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Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

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I am buoyant, sea bound

Algae in tendrils wrapped in my hair

The water cools my bones, drawing me from shore

The tide is unrelenting, fingers wrinkled & lungs inundated

Face down like a sea nymph

Willowy limbs outstretched, paling, I am limpid,

Flaccid, waterlogged and floating

Further from land

With nobody to pull me up

And pull me back

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fun fact: cilo is the muse of history, making this say a lot more.

Gentileschi as Cilo, 1632

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Artemisia Gentileschi, Lucretia, 1627

“The blade, which she had kept hidden under her gown, she then plunged into her heart, and she fell, collapsing onto her wound and dying.”

Livy, Ab Urbe Condita 1.58

(original translation)

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Now there is no one left

in the wide realm of Troy, no friend to treat me kindly –

all the countrymen cringe from me in loathing!

– Helen, The Iliad, Book 24.

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me when someone hits my achilles tendon (the deep, obsessive need to be loved)

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Gentileschi as Cilo, 1632

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kate elizabeth russell, my dark vanessa.

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Ancient Greek bronze figurine representing Nike, the winged goddess of victory, in a pose of motion. The figurine would have originally been attached to a larger votive vessel, such as a tripod. Artist unknown; ca. 500 BCE (Archaic period). Now in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, MD, USA. Photo credit: Walters Art Museum.

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Dressed by the nereids and embalmed with honey, honey and unguent in the seething blaze, you turned to ash. . . . Like a forest fire the flame roared on, and burned your flesh away. Next day at dawn . . . we picked your pale bones from the char to keep in wine and oil. A golden amphora your mother gave for this—Hephaistos' work, a gift from Dionysus. In that vase . . . hero, lie your pale bones . . . We . . . heaped a tomb for these upon a foreland . . . to be a mark against the sky for voyagers in this generation and those to come.

Homer, The Odyssey qt. in Mors Mystica: Black Metal Theory Symposium

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- James Baldwin talking about Love

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Antonio Canova (Italian, 1757-1822) Teach the Ignorant, 1795 Fondazione Cariplo, Milano

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Ancient Greek sculpture (terracotta with traces of polychrome decoration) depicting the head of a woman. Based upon the proportions of the head and the break at the neck, it is thought that the head originally belonged to a sphinx, which may have been used as an akroterion (a type of architectural ornament placed at the apex of a temple or other building). Artist unknown; 1st quarter of 5th century BCE (=Late Archaic or Early Classical period). Now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City, NY, USA. Photo credit: Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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Xunzi (third century B.C.E.) qt. in Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions

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Let no one think of me that I am humble or weak or passive; let them understand I am of a different kind: dangerous to my enemies, loyal to my friends.

—Euripides, Medea and Other Plays

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The Return of Persephone

Lord Leighton Frederic | ca. 1890–91

A moment of mythic longing and renewal—Persephone rises from the underworld, reaching for her mother, Demeter, as Hermes guides her return. Leighton’s study captures the essence of seasonal change, love, and fate, bathed in the warm glow of reunion.

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Interior of the Colosseum, Rome (1832) by Thomas Cole