Subject: souci d'eau, Golden Ass, Beauty & the Beast
Dear Keith sZ,
>> Read 'our marsh
marigold' as Lucette. .....the transformation of souci d'eau (our marsh
marigold) into the asinine 'care of the water.'
It's not that
simple. First of all, souci d'eau, the plant, thrives in the water, so if
Lucette is identified with the plant, it doesn't make sense that she would die
in water.
Also I haven't addressed Brian Boyd's linking of "assinine" and
"golden" in the Rimbaud poem to Apuleius's Golden Ass. I thought he was
wrong to confuse the flower/deflower of the souci d'eau with Lucius and
the rose. The rose transforms the ass back into Lucius, not because it is
a flower like souci d'eau is a flower, but because it is a flower sacred to
Isis, into whose cult Lucius is to be initiated. On the other hand there is the
Lucius/Lucette similarity and the Beauty and the Beast link, which I don't know
if Brian has pursued in this context.
Au beau milieu de L'Ane d'Or
is the oldest written narrative of the Tale of Cupid and Psyche -- a story that
would resurface in France in 1740 as the fairy tale Beauty and the Beast.
There are many references to 'Beauty and Beast' in Ada.
Carolyn
(By the way, could you do your viola/violet/violence
thing on Pale Fire?)