Wine-thirst of Comus: Of Comus and Pasiphaë
Wine-thirst of Comus is now posted. This is the first of four parts.
We begin with a short prologue, in which the poet fails to explain how he comes to see and hear of these hidden things beyond the veil, unattempted erenow in prose or rhyme, and coming of no known lore of old, nor of Homer, nor of Hesiod:
Next, we learn in brief of the origin and heedless life of a godling, the son of the wine-god and the sea-witch, of his gay revels with a consecrated virgin of Diana’s band, on whom he begets a child.
Whether the gods of old were divine, arising from the Titans, their fathers, whom they slew, who rose in turn from roaring chaos, or whether the Uranian heavens, father and creator of all, held the monarchy of which the tale of Saturn’s rebellion is but half the truth, this tale does not make clear: but it is the learned opinion of many fathers of old that the gods worshipped in the high places of Olympus and Othrys and Parnassus, or to whom infant blood was spilled in sunless groves and grots, were but devils, adorned in shining forms to overawe and deceive the faithless.
Whichever the case, let the more delicate reader be forewarned that Comus, the central figure of this written dream, is less than admirable in character.
What else ought one expect of the wine-god’s son?
About John C Wright
John C. Wright is a practicing philosopher, a retired attorney, newspaperman, and newspaper editor, and a published author of science fiction. Once a Houyhnhnm, he was expelled from the august ranks of purely rational beings when he fell in love; but retains an honorary title.
