ORPHEUS - 100th Monkey Press

224 Pages·2008·0.79 MB·English

ORPHEUS
A LYRICAL LEGEND
100th Monkey Press
Austin, Texas
2008

“When a critical mass is achieved
within a species, the behavior is
instantaneously transferred to and
exhibited by all members of the species”
ORPHEUS
A LYRICAL LEGEND BY
ALEISTER CROWLEY

SOCIETY
FOR THE BOLESKINE
PROPAGATON FOYERS
OF INVERNESS
RELIGIOUS 1905
TRUTH

CONTENTS.

WARNING.
THE POET : EXORDIUM.

BOOK I.

Introductory Ode—
Str. α1 Calliope.
Ant. α1 Orpheus.
Str. β1 Calliope.
Ant. β1 Orpheus.
Str. γ1 Calliope.
Ant. γ1 Orpheus.
Epode Calliope.

Str. α Orpheus in alternate invocation.

Ant. α The Elemental Forces—
Semichorus α1 Lightning.
” β1 Volcanoes.
Chorus—Fire.
Semichorus α2 Winds.
” β2 Clouds.
” γ2 Mist.
” δ2 Rain
” ε2 Frost.
” ζ2 Snow.
” η2 Ice.
” θ2 Dew.
” ι2 Hail.
” κ2 Rainbow.
Chorus—The Tempest.
Semichorus α3 Fountains.
” β3 Lakes.
” γ3 Torrents.
” δ3 Rivers.
” ε3 Waterspouts.
” ζ3 Eagre.
” η3 Wells.
” θ3 Bays.
Chorus—The Sea.
Massed Semichorus α2 of Earth-Spirits.
ii
Massed Semichorus β4 of Living Creatures of Earth.
Chorus—The Earth.

Str. β Orpheus in alternate invocation.

Anto. β Time—

Semichorus α5 The Hours.
” β5 The Seasons—
Semichorus α6 Spring.
” β6 Summer.
” γ6 Autumn.
” δ6 Winter.
Semichorus γ5 The Years.
” δ5 The Lustres.
Spirit
} In harmony
Air
Developing
Water
The five-
Earth
Fold idea.
Fire
Semichorus ε5 The Centuries.
α7 Centuries
{
β7 Mahakaplas
Semichorus
γ7 Manwantaras
δ7 Eternity

Str. γ Orpheus

Ant. γ Death—
(Suppressed antistrophe, Death being silent. His re-
ply is really given in Books II., III., IV.)

Parabasis : The poet.

Epode : Nature.

BOOK II.

Orpheus laments his wife—“ come back, come back, come
back, Eurydice.”
“ Fling down the foolish lyre, the witless power.”
iii
Complains of the antithesis of desire and power—“ Let
the far music of oblivious years.”
Laments—“ How can one hour dissolve a year’s delight.”
Tells of his wooing—“ In child-like meditative mood.”
Eurydice’s song—“ O shape half seen of love, and lost.”
Continues the tale of his wooing—“ Such tune my failing
body snapped.”
Invokes Aphrodite—“ Daughter of Glory, child.”
Continues the tale of his wooing—“ I caught the lavish
lyre, and sate.”
Eurydice’s song—“ Who art thou, love, by what sweet
name I quicken.”
Continues the tale of his wooing—“ So by some spell di-
vinely drawn.”
Orpheus’ song—“ Roll, strong life-current of these very
veins.”
Concludes his lament—“ So sped my wooing : now I
surely think.”

BOOK III

Orpheus recounts his journey to Hades—“ As I pass in
my flight.”
Invokes the guardians—“ Hail to ye, wardens.”
Continues his voyage—“ The phantoms diminish.”
Invokes Hecate—“ O triple form of darkness ! Sombre
splendour ! ”
Continues his voyage—“ The night falls back.”
Trio : Minos, Æacus, Rhadamanthus—“ Substantial, stern,
and strong.”
Orpheus’ plea—“ O iron, bow to silver’s piercing note ! ”
Trio : Minos, Æacus, Rhadamanthus—“ Brethren, what
need of wonder.”
Orpheus continues his voyage—“ Ah me ! I find ye but ill
counsellors.”
Invokes Hades—“ Now is the gold gone of the year, and
gone.”
Invokes Persephone—“ In Asia, on the Nysian plains, she
played.”
Persephone awakes—“ Ah me ! I feel a stirring in my
blood.”
Orpheus pleads with her—“ And therefore, O most beauti-
ful and mild.”
iv
Persephone invokes Hades—“ Ah me ! no fruit for guer-
don.”
Orpheus invokes the Furies—“ In vain, O thou veiled.”
Septet : The Furies, Orpheus, Hades, Persephone, Echidna—
“ Ha ! who invokes ? What horror rages.”
Orpheus invokes Hermes—“ O Light in Light ! O flashing
wings of fire ! ”
Orpheus’ song of triumph—“ The magical task and the
labour is ended.”
Continues to recount his journey—“ So singing I make
reverence and retire.”
Sings his triumph—“ O light of Apollo.”
Sings, but with misgiving—“ Alas ! that ever the dark
place.”

BOOK IV.

Company of Mænads—“ Evoe ! Evoe Ho ! Iacche ! Iac-
che ! ”
Song—“ Hail, O Dionysus ! Hail.”
“ Evoe Ho ! Give me to drink.”
Hymn to Dionysus—“ Hail, child of Semele.”
“ He is here ! He is here ! ”
Dionysus—“ I bring ye wine from above.”
Mænads—“ O sweet soul of the waters ! Chase me not.”
Orpheus his spell—“ Unity uttermost showed.”
His allocution—“ Worship with due rite, orderly attire.”
His hymn to Pan—“ In the spring, in the loud lost places.”
His alarm—“ What have I said ? What have I done ? ”
Lament for Orpheus—Quartet : a Spirit, the River He-
brus, Calliope, the Lesbian Shore—“ What is ? what
chorus swells.”
Sappho’s song—“ Woe is me ! the brow of a brazen morn-
ing.”
Duet : Calliope, the Lesbian Shore—“ Silence. I hear a
voice.”
Finale. Nuith—“ Enough. It is ended, the story.”
WARNING.

MAY I who know so bitterly the tedium of this
truly dreadful poem be permitted to warn all but
the strongest and most desperate natures from the
task of reading or of attempting to read it ? I have
spent more than three years in fits of alternate en-
thusiasm for, and disgust of, it. My best friends
have turned weeping away when I introduced its
name into conversation ; my most obsequious
sycophants (including myself) were revolted when I
approached the subject, even from afar.
I began Book I. in San Francisco one accursed
day of May 1901. I was then a Qabalist, deeply
involved in ceremonial magic, with a Pantheon of
Egypto-Christian colour, in fact, the mere bouillon
of which my “ Tannhauser ” was the froth. The idea
was to do the “ biggest thing ever done in lyrics.” I
bound myself by an oath to admit no rhyme unless
three times repeated ; to average some high per-
centage of double rhymes—in brief, to perform a
gigantic juggle with the unhappy English language.
The whole of this first book is technically an ode
(! ! !) and was so designed. So colossal an example
of human fatuity truly deserves, and shall have, a
complete exposure.
Book I. was finished in Hawaii, ere June expired,
and Book II. begun.
I had just begun to study the Theosophic writ-
ings—their influence, though slight, is appar-
ent. So intent was I on producing a “ big ” book
that the whole of my “ Argonauts ” was written for
the shadow-play by which Orpheus wins Eurydice
to an interest in mortal joys and sorrows. Also—
vi
believe it !—I had proposed a similar play in Book
III., to be called “ Heracles ” or “ Theseus,” by per-
formance of which Persephone should be moved, or
Hades overwhelmed.
But luckily I was myself overwhelmed first, and
it never got a chance at Hades. Book II., then, and
its Siamese twin, were written in Hawaii, Japan,
China, Ceylon, and South India, where also I be-
gan Book III. That also I finished in the Burmese
jungle and at Lamma Sayadaw Kyoung at Akyab.
During this period I was studying the Buddhist
law ; and its influence on the philosophy of the
poem is as apparent as that of Hinduism on Book II.
The summer of 1902 asked another kind of phi-
losophy—the kind that goes with glacier travel in
the Mustagh Tagh. Orpheus slept.
Book IV. was begun in Cairo on my way to Eng-
land, and bears marks of confirmed Buddhism up
to the death of Orpheus.
But the more I saw of Buddhism the less I liked
it, and the first part of Book IV. is flatly contra-
dicted by its climax.
This is a pitiable sort of confession for a man to
make !
What was I to do ? I could not rewrite the whole
in order to give it a philosophic unity. Gerald Kelly
forcibly prevented me from throwing it into the
river at Marlotte, though he admitted quite frankly
that he could not read even through Book I. and
did not see how any one could. Tell me, he said,
conjuring the friendship of years, can “ you ” read
it ? Even a poet should be honest ; I confessed
that I could not !
Taking it in sections, with relays and an ambu-
lance, we could see no fault in it, however. It is
clumsily built ; it is all feet and face ; but you
cannot make a monster symmetrical by lopping at
him.