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| Magdalene with the Smoking Flame, Georges de La Tour, c. 1640, Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Now is the time that face should form another;
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
But if thou live rememb'red not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
SONNET INDEX
Mnemonic Image: GLASS (MIRROR)
Memory Passage: Beauty's ROSE in a World War I TRENCH is reflected in a GLASS
Idiosyncratic Abstract: God Lost in his own reflection has created a nightmare of a world
Couplet Imagery: The Young Man's face vanishing in the Mirror
Notes 4/10/2017
Looking to the couplet for mnemonic images:
Over the years, as The Young Man gazes lovingly upon his Beauty in the Mirror, he realizes he is gradually vanishing, becoming nothing.
The conversation for Narcissus. You imagine Echo watching her love waste away, enchanted by his own reflection whispering these words:
Look in thy glass and tell the face thou viewest
Note how the sense of otherness inhabits the "face thou viewest." Echo telling him: See your reflection as an unknown aspect of yourself, ask for its advice, listen to its response. Something of the Socratic Daemon here. The selfish Rhetoric. Tell your Shadow:
Now is the time that face should form another;
As if the Face of Beauty can be molded and shaped from clay or bodied forth in a creative act of imagining. A nuanced quality in the Young Man that he is not in control. Only under the influence of the Beauty that has enchanted him can he be urged to form another face. Tell that Shadow you love so much to create a duplicate, to replicate, to reproduce, to re-present. Much play with the signifier creating it's own sign.
Whose fresh repair if now thou not renewest,
Already there are signs of age, of blots on Beauty's face that needs be freshly repaired, restored to its primal splendor. But this is no cosmetic task to be covered on the surface. Merely painting over will not suffice. It must be a renewal of a face.
Thou dost beguile the world, unbless some mother.
To not renew and repair the Face of Beauty is to "beguile" the world. The semantic tone of beguile resonant with the image of a Beauty so beguiling and overflowing with superhuman abundance that should it ever look upon itself, it would become enchanted and lost within the infinite regression / multiplication of self-love. There is a God dreaming His own Beauty in the World and at that moment when he looks into a mirror, the God sees himself clearly, the God Who Is Dreaming the Dream. The whorls of the Golden Ration collapse inwards towards the Still Point, the interior of the Sea's Shell, the Rose, the Silence of Infinite Regression. Imagine the Tibetan Deity Avalokitesvara.
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| https://www.pinterest.com/LemurianGate/avalokitesvara/ |
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| https://www.pinterest.com/LemurianGate/avalokitesvara/ |
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| https://www.pinterest.com/jaymaynard562/tibetan-buddhist-thangkas/ |
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| https://tarnovel.wordpress.com/2015/09/29/the-infinite-regression-of-shaming/ |
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| https://www.pinterest.com/pin/138274651039898797/ |
At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless;
Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is,
But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity,
Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards,
Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point,
There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.
- T. S. Eliot
So Q1 sets the regressive scene of the Young Man gazing into his own Face in the Mirror. He sees those lines of life that need repair, but there is no repair or restoration that goes beyond the superficial and cosmetic. The repair that is required is a complete renewal, a recreation, to reproduce another face, "form another".
Otherwise, and here enters, once again, the World of Judgement and Duty, if you do not form another, you shall beguile the world in the manner you have been beguiled. You shall un-bless - as if the blessing where already a given - some woman who was fated / destined / chosen to be the mother of your beauty, the soil in which your seed is to planted, nurtured, and from which the reproduction of your Beauty will be born.
Casting aside all sexist cavils, the duty of the Young Man to plant his seed is also the duty of the Woman to receive it. And where is that woman whose Beauty surpasses that of the Young Man's, who is she that would not desire your seed to be implanted in her womb, that rich and fertile virgin soil that should delight to newly tilled and deeply plowed by one so Beautiful as you, her husband?
For where is she so fair whose uneared womb
Disdains the tillage of thy husbandry?
More importantly, (because one imagines there would have been a multitude of fair and willing uneared wombs desirous of the Young Man's tillage and husbandry), is to ask what sort of creature is so in love with himself, so selfish and miserly with his Beauty, that he would rather die than replicate himself?
Or who is he so fond will be the tomb
Of his self-love, to stop posterity?
Look at your own lovely Mother. You are her reflection in the Flesh. When she looks at you in the mirror, she remembers the joy of her own youthful beauteous prime. The Young Man's face is that of a beautiful woman in the Springtime prime of her life. Magnetic across genders, beyond male or female.
Thou art thy mother's glass and she in thee
Calls back the lovely April of her prime;
And in that same manner that you are the mirror image of her Beautiful Prime, so your reproductions will be mirrors to you. Instead of being enchanted by the Mirror and your own reflected self which will soon ripen and decay, the years will become as magic windows where you can see your reflection born anew through your own reproductions.
So thou through windows of thine age shalt see,
Despite of wrinkles, this thy golden time.
Return now to the couplet images:
Over the years, as The Young Man gazes lovingly upon his Beauty in the Mirror, he realizes he is gradually vanishing, becoming nothing.
Gaze on your reflection, Beauteous Youth, but remember everything is passing and transitory. The Beauty that you so love right now, kept unused, will vanish into Nothing. No one will remember you once you yourself have gone. So if this is your wish, to be erased from the Face of Time, do not reproduce your image. Insist upon singularity, even to the double in the mirror, turn away from any representation of your self and continue into your inward solipsism. Perhaps there is God Who is Dreaming the World within, awaiting the return of the One Who Choses Not Be Dreamed / Remembered.
But if thou live rememb'red not to be,
Die single and thine image dies with thee.
The Mirrror which flattereh not.
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