| Stanza Four They shaved her head. She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo. A messenger arrived with a black nightingale. I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow, follow her down past the fountain, where they lifted her veil. This stanza alludes both to the ancient institution of the sacred prostitute or whore (hierodule), under which sexuality was originally sublimated from hetaerism, and also to the descent of both the authentic masculine and feminine to the annihilating and renewing nigredo in hell, the �journey through dark heat,� the matrix of the collective unconscious. they shaved her head Classical scholars such as Frazer, Graves and Bachofen have much to say concerning the antiquity, persistence, and covert and overt violence of expiatory cultures, whose Scapegoat was almost exclusively male until the modern era, typically in aspect of sacrificial Son or Year-King. Jesus Christ attempted a dramatic, and very public, end to this human "requirement," and to the cultural mechanisms that ever demand it. He is the historical turning point between male sacrifice by conditioning and coercion under matriarchy and voluntary male sacrifice, a higher order of expressed spirit and will. In particular, late-matriarchal cultures utilizing the hierodule participated in a much-sublimated form of expiation, in which the hair was sacrificed as corporeal equivalent. When undergone voluntarily, this represents a shedding of personal power in favor of broader interest. However, to have one's head shaved by coercion is characteristic of the Scapegoat and the descent phenomenon. It�s an act of enforced collectivity. As with Samson, it�s a shearing both of profane power and personal spiritual strength or will. In sociological terms, the restriction of sacred prostitution (sexuality unbound and uncommodified) to a special class, the hierodule, freed matrons and other females seeking secular power from their former sexual "obligations," and began to institutionalize one phase of matriarchy. As such, the opening line of the stanza might refer to transition from a hetaeric state of human being to the beginnings of institutionalized power under the matriarchies. Finally, shorn hair indicates an attempt to repress beauty, sexuality, and spontaneity -- the chthonic, the swampy psychic and physical vegetation that begat human consciousness and form. she was torn between Jupiter and Apollo Jupiter and Apollo appear in both Greek and Roman pantheons. Jupiter derives from the Greek god Zeus, king of heaven and earth. He's associated with justice, marriage, and protection of hearth and home. Apollo is son of Zeus, god of light, music, healing, and prophecy. Delphi was his home on earth, and the Oracle served him, according to some. To be "torn" between these figures suggests two possibilities. She may have been the object of contention between these forces, a common state for humans and goddesses in Ovid and related classical mythology. More probable is that her affection and loyalty is divided between the gods, that is, between two classes of male energy, both of which have authentic elements. The line suggests a dynamic under stress, unresolved. Female energy and favor ever waver between the established, the king father who oversees and protects the matriarchal institutions of social organization -- earthly �justice,� family, home, marriage, goods -- and the son, representing passion, vision, risk, and the healing of new life. To this day this internal antagonism haunts women, who are drawn to both poles. Note also that when combined, the characters form a triad, a trinity, numerically characteristic of the Third Age and its contentions and divisions, a theme carried over from the impossible threesome of TUIB. This motif is reflected across mythology and legend. In the West it is perhaps best represented by the tragic threesome of Arthur, Lancelot, and Gwenever, whose love can never be resolved, as it is expressed in expired configuration. Thus is David Crosby's musical question in "Triad," -- "why can't we go on as Three?" -- answered. Two is the number of the couple; three is the number of the nuclear family and of the marriage/mistress-beaux triangle. These are transitional forms of human relationship, not grails of interaction. Both models offer temporary solidity and stability, and are amenable to manipulation for organizational, commercial and evolutionary purposes. As ultimate relational models, however, the Two and the Three are stagnant and exclusionary, wasting enormous sums of human energy and potential. Under the Two and Three, too often love is poured down the rathole. Profane marriage was the relational bridge between matriarchy and patriarchy. It's a crude precursor of coniunctio. Any energy or paradigm now based on exclusion -- "keeping others out" -- will not survive the changing of the guards. (And in the instant case of CS&N, indeed a fourth -- in the form of Neil Young -- was necessary to ratchet the trio to a new level of creativity and expression. Even his name connotes fresh energy.) a messenger arrived with a black nightingale The nightingale is one of darkness' most beautiful and inspiring voices. It appears as ally, muse, and guide, under similar conditions, in "Jokerman," Dylan's paean to true male energy as expressed by the artist/shaman. In classical reading the "messenger" might be Apollo, who is a liminate, a go-between, linking the human and divine. His alchemical counterpart is Mercurius duplex. In Greek, �messenger� means �angel.� Dark angels are the spiritual beings fallen into matter, and imprisoned there, in numerous ancient cosmologies, both Western and Eastern. In Christianity dark angels are Satan and his host in hell. Similarly in Judaism, the dark Host are imprisoned for eternity underground. I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow, follow her down The feminine is guide of the masculine in its descent to hell. |
| Part eight of twelve |
| "Coniunctio: Changing of the Guards" |