Lamia: Lycius Flashcards
‘Blinded…
Lycius’
‘a youth of…
Corinth,’
‘She saw the young…
Corinthian Lycius.’
Like a young Jove with…
calm uneager face, And fell into a swooning love of him.’
‘Lycius, look back! and be some pity shown,’
He did - not with cold wonder fearingly,’
‘His eyes had drunk her beauty up;
Leaving no drop in the bewildering cup
And…
still the cup was full - while he, afraid
Lest she should vanish ere his lip had paid.’
‘Even as thou vanishest so I shall die.’
- Foreshadowing
that if thou shouldst fade
Thy memory will waste me to a shade
‘He, sick to lose The amorous promise of her lone complain, Swooned, murmuring of love, and pale with pain.’
‘To hear her whisper woman’s lore so well;
And every word she spake enticed him on To unperplexed delight and pleasure known.’
‘They passed the city gates, he knew not how, So noiseless, and he never thought to know.’
‘Had Lycius lived to hand his story down, He might have given the moral a fresh frown,’
Deafening the swallow’s twitter, came…
a thrill Of trumpets - Lycius started - the sounds fled,’
‘Lycius! wherefore did you blind Yourself from his quick eyes?’
‘How to entangle, trammel up and snare Your soul in mine, and labyrinth you there.’
What mortal hath a prize, that other men
May be confounded and abashed withal,
But lets it sometimes pace abroad majestical,
And triumph, as in thee I should rejoice
Amid the hoarse alarm of Corinth’s voice.
Let my foes choke, and my friends shout afar,
‘Besides, for all his love, in self-despite,
Against his better self, he took delight
Luxurious in her sorrows, soft and new.
‘His passion, cruel grown, took on a hue’
Lycius, perplexed at words so blind and blank,
Made close inquiry; from whose touch she shrank,
‘O senseless Lycius! Madman!’
‘Shut, shut those juggling eyes, thou ruthless man! Turn them aside, wretch! or the righteous ban Of all the Gods, whose dreadful images.’
‘Lycius arms were empty of delight,
As were his limbs of life,’
‘No pulse, or breath they found, And, in its marriage robe, the heavy body wound.’
