#she is certainly not obsessing over her own symbolism. NO SIR.

[vivitalks]

you are a wildflower garden growing in my head

not to be insane about my own fanfiction that i wrote but i am a little insane about this one. so like come be insane with me. join me. dont be afraid. i dont bite (lying) nico deserves hobbies especially when they enable his own self-actualization. anyway. this was written for the bingo prompt "jason remembers nico" i'm normal normal normal about it (still lying) title from the witching hour by the ready set. nico di angelo ass song read it here on ao3

Jason finds Nico among the strawberry plants, staining his hands and knees with dirt.

It's not…like, he's not embarrassed. Plenty of people like to garden. Nico is entitled to his hobbies. Even secret ones. And it’s only a secret because he doubts the Demeter and Dionysus kids would be particularly receptive to Nico tampering with their beloved source of income.

Despite this, he can't help his instinct to be defensive when Jason walks up, the early evening sun haloing him in light.

“Whatcha doin’?”

Nico gestures. “Weeding.”

“Cool,” Jason says, because he’s Jason. “Mind if I join you?”

“To keep me company, or to help?”

“Whichever.”

Nico points to a few rogue sprouts. “If you're here anyway, you might as well get your hands dirty.”

“Done,” Jason says, immediately tearing out the weed with ruthless force. Nico cringes.

“Try to be gentler,” he says, and demonstrates on his own. “Like this. And make sure to get the roots out, otherwise it’ll just grow back.”

“What's the difference?” Jason asks. “We're killing it either way.”

“Yeah, but…” Nico squirms. “Just because we're killing it, doesn't mean we have to make it suffer. Wouldn't you rather die in your sleep than bleed out with all your limbs torn off?”

Graphic, but it gets the point across.

“Fair enough.” Jason looks a little faint, but he tugs out the next weed with a lot more precision, careful to unearth its roots and all.

“I know it takes a little longer,” Nico says, “but mercy is a worthwhile use of time. In my opinion.”

Jason has this look. It lands on Nico. “You never cease to amaze me,” he says. Almost reverently.

Nico turns the color of strawberries. “Shut up. Keep weeding.”

“Aye aye.” Jason salutes and returns to his assigned task. Every so often he'll stop to check with Nico if something is a weed or not, but he's always gentle pulling them out.

After a few minutes, Nico says, “How did you find me?”

Because realistically, anyone looking for Nico would probably never consider checking the strawberry fields. In fact, most people would discourage him from being there at all.

“I don't know,” Jason says, which causes Nico to look up in surprise. A thoughtful look crosses Jason's face. “Lucky guess, I suppose.”

“Hell of a guess,” Nico says, reaching for another green shoot. It comes out of the earth so easily, barely old enough to have burrowed down, and some part of Nico feels a sting at that. Plants uprooted before ever having a chance to grow. Nico knows what that's like.

He also knows that weeds don't mean to be bad. They don't mean to be anything; they're harmful only when rooted near bigger, better flora. It's not their fault they hog the nutrients and land. Like any living thing, all they want is to survive. Their only crime is trying to grow with something prettier flourishing close by.

Nico knows that feeling, too.

He really hates weeding. But he's long since learned it's a necessary part of gardening, and of life. Not everyone can live. Not everyone can grow. Some plants — some people — are poison. Sometimes the only thing to do is to whisper apologies and dig out the roots, and hope that whatever this dead plant becomes next has better luck than what it was first.

“Did you need something?”

“Do I have to need something?”

“No, but…” Nico shrugs. “I don’t know. I assume you hunted me down for something. And you didn’t have to stay here and help me weed.”

“I did not hunt you down,” Jason says indignantly. “I was looking for you because I wanted to hang out with you. You’re doing this, so I’m doing it too.” 

“I'm not trying to say you shouldn't. And I always—” Nico falters. Stupid. This is his boyfriend. If he wanted to continue being an unknowable enigma with emotions under lock, key, and unbreakable steel trapdoor, he wouldn't have gotten himself involved with Jason ‘Heart On His Heroic Sleeve’ Grace. “I always want to hang out with you. I just meant, you didn’t have to help. You could have sat and done nothing.”

“Look, if I'm that bad at weeding, you can just say—”

Nico throws a handful of weeds at Jason and he dodges, laughing. “Shut up. I hate you. I wish I could pull you up by the roots.”

Smiling, Jason says, “You kind of did.”

Nico's brain gives him an error message.

“What does that mean?”

“I mean…you literally uprooted me.” Once again, he has that pensive expression, like Nico is an abstract painting that Jason is admiring while also trying to interpret. It's not the worst way to be looked at. “My whole life before you was Camp Jupiter. The legion. Being Roman. Being Jupiter's kid.”

“I didn't change all of that,” Nico points out. “You did.”

He can feel the chill of the cold ground through his jeans. Every inch of his palms is smudged with dirt. Jason's hands are starting to look the same. There's a dark streak by his hairline, and one on his jaw, and the setting sun keeps glinting off his glasses. It is, on the whole, unfairly attractive of him.

Jason hums like maybe, maybe not. “It still feels like you were the catalyst to all that change. The good change, not the…manipulated-by-Juno change.”

“I appreciate what you're doing,” Nico says, “but you understand that's ridiculous, right? We didn't know each other until after the prophecy and the quest and everything. I can't have had any impact on you before then.”

“But you were at Camp Jupiter. You arrived just before I disappeared.”

“I know that,” — People suspected me, Nico doesn't add — “but we barely spoke.”

“Yeah, but you…” Jason falls silent, his eyebrows drawn together. If Nico was art before, he's a riddle now, and Jason is struggling to solve it. “I just…feel like it was important. The timing.”

Nico buries his fingers in the ground, relishing the way the dirt crumbles and closes around his touch.

“The timing was important,” he says. “My dad knew Hera was planning something, so he sent me to Camp Jupiter like…an advance team. But it had nothing to do with you.” He pauses. “No offense.”

“No, none taken.” Jason’s laugh is a little off. “I don't know. Maybe I'm going crazy.”

“If you're crazy, I belong in an asylum,” Nico says, digging and digging until he can feel the roots of the closest weed. He pinches it between his thumb and forefinger, and watches as it turns brown, then shrivels into a dead, drooping dandelion.

He winces. That's his least favorite weeding strategy. He didn't even mean to do it just now. It's like his own body is saying, You're damn right you should be locked up. See what you can do?

I'm helping plants grow, he retorts.

His brain says, Only you would inflict death and call it ‘helping’.

Nico growls under his breath and stops listening to his brain.

“Anyway, you're not crazy,” he adds belatedly. “A goddess literally played with your memory and identity like Play-Doh, so cut yourself some slack.”

It’s quiet for a moment. Nico figures Jason is deep in thought, but when he glances up, he sees a different look on Jason’s face — like he’s just solved the riddle.

“I’ve seen you do that before.”

It’s quiet and distant, Jason’s voice, and weighted with a revelation. Of something, though Nico’s not sure what. Nico doesn’t mean to, but he recoils a little — at the thought of Jason, some previous Jason, watching him ruthlessly murder an innocent plant, maybe even without meaning to.

“At Camp Jupiter,” Jason murmurs.

Those words don’t make sense. They smack into Nico’s memory like birds into a glass window pane, seeking a target and failing miserably.

“What?”

“At camp,” Jason says slowly, his hands resting limply in the loam. Behind the frames of his glasses, his eyes are unfocused. “One of your…first days there. I saw. You killed a hyacinth.”

An icy hand reaches into Nico’s chest, past his ribs, and closes around his heart.

“You saw that?”

Jason nods, still lost in the memory. “You were coming up to the principia, and you knelt to admire the flowers.”

To admire the flowers. Yes. That’s all he'd been doing. The walkway leading to the principia had been gorgeous, elegant flora lining the path in a rainbow of colors, a dozen or more different varieties in bloom. And Nico had only wanted to appreciate their beauty. To breathe in the fragrance of something so alive. 

“As soon as you touched it,” Jason says, “it died.”

Nico flinches.

“I was— I was nervous,” he says anxiously. “You and Reyna had asked to see me, and I was afraid you would decide I couldn’t stay. Couldn’t— be trusted.”

“I…” One of Jason’s hands comes up to rub the back of his neck, smudging dirt all over himself. “When I saw that, I had my doubts. But the way you reacted — like you were scared of yourself.” He shakes his head, his eyes sliding over Nico but with the distinct impression of looking beyond him. “I thought you must not have done it on purpose.”

“I didn’t.” Nico feels sick. He doesn’t know what to do here. Jason can’t even look at him. “I had never done it before, not by accident. I was scared.”

“And then I saw something else,” Jason says, blinking repeatedly. He pulls his glasses down the bridge of his nose and rubs his eyes with grimy hands, leaving the impression of twin shiners behind. But when he pushes his glasses up again, his gaze is sharp and focused. He faces Nico, straightening his shoulders. “That night, I watched you plant a new hyacinth.”

Nico stares. The ground underneath him might as well be thin air. “You…you saw that?”

“It was late,” Jason says, perfectly clear now, growing more certain every second. “I mean, later than anyone should have been up and about, but I left something in the principia, so I went back to get it, and when I came out, you were there. Kneeling by the flowers, just like that morning.”

Nico vividly remembers this. The wilted hyacinth had haunted him that whole day, a lethal combination of guilt and fear in equal measure. Something beautiful and alive was now ugly and dead, because of him. If he could do that to a flower, without even meaning to, what could he do to another person? What if he could stop someone’s heart on contact? How could Nico ever trust his own touch again?

And then something else had arisen, the way a new substance can emerge from two chemicals interacting. Determination. Nico may have been a child of death, but damn it, he could be more than that. He had to be more than that.

“I killed something,” Nico says hollowly. “I wanted to give something else life. To atone.”

Jason puts his dirt-stained hand over the knee of Nico’s equally dirt-stained jeans.

“Nico, I watched you plant that flower. I saw…” He hesitates. “I saw you pray. I couldn’t hear you, but the way you just…” He shakes his head, obviously overcome by the memory. “You didn’t do it for anyone else. You weren’t trying to prove anything to the Romans, you were just trying to make up for your mistake.”

“I didn’t know you were there,” Nico says weakly. How long had Jason stood in the shadows of the principia, a silent observer, as Nico mourned for one dead flower?

Jason ducks his head for a second. “I thought— I didn’t want to embarrass you,” he admits. “I figured you would misunderstand me if I said I had been watching you.”

Well, that’s true enough.

“I forgot,” Jason says, which is a familiar sentence out of his mouth. He grips Nico’s leg tighter. “But now I remember, and I was right. It was important. The timing was important.”

“What timing? What are you talking about?”

“My whole life, I had this feeling like I wanted to be more than who my father was,” Jason says. “I mean, you know. Big Three dad. They named the camp for him. Big shoes to fill, and it wasn’t that I didn’t want to fill them, but a small part of me was always thinking, why me? Why can’t someone else lead? You know?”

Nico nods. He does know.

“And then you came along,” Jason says. “The only other Big Three kid I had ever met. And yeah, at first, you seemed like the quintessential descendant of Pluto.”

“Scary, unapproachable, and surrounded by death?”

Jason breathes a laugh. “Yeah. But then I watched you plant a flower.” A slow-growing smile starts at his lips, then spreads up his cheekbones and illuminates his eyes. “The son of death. Nurturing life. Showing remorse and empathy for the living thing he’d killed, that he didn’t even mean to kill.” There’s impossible brightness in Jason’s gaze. “You were so much more than just the son of Pluto. And I thought: if he can do it, why can’t I?”

Nurturing life. Like now, Nico thinks, deliberately closing his fingers around the base of a strawberry plant. That instance, the one Jason is talking about — that had been the beginning of a chain reaction in Nico, turning all of his fear and self-doubt into stubborn conviction. The slow dawning of his refusal to being bound by his father’s name. He would always be Hades’s son, but sooner or later, he had to become his own man, write his own story, choose his own fate. Be Nico di Angelo, and decide who exactly Nico di Angelo would be.

He’d known then who he wanted to be. Someone who protects. Preserves. Sustains. Someone who accepts death and who cultivates life, who one day strikes a balance between light and dark.

He’s not that person yet. But he’s a hell of a lot closer than he once was. And it began with that hyacinth, planted under moonlight.

To which Jason bore witness.

If Nico believed in coincidences, he would call this one. As it is, he tends to believe that everything happens for a reason. Nico was fated to plant that flower. Jason was fated to watch.

“I’m telling you, Nico, it was you who got me thinking about how I could be more than just Jupiter’s son,” Jason says. “You really opened my eyes. And then a month later, when Juno took me…” He chews his lip. “I didn’t remember that moment until now, but I remember how I felt afterwards, like I wanted to just — do something spontaneous, something completely out of character. Surrender my rank and figure out what Jason Grace could do that Jupiter couldn’t. Even when I had amnesia, and even after that, I still had that feeling. It’s what made it so easy for me to choose Greek, to promote Frank as praetor, and then to stay here.” His fist knocks a quick pattern against Nico’s chest. The rhythm is indistinguishable from Nico’s heartbeat. “I guess I shouldn’t be surprised it started with you.”

Nico, historically not great with emotions, pulls Jason in by the shirtfront and kisses him in all his dirt-smudged glory. Jason laughs, but he doesn’t break away to do it, so it vibrates over Nico’s lips and travels down his throat like a mild electric shock.

“What?” Nico asks, pulling away.

Jason’s smile looks indestructible. “Nothing.”

“You laughed.”

“I like when you kiss me,” Jason says, with the sun shining from his dimples. “That’s all.”

Nico blushes. “Oh.”

“I didn’t mean to stop you.” Jason’s lips twitch. “But while I’m at it, I guess I should thank you.”

“Thank me for what?” For kissing you? Nico considers, but he’s not that deluded. “I didn’t do anything.”

“You always say that,” Jason says, “after doing something amazing.”

This blush is not going anywhere, anytime soon. “Well, I didn’t do anything on purpose. I didn’t know you were watching.”

“Exactly. You inspired me without even meaning to.” Jason cups his face, so tender. Always. “Then and now.”

“It’s like you want me to kiss you,” Nico says, because he can’t take a compliment to save his life.

But Jason only grins. “I do want you to kiss me.”

Out of respect for Jason’s request, Nico kisses him again. 

This time, Jason doesn’t laugh.

Nico twists Jason's shirt into his fingers, right over his hips. Jason buries his hands into Nico’s already-tangled hair. A cool breeze rustles the plants on all sides and tickles their exposed skin.

Jason is gentle. Not like Nico is fragile, but more like Nico is worth taking his time. He breathes, “Sorry if I get dirt in your hair.”

“Don’t care,” Nico murmurs.

If only Nico from Camp Jupiter could see him now. Kissing a beautiful boy in a field of living things. 

I did this, he thinks. I nurtured this.

[annecoulmanross]

A Review of Lady Franklin’s Revenge (2006) by Ken McGoogan

Well, I definitely jinxed myself when I wrote in my review of Cookman’s Ice Blink (2000) that “being stuck inside has somehow given me the miraculous ability to read books quickly once again.” But I have, at last, finished another volume in my collection of “paper books on the Franklin expedition that I snatched from my library before it closed.”  So, here are some thoughts on Ken McGoogan’s book Lady Franklin’s Revenge: A True Story of Ambition, Obsession, and the Remaking of Arctic History, a sweeping 420-page trek through the life of Lady Jane Franklin.

Below the cut, you’ll find:

– What McGoogan cared about re: writing Lady Jane Franklin

– Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For™

– Select quotes (feat. Sir John doesn’t write good; Sophy Cracroft’s horseback-riding misadventures; homemade jam for polar explorers; Eliza Hamilton; and so much more!)

(Thank you @rhavewellyarnbag for some good discourse about this book during my early reading stages! As ever, your thoughts are so helpful and interesting!) 

What McGoogan Cared About:

In short, everything (re: Jane herself, at least). If there was something interesting happening in Lady Jane’s life, McGoogan at least touches on it, which is helpful. You’re not going to find much information that falls outside of Lady Jane’s direct sphere. (There’s very little on the final Franklin Expedition itself, for instance, except where it was relevant to Lady Jane’s titular quest to establish her husband as the “discoverer of the Northwest Passage,” but that’s not truly a fault, and it’s appropriate for the scope of the narrative.)

The “Revenge” in the title is the grand denouement of the text, i.e. Lady Jane’s efforts to memorialize Sir John after the disappearance of his final Arctic expedition. It makes this pop history sound more sensationalist than it actually is, and does some discredit to McGoogan’s careful work of examining Lady Jane’s numerous diaries held at the Scott Polar Research Institute and crafting an intricate timeline of her entire life, from “A Jane Austen Heroine” in her early years to “A Victorian Penelope” opposite her missing husband and eventually “Lady Victorious,” an accomplished traveller and international celebrity.  

McGoogan doesn’t pull punches when necessary (Lady Jane’s conservativism, imperialism, racism, and brutal social aggression against figures like John Rae are, rightfully, on full display here.) For the most part, however, he’s quiet fair to her character, though I tend to see Jane’s complex relationship with her stepdaughter with more sympathy for Jane than McGoogan offers. Regardless, he’s not wrong to write “Jane had proven far more successful as an aunt [to Sophy Cracroft] than as a stepmother [to Eleanor Franklin.]” (pg. 319)

What I enjoyed most were the detailed descriptions of Lady Jane’s numerous travels – some of them to places I’ve been, and felt as strongly about as Jane, in many ways. The Appendices are quite helpful short references – App. A catalogues Jane’s own personal voyages, and App. B lists the search expeditions Lady Jane coordinated and organized, in aid of McGoogan’s assertion that, “of all individual contributions to Arctic discovery, [Jane Franklin’s] was the greatest.” (pg. 414)   

Things You Didn’t Know You Could Thank (or Blame) Lady Jane For:

(You’ll notice this section replaces my “errata” section on Cookman – in part because I simply don’t know enough to correct McGoogan as often as I could Cookman, but also because I do think McGoogan’s done a more careful and accurate job with his research, even if his lack of specific citations is occasionally troubling – *repeats to self* it’s a popular history not a philological treatise, it’s a popular history not a philological treatise...) 

Anyway, Lady Jane was wildly influential, historically speaking. Here’s some bizarre things she did that shaped world history (or were just hilariously fun to read about):

– Had herself “smuggled” in to see Mohammed Ali Pasha in Alexandria, à la Cleopatra smuggling herself in to see Caesar (pg. 92)

– Made Athens the capital city of modern Greece, by convincing the Greek king of the historical and symbolic importance of Athens via “behind-the-scenes machinations” and using Sir John as her mouthpiece (pg. 108)

– Learned how to use a harpoon and dissected a giant squid (pg. 149)

– Read 295 books in three years (1837-1840) (pg. 172)

– Attempted to eradicate all snakes in Van Diemen’s Land, i.e. Tasmania (pg. 173)

– Managed to get Van Diemen’s Land renamed “Tasmania” with some assistance from Sir James Clark Ross (pg. 203 and pg. 209)

– Doomed her husband via sewing: having finished crafting a Union Jack flag for Sir John for the third Arctic Expedition, laid it over Sir John while he was asleep, leading to Sir John waking up and freaking out, because this was a terrible omen: during a Naval burial, a Union Jack is placed over the corpse. (pg. 274)

– Wrote of having “a deep sense of gratitude to Sir John Ross for murdering [her] husband” in her anger at him for communicating a story about a group of men who had allegedly been killed in Baffin Bay. (pg. 304)

– “Accidentally" circumnavigated the globe because of the American Civil War (pg. 403)

Select Quotes:

“As a precise writer herself, however, Jane could not contain her frustration with her husband’s inability to sketch incisive word portraits.” (pg. 84)

[Lady Jane Franklin] “marvel[ed] at the ruins of the Temple of Isis and also, inevitably, at the story of how that entrancing goddess had used magical powers to restore her dead husband to eternal life. Certainly Jane did not imagine… that this archetypal myth might somehow prefigure the deepest meanings of her own future.” (pg. 123-124)

During an overland exploration of Australia, “Sophy Cracroft [then 22 years old] was thrown from her horse. Jane reported that ‘her nose received the blow – it was much bruised but it saved her head, and she had no other injury except a headache which existed before.’ Dr. Hobson treated her nosebleed with cold water and had her removed into the cart and then carried by stretcher into that night’s encampment. Showing more alarm than Jane, he described the concussion as severe and wrote that Sophy ‘bore the misfortune with more courage and resignation than most men and contrary to my expectation did not appear to be anxious about its effect on her beauty.’” (pg. 193)

“Jane herself established the closest of platonic bonds with [James Clark] Ross, cementing a friendship that would have ironic consequences. She presented him with jars of homemade jam (whose praises he endlessly sang).” (pg. 209)

“Despite several flirtations [with others], and although she could not acknowledge it, the twenty-nine-year-old [Sophy Cracroft] had secretly committed herself to Jane Franklin.” (pg. 273) McGoogan doesn’t ship Sophy/Jane but he comes DAMN close. (He addresses this as a scholarly debate in very vague terms on page pg. 364.)

During the winter of 1845, “Jane travelled through the West Indies to the southern United States. Proceeding north, she inspected schools, hospitals, factories, and other institutions, more than once being mistaken for the widow of the American Alexander Hamilton – an excellent woman, although much older than she.” (pg. 275-276)

“Almost alone among her contemporaries, Jane grasped that monuments create history.” (pg. 414)

[adambodhi]

In reality, Dante loved Beatrice from a distance and they had little to no contact with one another. The real Beatrice Portinari probably never had any idea of the depth of his passion for her. Yet she was to become one of literature’s most famous figures.

Dante Alighieri first saw and fell in love with Beatrice when he was nine years old. He would later write about his instant love for her in Vita Nuova, saying “Behold, a deity stronger than I; who coming, shall rule over me.” He loved her from afar for the rest of her life. She would die in 1290 at age twenty four.

Beatrice is more than a simple muse. She is an idealized love, the kind of love that transcends physicality. Alighieri included her in both La Vita Nuova and Divine Comedy. She is his salvation; the “gentilissima” (most kind) and “benedetta” (blessed). It is Beatrice who serves as his guide in Heaven in Divine Comedy.

Any discussion of Pre-Raphaelite works of Dante and Beatrice is dominated by the paintings of Dante Gabriel Rossetti. The influence of Dante Alighieri was Gabriel’s birthright; he was an inescapable ghost in the Rossetti home. His father, Professor Gabriele Rossetti, was a Dantean scholar whose obsession for finding Masonic allusions in the works of Dante became his life’s fixation. Although in his younger years, Dante Gabriel Rossetti preferred English writers such as Shakespeare and Sir Walter Scott, Dante Alighieri seems to have been absorbed into Gabriel’s DNA and became a frequent subject of his work. Gabriel would later translate Dante’s Vita Nuova and his own personal life and relationship with Elizabeth Siddal, the model/painter who would later become his wife, seemed at times to parallel Dante’s love for Beatrice.

In Rossetti’s 1855 watercolor of Beatrice meeting Dante at a marriage feast, we can see Elizabeth Siddal’s features as Beatrice. At this point, Siddal was Rossetti’s muse and the primary female face seen in his work. In this watercolor, Rossetti illustrates a passage from Vita Nuova:

I began to feel a faintness and a throbbing at my left side, which soon took possession of my whole body. Whereupon I remember that I covertly leaned back unto a painting that ran round the walls of that house; and being fearful lest my trembling should be discerned of them, I lifted mine eyes to look upon those ladies, and then first perceived among them the excellent Beatrice. And when I perceived her, all my senses were overpowered by the great lordship that Love obtained, finding himself so near unto that most gracious being, until nothing but the spirits of sight remained to me.

Elizabeth Siddal was discovered by artist Walter Deverell while she worked in a millinery shop. After posing for Deverell’s Twelfth Night, she began to model for other Pre-Raphaelite artists, including Rossetti. Upon learning that she also had artistic intentions, Rossetti took her on as a pupil and from then on, she posed only for him. This led to what would be an important yet complex relationship for both and they married ten years later. Rossetti confided to artist Ford Madox Brown that when he first saw Lizzie, he felt ‘his destiny was defined’. This sense of destiny may not have been the literal truth, but it illustrates his efforts to identify Lizzie with the type of love Dante had for Beatrice. It may have been that Rossetti so identified with Dante that he mimicked his relationship with Beatrice, casting Lizzie as the ideal woman and declaring her to be his artistic muse. For more on their relationship, see my previous post Pre-Raphaelite Marriages: Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Elizabeth Siddal.

Siddal’s features can also be seen in The Meeting of Dante and Beatrice in Paradise.

Rossetti was influenced by Dante’s Beatrice and Poe’s The Raven when he wroteThe Blessed Damozel. This idea of love after death would take on a deeper meaning after the untimely passing of Elizabeth Siddal from a Laudanum overdose. His identifying with Dante had reached a frightening new level. With his wife no longer a living muse she becomes an even more Beatrice-like figure, unreachable in the after-life. In his posthumous tribute to her, he painted her as Beatrice on the brink of death.

In the background of Beata Beatrix, we see the figure of Dante and the allegorical figure of Love.

Rossetti painted Jane Morris as Beatrice in this uncharacteristically simple work. Devoid of his usual props, flowers, and symbolism, Rossetti casts Jane as the role once held by his wife. Note the spiral hair pin.

Jane Morris appears again as Beatrice in The Salutation of Beatrice. It seems that as much as Rossetti had always longed for the idealized love he had for Lizzie Siddal, he needed an earthly love as well. Siddal’s existence may have seemed to be a fulfillment of the love he wrote about in The Blessed Damozel, but it was not enough to sustain him. Throughout the course of his life, he had passions for other women, including model Fanny Cornforth, Siddal, and Jane Morris. Each of these loves had undeniable influence on his work and style.

There are so many Rossetti works inspired by Dante that I certainly can not include them all here in this blog post. But I do have to share another of Rossetti’s paintings of Beatrice that I find to be quite beautiful. It has lighter tones and a delicate, floral motif. In short, this is the type of Rossetti I love. Jane Morris as a goddess-like figure as only Rossetti can capture her, similar to my other Rossetti loves: The Day-Dream, Proserpine, and Astarte Syriaca.

The largest of Rossetti’s Dantean works is Dante’s Dream, a representation of Dante dreaming of Beatrice’s death in Vita Nuova. Notice the poppies scattered on the floor. Jane Morris appears as Beatrice, although Rossetti has given her Elizabeth Siddal’s red hair

Other Pre-Raphaelite and Victorian artists created works inspired by Dante’s unrequited love for Beatrice.

Simeon Solomon was definitely influenced by Pre-Raphaelitism, and Rossetti’s influence can be seen in his drawing of Dante meeting Beatrice.

Henry Holiday, who on his death was described as “the last Pre-Raphaelite” painted Dante and Beatrice in 1883-4. He traveled to Florence in order to achieve accuracy in his work and I have to say that I find the architecture impressive.

Marie Spartali Stillman studied under Ford Madox Brown and in 1867, she became a friend of Dante Gabriel Rossetti as well. That friendship helped inspire her paintings of Dante. In the late 1870s, Spartali Stillman moved to Florence and living there influenced many Italianate works, some of which were inspired by not only classical sources, but Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s Early Italian Poets.

John William Waterhouse painted Dante and Beatrice in 1915

It is easy to forget that Beatrice was a real woman. Of course, we know nothing at all about her apart from Dante’s obsession with her. What were her passions, her fears, her loves? She may have died at twenty-four, but she has achieved literary immortality.What can we in the 21st Century learn from Dante and Beatrice? The fact is, our society seems to have forgotten that there are many forms of love. Dante’s love for Beatrice may have been idealized and unattainable, but at the core of that love is admiration, goodness, and respect. That’s a type of love that you don’t see much of in the media of today’s world. We prize the scintillating and love has become synonymous with physical lust. Dante’s love transcends the physical. It is a love of the heart and the intellect. Treasuring the people in your life that inspire us intellectually, prompting us to be the best version of ourselves that we can be? That’s something for us all to aspire to.

“O human race, born to fly upward, wherefore at a little wind dost thou so fall?”–Dante Alighieri, The Divine Comedy

[halothenthehorns]

The Supernatural Gospel

Chapter 9- A Woman in White Picture Perfect

The sylvania was a truss bridge made of strong steel and built to last, it had only been boarded off last week as one of the locals had insisted they'd seen people leaping off. The cops had dutifully closed it to investigate, but as no body's had been found they'd been planning to open it to the public again the following morning, until Troy Squire's car had been reported.

The impala's engine had been silenced, the scene ripe for yet another filing of paperwork, while Sam dangled over the edge grunting to regain some kind of footing. When finally he'd hauled himself back to some kind of support, the first thing he did was to look around, and realize his brother was not in a similar position.

"Dean!"

  In the moonlight, something was certainly moving about below, belly crawling right out of the fumbling river. Covered in mud and panting, Dean flops onto his back and gives his brother a thumbs up.

"Hey, you alright?" Sam still tries to confirm, breathing rather hard and still white knuckling the bridge, unsure if his voice even carried down that far.

"I'm super," Dean's words are comforting enough for now, as Sam finally lets out a bit of a laugh of relief for this whole situation and gets himself onto the bridge proper, completely ignoring the now silent car and innocent looking car gleaming in the moonlight.

He's still running when he gets to the pebbled downslope and stumbles hard, nearly breaking a leg as he gets down to Dean's side and make sure no true injuries had been sustained from the fall. Dean was already hauling himself to his feet and wiping mud from his eyes though, and Sam was in a much more controlled, almost amused state as he finished in a casual walk to his side.

"How's the car?" Was Dean's first question, though his eyes betrayed him as he watched Sam carefully, clearly noting the red raw hands from gripping the rusty bridge, but no limp or other signs of damage.

"Still there, that ghost didn't drive off with it," he promised.

Dean slapped him on the shoulder, bent down to the icy water and plunged his hands in, scooping up enough to rub at his face. He gasped at the feeling but did it two more times before he felt good enough that he began walking back up the slope and to the impala's side, where he immediately lifted the hood and began a thorough inspection.

"Car alright?" Sam's thoughts on the misery of having to take a bus back to Stanford, but at least he'd still make it back before Monday, barely. He watched attentively as Dean triple checked for himself.

Dean's favorite leather jacket is indistinguishable from the muck of the bank, his usually messily spiked hair is plastered to his scalp, and you couldn't see a single freckle on his face, but his smile managed to shine through as he slammed the hood back down and patted her a few times. "Yeah, whatever she did to it, seems all right now." He turns and shouts for the rest of the world, "That Constance chick, what a bitch!"

"Well, she doesn't want us digging around, that's for sure. So where's the job go from here, genius?" He was mostly being sarcastic, rule number two of ghosts floating in his mind now that there was no other explanation of what they were dealing with.

Dean's leaning against the hood now, mind flickering on what Dad would have them do next, find the husband and figure out where she was buried or

Sam leans on the hood beside him and involuntarily gets a sniff of the air. "You smell like a toilet."

Dean purposely noses his shoulder, and can't help but agree, their next stop now obvious.

Dean goes to the backseat and digs through Sam's bag for a few moments before coming up with two clean towels, ignoring his brothers protest as he lays them out on the seat, and then goes to the trunk for his own bag and finds his own towel to rub the majority of the mud from his face. Neither Sam or Dean flinch as the impala roars back to life despite her recent activity, instead it was more of a comfort from the inside and the steering wheel moved with ease under Dean's hand. He stops at a gas station once more and uses all of the bathroom's paper towels to at least attempt to get the rest off, but when that proves futile a shower really is inevitable. Dad would have to agree he couldn't spend the rest of the case like this.

Sunrise is upon them by the time they pull into the only motel on the outskirts that had definitely seen better days, this wasn't exactly a tourist town. Dean pats the hood of the impala one more time before the two go into the front desk, Dean slapping down the credit card once more. "One room please."

The clerk picks up the card and looks at it. "You guys having a reunion or something?

"What do you mean?" Sam almost laughs at how unintentionally ironic the man's question is.

"I had another guy, Burt Aframian. He came and bought out a room for the whole month." The clerk explains, tapping the guest ledger.

Dean looks at Sam and does not hide his triumphant smile.

"Ah, yes sir," Dean quickly changes tactics, no sense in burning this one out as he holds his hand back for his card. "That would be our dad, guess he got here before us."

"When did he get here, exactly?" Sam asks eagerly.

"Ah, bout two weeks ago," the man scratched his chin and eyed his date book.

That didn't really tell them anything, it would have taken a little more than that time for him to drive here from wherever he'd started, which Dean didn't know for sure as he'd just said he was tracking a witch, and they could be anywhere. He would have gotten to town at least, checked in, and...?

The clerk, oblivious to their quick rise and fall of hope, hands back the card and says, "alright, room ten. Another key will be extra though."

"Oh no sir, that won't be necessary," Dean promises.

Sam's been picking locks since before he knew how to drive, and while it was of the most minor of all the laws they constantly broke, he still thought Dean was being difficult on purpose in insisting not paying for an extra key.

Still, the door swung open and he tucked the gear back into his pocket before reaching out and dragging Dean in from his oh so casual guarding. A poof of dust trails him inside and Sam's quick to close the door lest anyone see what only they should, the walls.

It was as clear a flashback to Sam's childhood if ever he'd had a name for it, a mark of insanity to most normal people was the level of obsession his dad showed to everything. The pictures printed and mounted, the old newspaper clips scattered categorically, maps, and notes that only a practiced mind could follow. There are books on the desk and assorted junk on the floor and bed, including something with a hazardous-materials symbol.

Dean goes to turn a light on and finds a half eaten burger sitting under the lamp, stone cold as he picks it up and a bit ripe from being out in the air. "I don't think he's been here for a couple days at least." It hadn't been the three weeks that concerned Dean most about his father's absence, he'd been gone for much longer stretches than that over the course of his life, but rather the suddenness of it. A ghost was a hat trick to all the things in Dad's journal, there was just no way he'd be radio silent this long unless there was something else going on.

Dad would have called by now. He would have cancelled his room. He would never leave all this stuff up for the maid to see.

If Dean's gut reaction hadn't been enough for Sam before, though it should have been, then this was.

Sam was by the window, stepping over a salt circle around a set of drawers and speaking aloud, though to himself. "Salt, cats-eye shells...he was worried. Trying to keep something from coming in." The salt was common enough, and of course he'd have that handy for any ghost, which a woman in white was a sub-class of. It was the cats-eye shells that were interesting, they were a basic warding against mystical watching. Yet this should have nothing to do with witches, or anything else that could be watching without being sensed.

Dean turned to inspecting the walls more closely, and Sam came to see for himself. "What you got there?"

"Centennial Highway victims." Dean confirms it was at least this case.

Sam nods as he peers at them. The victims seen on the wall include Mark, William Durrell, Scott Nifong who disappeared in 1987 at age 25, and Parks. Mark, Durrell, and Nifong are all white males, judging by the photos.

"I don't get it." Dean frowns and goes back over it all, just to be sure. "I mean, different men, different jobs, ages, ethnicities. There's always a connection, right? What do these guys have in common?" A ghost's MO was to wreak vengeance on its own death or at least where it had died. While Centennial Highway was the lead onto Sylvania bridge, this should have meant either gender would be up for grabs.

While Dean talks, Sam looks at the papers taped to the other walls. There's something about the Bell Witch, two people being burned alive, a skeletal person blowing a horn at several scared people with the note 'MORTIS DANSE', a column about 'Devils + Demons', another about 'Sirens, Witches, the possessed', a wooden pentacle, and a note that says 'Woman in White' above a printout of the Jericho Herald article on Constance's suicide.

Sam turns on another lamp to read this last one word for word before telling Dean, "Dad figured it out."

Dean turns to look. "What do you mean?

"He found the same article we did. Constance Welch. She's a woman in white."

Dean looks at the photos of Constance's victims again. "You sly dogs," he understood. A woman in white was a subclass of a ghost, specifically the kind that was rumored to suck their victims directly into hell when she was done with them and leaving no traces behind, hence making their kills much harder to spot, let alone make a pattern of.

Dean turns back to Sam. "All right, so if we're dealing with a woman in white, Dad would have found the corpse and destroyed it."

"She might have another weakness." Sam points out, there were plenty of stories about ghosts attaching to objects rather than their own bones.

"Well, Dad would want to make sure." Dean reminded, he certainly wasn't going to skip thoroughness on this case. "He'd dig her up. Does it say where she's buried?

"No, not that I can tell. If I were Dad, though, I'd go ask her husband." Sam taps the picture of Joseph Welch. The caption says he's thirty; the article dates to 1981, so he must be sixty-four. "If he's still alive," Sam amends. Perhaps he'd even committed suicide as well, or any other kind of tragedy after all these years.

Sam goes to look at the rest of the writings, to see if he could put together what had made Dad drop this and the beginning of something else. Dean looks at the picture below the Herald article, of a woman in a white dress.

"All right. Why don't you, uh, see if you can find an address, I'm gonna get cleaned up."

Dean starts to walk away. Sam is tempted to just let him, but knew the longer he went without addressing it the more Dean would pretend it didn't happen. It took him almost three years to address the last fight.

"Hey, Dean?"

Dean stops and turns back.

"What I said earlier, about Mom and Dad, I'm sorry-"

Dean holds up a hand. "No chick-flick moments," he reminds.

Sam laughs and nods, for the first time letting himself ease back into this familiarity. "All right. Jerk."

"Bitch." Dean grins, the mud dried into his face crackling and sending a few flakes to the floor.

Sam chuffs. Dean disappears, into the bathroom, and only moments later he hears the water running, but he doesn't notice. Sam's spotted something, his smile disappearing, and crosses over for a closer look. A rosary hangs in front of a large mirror, and stuck into the mirror frame is a photo of John sitting on the hood of the Impala, next to a young Dean, and Sam sitting on his dad's lap. They had to have still been single digits, at least. He casts his mind back and tries to remember when this could have been taken, first time visiting Bobby? Dad teaching them how to fish? A birthday even? but he can't, there's nothing defining about it, except they all seemed happy. Sam takes the photo off the mirror and holds it, smiling sadly.