Subject: Re: Trunken Heads -or- A New Leaf
From: welcher@sparky.eecs.umich.edu (James Welcher)
Date: 1991-03-10, 13:13
Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks

>> >>In article <6696@idunno.Princeton.EDU> news@idunno.Princeton.EDU
>> >>    USENET News System) writes:
> >>from Spenser's the Fairy Queen:
>> >>
>> >>Then groning deepe, "Nor damned Ghost," quoth he.
>> >>        "Nor guilefull sprite to thee these wordes doth speake,
>> >>        But once a man...now a tree...
>> >>        A cruell witch... hath thus transformed."
>> >>(I've left out a lot, but you get the idea.)
>> >>        The footnote to my edition says, "The motif of a man imprisoned
>> >>in a tree derives from Virgil (Aeneid 3.27-42) and is used by Ariosto
>> >>(Orlando Furiouso 6.26-53).
>> >>        I don't have a copy of the Aeneid of the Furiouso. Clearly,
>> >>this is significant. Can anyone track this down further?
>> >>
> >
>From article 11919 and Malcolm Austin (maus@fid.morgan.com)
> >Well, I don't have the Aeneid, but your mention of Virgil brings to mind 
> >another arboreal metamorphosis in Dante's DIVINE COMEDY (in which Virgil
> >is a major character).
> >
> >The Wood of the Suicides consists of thorny trees (shrubs?) housing the
> >souls of suicides.  When you pluck their leaves (which hurts) they can
> >speak as long as the sap continues to ooze out of the wound.
> >
> >Back to the olde tales, wasn't Daphne turned into a tree when she ran
>from Apollo?

Well, it just so happens that I HAVE my Aeneid right here!
Book III, lines 27-42 read

As I made offering to Dione's daughter,
My divine mother, and to other gods
 30Who dive protection to a work begun,
I readied for the knife, there by the sea,
A sleek bull to the overlord of heaven.
Now as it happened the ground rose nearby
In a low hummock, overgrown with cornel
And myrtle saplings flickering in a thicket.
I stepped over, trying to tear away
Green stuff out of the mound to make a roof
Of boughs and leaves over the altar.  There
I had a sight of gruesome proidgy
 40Beyond description: when the first stalk came torn
Out of the earth, and the root network burst,
Dark blook driped down to soak and foul the soil.

Thanks to the honorable Robert Fitzgerald for the translation.

--
James WelcherInternet: welcher@dip.eecs.umich.edu

  "I don't post"