare when it switches direction when pursued.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.

 

ARTEMIS AND AGAMEMNON

 

You always were a braggart, Agamemnon,

And when Calchas, your crony, that divinatory

Pisser with the wind, saw two eagles,

One black, one with white barred tail,

He knew the words to feed your bloating ego:

 

“See how the bare-taloned birds

Strip the flesh of that dead hare,

And pluck the long-eared leverets,

Lank with foetal blood

From the womb ripped open

On the stone?

 

So shall you do, Agamemnon,

Unto Troy, devouring

All her little ones. The glory

Shall be yours, their blood bespatter

Your hammered mask

Of gold.”

 

You always were a braggart, Agamemnon,

And these eagles bear my curse, for killing

The creature of desire, my fecund hare,

And stealing her progeny unborn,

While still she quivers, and her flesh is warm.

 

Time shall be my avenger, Agamemnon,

For henceforth, hares shall be love-gifts

On the sherds of Attic vases, but your

Fair-bearded face will quiver like this mother,

When the gold mask is removed.

 

Source material: Aeschylus, Agamemnon, lines 104-139. Artemis, always opposed to the expedition against Troy, was enraged when two eagles devoured a pregnant hare, which the diviner Calchas interpreted as an omen of the victory of Agamemnon and Menelaus. When Schliemann excavated Mycaenae, he found a gold-masked body in one of the graves, and when he removed the mask, caught a glimpse of a fair bearded face before it crumbled into dust. He sent a telegram to the King of Greece, saying “I have gazed upon the face of Agamemnon.” Hares were regarded by the Greeks as symbols of fecundity, (see previous note on “Black-Figure”) and were often given as love gifts from men to women, or from older men to younger boys - this fact is attested by the large number of vase paintings depicting scenes of hare-giving. See John Layard, The Lady of the Hare, London, 1944, pp. 208 ff.

 

Poem by Giles Watson, 2004.

Done