Trilogy (New Directions Classic)

by Hilda Doolittle

  before the Holy-Presence-Manifest;

  and Balthasar spoke the Great Word,

  and Balthasar bowed, as if the weight of this honour

  bent him down, as if over-come

  by this overwhelming Grace,

  and Balthasar stood aside

  and Melchior took his place.

  __________

  And Melchior made gesture with his hands

  as if in a dance or play,

  to show without speaking, his unworthiness,

  to indicate that this, his gift, was symbolic,

  worthless in itself (those weighty rings of gold),

  and Melchior bent and kissed the earth, speechless,

  for this was the ritual

  of the second order of the priests.

  __________

  And Kaspar stood a little to one side

  like an unimportant altar-servant,

  and placed his gift

  a little apart from the rest,

  to show by inference

  its unimportance in comparison;

  and Kaspar stood

  he inclined his head only slightly,

  as if to show,

  out of respect to the others,

  these older, exceedingly honoured ones,

  that his part in this ritual

  was almost negligible,

  for the others had bowed low.

  [43]

  But she spoke so he looked at her,

  she was shy and simple and young;

  she said, Sir, it is a most beautiful fragrance,

  as of all flowering things together;

  but Kaspar knew the seal of the jar was unbroken,

  he did not know whether she knew

  the fragrance came from the bundle of myrrh

  she held in her arms.

  London

  December 18-31, 1944.

  READERS’ NOTES

  The first number is the page, the second the line on the page. NHP is an abreviation for Norman Holmes Pearson’s foreword to the first New Directions edition of Trilogy, and TF is an abbreviation for H.D.’s Tribute to Freud (New Directions, 1956).

  THE WALLS DO NOT FALL

  3.1 Incident During World War II, the newspapers called the air battles over the UK “incidents.”

  3.5 Luxor bee, chick and hare At Luxor, site of the ancient Egyptian city of Thebes, near the present village of Karnak, are the intact ruins of the Temple of Amon, the greatest monument of antiquity, built under the pharaoh Amenhotop III (1414–1397 B.C.). Amon is Ra, the Egyptian sun god. (See Ra, 25.1–4.) The bee in Egyptian mythology came from the tears of Ra. The bee, chick, and hare are all symbols of fertility and regeneration.

  3.7 in green, rose-red, lapis In Egyptian writing, green is the color of fertility; Isis, a fertility goddess, is the Lady of the green Emerald (see Isis 5.18). The rose is also sacred to Isis. Lapis blue is associated with truth. Mummies were painted lapis blue to show that they were united with truth.

  3.24 old, Samuel The prophet Samuel was the oldest judge and first prophet after Moses. First and Second Samuel are thought to be the oldest narrative books in the Bible and cover the careers of Samuel, Saul, and David.

  4.3 Pythian pronounces The Pythian refers to the prophetess or oracle at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi (6th century B.C.) in Greece. Seated on a golden tripod, when questioned she uttered sounds in a frenzied trance interpreted by a priest who usually disclosed them in verse.

  4.7 Pompeii A prosperous ancient Roman port city near Naples at the foot of Mount Vesuvius, which erupted in A.D. 79 and covered the city with volcanic lava, killing everyone, but also preserving all in the instant of eruption. The colorful wall paintings, domestic objects, and villas were also preserved, giving us the clearest picture of a day in Roman antiquity. The city was rediscovered in 1748. There was a cult of Isis in Pompeii. See 5.18.

  4.13 Apocryphal fire The Apocrypha are the fourteen books of the Septuagint Greek Bible, excluded from the Protestant but included as secondarily canonical in the Catholic, Greek Orthodox, and Hebrew Bibles. Apocrypha signifies “of questionable authenticity,” but here the usage actually suggests Apocalyptic fire, meaning the vision of Hell’s fires in the Apocalypse or Revelation, the visionary last book of the New Testament.

  5.8 manna-beans Manna is the food sent by God to the Children of Israel on their journey across the desert: “Then the Lord said unto Moses, Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you” (Ex. 16.4). Some Jewish and Christian writers interpret manna as Logos. By the same token, manna is thought by some Christian theologians to prefigure the Eucharist.

  5.13 gods always face two-ways The Roman god Janus, guardian of the gates and roads, is represented with two heads, facing two ways. He is the custodian of the universe. In times of peace the gates of his temple in the Roman Forum were closed, in times of war, they were open.

  5.18 Isis, Aset or Astarte Isis, daughter of the sky goddess Nut and the earth god Geb, was sister and husband of Osiris, god of the underworld. Isis saved Osiris (see 25.1–4). She sewed him together after he had been slain and cut in many pieces. Isis was also a mother goddess, goddess of fertility, magic, and beauty, and widely worshiped for her ability to counter evil spells. The Greeks identified her with Athena and Demeter. Isis is often depicted suckling her baby son Horus; the iconography of sacred mother and child is said to be the model for Mary and Jesus. Aset or Astarte. Astarte was a Phoenician goddess of fertility, corresponding to earlier Babylonian lshtar and later Greek Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty. In Assyrian-Babylonian art she caresses a child whom she holds in her left hand. Her other names are Ashtart and Ashtoreth.

  7.1 Sceptre A sceptre or scepter is a staff of authority of god or human, and often a phallic symbol. For H.D. it is associated with the caduceus, a magic herald’s rod that is winged and entwined by two snakes. Later in Tribute to the Angels and The Flowering of the Rod, the staff becomes Aaron’s rod and the rood (or cross) of Christ. In Genesis the sceptre is already established as a symbol of divine and human authority: “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah” (Gen. 49.10). In Exodus, Moses assumes power through the rod: “and Moses took the rod of God in his hand” (Ex. 4.20). Aaron, brother of Moses and high priest, transforms the rod into a serpent to make it swallow the serpents of the Pharaoh and his magicians (Ex. 7.10–1 2), which served as a warning to the Pharaoh to release the people of Israel from bondage. Later in the desert, when the tribes are rebellious and looking to other gods, Aaron makes the rod blossom and bear almonds, thereby establishing the authority of Aaron as head of the tribe of Levi over the rebellious tribes in the desert (Num. 17.1–8). See 7.5, 70.9–10, and note for the title The lowering of the Rod 111.

  7.3 lily The lily is associated with purity, innocence, resurrection, chastity, the Virgin Mary, and Easter.

  7.5 Caduceus The caduceus is a rod or wand carried by Hermes, the messenger god. It consists of a wing-topped staff, with two serpents winding around it. Hermes found two snakes fighting and put his rod between them. In another legend Apollo gives the caduceus to Hermes. For the Romans it became a symbol of neutrality or truce and was carried by heralds and ambassadors making them immune to attack. The intertwining snakes on a staff appear in Babylonia as a symbol of the sun gods, fertility, wisdom, and healing. In alchemy, it is the symbol of the union of opposing forces. Since the 16th century it has replaced Asklepios’s one-snaked rod as a symbol of medicine, and since 1902 it has been the symbol of the medical branch of the US army. Asklepios was the son of Apollo and a healer who could raise the dead. His ability enraged Zeus and he killed him, but Apollo persuaded Zeus to make Asklepios the god of medicine. H.D. called Asklepios (and Freud) “the blameless physician” and wrote of the serpent: “The Serpent is certainly the sign or totem, through the ages, of healing and of that final healing when we slough off, for the last time, our encumbering flesh or skin. The serpent is the symbol of death, as we know, but also of resurrection” (TF 65). See 7.1, 70
.9–10, and note for the title The Flowering of the Rod 111.

  9.14–15 the whale // cannot digest me Refers to the story of Jonah and the whale in the book of Jonah. In the book of Jonah, God spares Nineveh after Jonah prophesies that it will be destroyed (see 24.18 for Nineveh).

  9.24 pearl-of-great-price Jesus says: “Again the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking goodly pearls: Who, when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had, and bought it. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a net, that was cast into the sea, and gathered of every kind: Which, when it was full, they drew to shore, and sat down, and gathered the good into vessels, but cast the bad away. So shall it be at the end of the world the angels shall come forth, and sever the wicked from among the just.” Matthew 1 3.45–49.

  10.15–16 His, the Genius in the jar / which the fisherman finds The Genius probably puns on the Genie in the bottle or lamp. For Fisherman see 105.3.

  10.17–18 He is Mage, / bringing myrrh. The Magi or three wise men brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to the baby Jesus. Myrrh was used in emblaming and as an aphrodisiac, and is associated with immortality. H.D. sees myrrh as poetry because of its association with immortality, sacredness, and resurrection.

  14.2 twin-horns, disk, erect serpent The Egyptian goddess Isis is depicted with a headdress of twin horns holding a sun disk. The sacred erect serpent Uraeus was a representative of the goddess and appeared on the headdress of Egyptian deities and rulers. In mythology, Isis, who was a mortal magician, attained godhood by fashioning a snake out of earth and the spittle of Ra. The snake bit Ra and Ra, who was in pain, asked Isis for help. She replied that she would help him only if he told her his true name. Though Ra tried to deceive Isis with false names, in the end he revealed it, and with this secret knowledge Isis became a goddess. See notes 7.1, 7.5, and about names, see 21.2

  14.3 double-plume or lotus The plume adorns helmets and headdresses and is a symbol of social status. The lotus is the most common pattern of adornment in Egyptian art, and is the source of the lily ornamentation on capitals. The lotus is a water lily that draws into itself at night. In Egypt the lotus carries the sun within itself and arises from primeval waters, specifically the Nile, which is sacred and life-giving. The lotus is the flower on which Horus, Isis’s son, is seated, and is associated with fertility, death, resurrection, and the sun.

  15.7 heron’s crest The heron or ibis, sacred to the Egyptians, is associated with secret knowledge and is said to have been the secretary to Thoth or Hermes Trismegistes (see 16.1). It is also associated with the phoenix or bennu bird, and like other serpent-eating animals is a Christ symbol.

  15.8 Asp See 14.2.

  16.1 Thoth, Hermes Thoth, the scribe of the gods of ancient Egypt, many of whose attributes Greek Hermes was later to take on, was creator and orderer of the universe, a god of magic, wisdom, learning, a patron of the arts, and, among other literary achievements he was the inventor of writing, letters, and the materials on which they are inscribed (such as papyrus and parchment). He is depicted as a man with an ibis head. As the god of magical knowledge, he later became identified with Hermes Trismegistus, the most significant Pagan Gnostic, whose hermetic writings probably represented a tradition rather than a single person.

  16.15 Hatshepsut Hatshepsut was queen of ancient Egypt (1486–1468 B.C.). She ruled by relegating her husband to the shadow, and after his death she ruled as regent for their son. Her reign was peaceful and she developed economic resources.

  16.16 cartouche The cartouche on Egyptian hieroglyphs is an oval or oblong figure that encloses characters of names or epithets of royal or divine personages.

  17.5 Mercury, Hermes, Thoth The Roman, Greek, and Egyptian names, respectively, of the messenger God. See 16.1.

  17.11 O Sword The guardian angel Michael carries a sword, but the triumph of the sword will soon be over, as we see in lines 15–16. “In the beginning was the word” are the first words of the Gospel of John. (See 17.15–16.) In these lines may be a resonance of the frequent New Testament statement that the New Testament will triumph over the Old. Given the evocation immediately before of Mercury, Hermes, Thoth, as gods of the word and pen, the clear meaning is that “the pen is mightier than the sword,” a Latin expression that pops up in English, as in Edward Bulwer-Lytton’s Richelieu (1839): “Beneath the rule of men entirely great / the pen is mightier than the sword” (Act 2, scene 2). See Michael 98.5, 98.7, 99.1.

  17.15–16 in the beginning / was the Word The verse begins the Gospel of John. This Gnostic beginning of John is a paraphrase of the first line of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the world.” The “word,” or logos, first appears in Greek philosophy in the Cosmic Fragments of the pre-Socratic Heraclitus (c. 535–475). The notion that God creates the world with a word fits well with the Egyptian Thoth, who creates both the universe and the written word.

  19.13 there was a whirr and roar in the high air Reference to the German airplanes and the bombing of London.

  20.1–2 The Presence was spectrum-blue, / ultimate blue ray Blue is the color of truth (see 3.7) and of the divine. The Egyptian serpents of eternal wisdom are blue with yellow stripes. Blue is the color of Eden and eternal youth, the color of the stones of the Ten Commandments. The Virgin Mary’s robes are depicted as blue.

  21.2 Name In Eden Adam is the first name giver. “Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field” (Gn. 4.20). The Egyptian belief that names correspond to aspects of the soul has been passed on to the Judeo-Christian tradition. Finding out the secret name of a god or mortal confers power onto the discoverer, as in the case of Isis and Ra. See 14.2.

  22.9 the new Sun Ra is the Egyptian sun god. In Egypt, among the gods, the worship of Ra was the most widespread. Probably also a pun on the “Son” of God, Jesus Christ. See 25.1–4.

  24.18 Nineveh and Babel Nineveh, near modern Mosul in Iraq, was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, powerful in the second millennium. It came to an end in 612 B.C. when it was defeated by a coalition of Babylonians, Medes, and Scythians. Babel was the site in the Bible where the descendants of Noah built a tower, trying to reach heaven. The destruction of the tower led to dispersal from Babel and the loss of a single world language. Babel is identified with Babylon. Nineveh and Babel, both destroyed, subsequently vanished.

  25.1–4 Ra, Osiris, Amen appeared / in a spacious, bare meetinghouse / he is the world-father, / father of past aeons In Egyptian religion Ra is the sun god, chief deity, creator of the cosmos and father of all things. Early Egyptian kings took his name and claimed descent from him. He is represented by the hawk and the lion. In Greek religion he is Apollo. Other gods are identified with him, mainly Amon as in Amon-Ra. Amen is a variation in name of Amon or Ammon. Amon’s most important shrine was the Temple of Amon at Luxor in ancient Thebes. (See 3.5.) Osiris was god of the underworld and ruler of predynastic Egypt. He was brother and husband of Isis. After he was treacherously slain by his brother Set and cut up into fourteen pieces, according to one version, he was buried in diverse parts of Egypt, each of which became a sacred place. In another story, Isis gathered the fourteen pieces, sewed them together, and then he was resurrected into life. Osiris was seen as the culmination of the creative forces of nature and eternal life and therefore the world father, father of past aeons. He was identified with the sun, moon, the grain of the earth and the waters of the Nile. By introducing the “meeting house,” H.D. also permits “the father of past aeons” to refer to earlier authority figures in her Quaker and Moravian experiences. The actual words “father of past aeons” seem to be a telescoped parody of the beginning and end of the Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6.9–13. Verse 6.9 asserts the heavenly station of the father, “our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.” The prayer ends (actually an “orphan” ending appended later to the passage) with the father’s full control of the universe: “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen.
” As a reader of Greek, H.D. knew that the Anglo-Saxon word “forever” is aion in N.T. Greek, and so, by inserting the correct Greek word, aion/aeons, into her epithet, she connects her Christian father figure with her mutable Egyptian god.

  Norman Holmes Pearson identifies the “spacious bare meetinghouse” as a Quaker meeting house. He writes, “Karnak and London were periods of H.D.’s history. So also were Bethlehem and Philadelphia, though they remain significant shadows in the Tribgy” (NHPxi). Though she was born, not insignificantly, in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, an eighteenth-century early Moravian city, the Quaker influence was strong. Pearson observes, “Philadelphia was named by Penn certainly with The Book of Revelation in mind. The ‘spacious, bare meeting-house’ of her dream of the ‘father of past aeons’ in The Walls, she describes elsewhere as Quaker, ‘in or by Philadelphia,” where her family worshiped when she was in her ‘teens, there being no Moravian congregation conveniently near” (NPH xi).

  25.8 Memnon monolith In Greek mythology Memnon was the son of Tithonos (who like the sibyl of Cumae aged but could not die) and Eos, goddess of dawn. He was also king of Ethiopia. He fought in the Trojan war and was killed by Achilles, but Eos gained immortality for her son from Zeus. Memnon lived in Egypt and the Greeks gave his name to the great monolith statue of Amenhotep III, the builder of the Temple of Amon. Hence we have the Memnon monolith.

  26.14 the new Sun The new Sun is a pun connecting the Sun God Ra with the New Son Jesus. H.D., among others, identifies Ra or Amon (Amen) with Jesus, and as in many prayers to Christ that end forever and ever, Amen, she puns on amen (from Hebrew amen), by capitalizing amen, thereby turning a Christian prayer into the regeneration of Egyptian Amon-ra. See 25.1–4.