“
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Selected Poems of Oscar Wilde including the Ballad of Reading Gaol)
“
For he who lives more lives than one more deaths than one must die.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
You needn't tell a bird it's a bird. Or remind a fish of its purpose. It's only us who lose our way. We have names because we must. - from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Books of Faerie, #2))
“
We dance, we dance. You hold the thread of my soul. You spin, you spin. And you unravel the part from the whole. We laugh, we laugh. I'm so far from where I began. I fall, I fall. And I forget that I am.-from Golden Tongue:The Poems of Steven Slaughter
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Books of Faerie, #2))
“
The Rainy Day
The day is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
The vine still clings to the mouldering wall,
But at every gust the dead leaves fall,
And the day is dark and dreary.
My life is cold, and dark, and dreary;
It rains, and the wind is never weary;
My thoughts still cling to the mouldering Past,
But the hopes of youth fall thick in the blast,
And the days are dark and dreary.
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining;
Thy fate is the common fate of all,
Into each life some rain must fall,
Some days must be dark and dreary.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
Ye are better than all the ballads
That ever were sung or said;
For ye are living poems,
And all the rest are dead.
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Birds of Passage)
“
I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss
Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,
Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;
Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Laus Veneris And Other Poems And Ballads)
“
Be still, sad heart! and cease repining;
Behind the clouds is the sun still shining
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And Life, the shadow of death.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
some kill their love when they are young,
and some when they are old;
some strangle with the hands of lust,
some with the hands of gold:
THE KINDEST USE A KNIFE, because
THE DEAD SO SOON GROW COLD.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
When the end comes, dark and hungry I'll be alone, love When the end comes, black and starving I'll say good-bye, love.-from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Books of Faerie, #2))
“
Robin Goodfellow is a very old faerie. Not only that, he has ballads, poems, and stories written about him, so he is very near immortal, as long as humans remember them. Not to say he is immune to iron and technology-far from it. Puck is strong, but even he cannot resist the effects.
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron King (The Iron Fey, #1))
“
A pesar de todo, cada hombre mata lo que ama, Para cada uno, oigan esto, Algunos lo hacen con una mirada amarga, Algunos con una palabra adulatoria, El cobarde lo hace con un beso, ¡El hombre valiente con una espada!
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
And each man kills the thing he loves.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
She knows not loves that kissed her
She knows not where.
Art thou the ghost, my sister,
White sister there,
Am I the ghost, who knows?
My hand, a fallen rose,
Lies snow-white on white snows, and
takes no care.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads)
“
Sigh. Here's another fine woman that historians can't believe was real. Of course she was real. Not only is there a splendid Chinese poem called "The Ballad of Mulan", there is also an excellent cartoon by Disney.
”
”
Sandi Toksvig (Heroines & Harridans)
“
Thanks, thanks to thee, my worthy friend,
For the lesson thou hast taught!
Thus at the flaming forge of life
Our fortunes must be wrought
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
The flowers that I left in the ground,
that I did not gather for you,
today I bring them all back,
to let them grow forever,
not in poems or marble,
but where they fell and rotted.
And the ships in their great stalls,
huge and transitory as heroes,
ships I could not captain,
today I bring them back
to let them sail forever,
not in model or ballad,
but where they were wrecked and scuttled.
And the child on whose shoulders I stand,
whose longing I purged
with public, kingly discipline,
today I bring him back
to languish forever,
not in confession or biography,
but where he flourished,
growing sly and hairy.
It is not malice that draws me away,
draws me to renunciation, betrayal:
it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee,
Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon-
I have become the expert of the catalogue.
My body once so familiar with glory,
My body has become a museum:
this part remembered because of someone's mouth,
this because of a hand,
this of wetness, this of heat.
Who owns anything he has not made?
With your beauty I am as uninvolved
as with horses' manes and waterfalls.
This is my last catalogue.
I breathe the breathless
I love you, I love you -
and let you move forever.
”
”
Leonard Cohen (Selected Poems, 1956-1968)
“
Night after night on starry wings
Night lovers soared so high
Miles apart, across the oceans
Their love forgot to sigh
In heavenly flight’s timelessness
That highest height treasured
Into the deepest of all blues
Their depth of love measured.
From the poem 'The Ballad of Night Lovers
”
”
Munia Khan (To Evince the Blue)
“
This summer-sweet night is only one minute upon one minute upon another
Beautiful cacophony, sugar upon lips, dancing to exhaustion
I thought of you, before this minute upon another minute upon another
Until, numb, my lips fell onto the mouth of another, and I was undone.
~from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter which is a fictional book in
Ballad: A gathering of faerie
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater
“
You needn't tell a bird it's a bird
Or remind a fish of its purpose
It's only us who lose our way
We have names because we must.
– from Golden Tongue: The Poems of Steven Slaughter
”
”
Maggie Stiefvater (Ballad: A Gathering of Faerie (Books of Faerie, #2))
“
Fierce midnights and famishing morrows, And the loves that complete and control All the joys of the flesh, all the sorrows That wear out the soul.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems & Ballads (First Series))
“
My heart stole back across wide wastes of years To One who wandered by a lonely sea, And sought in vain for any place of rest: ‘Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest. I, only I, must wander wearily, And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.’ Poem:
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Ballad of Reading Gaol)
“
O all fair lovers about the world,
There is none of you, none, that shall comfort me.
My thoughts are as dead things, wrecked and whirled
Round and round in a gulf of the sea;
And still, through the sound and the straining stream,
Through the coil and chafe, they gleam in a dream,
The bright fine lips so cruelly curled,
And strange swift eyes where the soul sits free.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
Endymion
The rising moon has hid the stars;
Her level rays, like golden bars,
Lie on the landscape green,
With shadows brown between.
And silver white the river gleams,
As if Diana, in her dreams,
Had dropt her silver bow
Upon the meadows low.
On such a tranquil night as this,
She woke Endymion with a kiss,
When, sleeping in the grove,
He dreamed not of her love.
Like Dian's kiss, unasked, unsought,
Love gives itself, but is not bought;
Nor voice, nor sound betrays
Its deep, impassioned gaze.
It comes,--the beautiful, the free,
The crown of all humanity,--
In silence and alone
To seek the elected one.
It lifts the boughs, whose shadows deep
Are Life's oblivion, the soul's sleep,
And kisses the closed eyes
Of him, who slumbering lies.
O weary hearts! O slumbering eyes!
O drooping souls, whose destinies
Are fraught with fear and pain,
Ye shall be loved again!
No one is so accursed by fate,
No one so utterly desolate,
But some heart, though unknown,
Responds unto his own.
Responds,--as if with unseen wings,
An angel touched its quivering strings;
And whispers, in its song,
"Where hast thou stayed so long?
”
”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (Ballads and Other Poems)
“
I have heard ballads of great battles, and poems about the beauty of a charge and the grace of a leader. But I did not know that war was nothing more than butchery, as savage and unskilled as sticking a pig in the throat and leaving it to bleed to make the meat tender. I did not know that the style and nobility of the jousting arena had nothing to do with this thrust and stab. Just like killing a screaming piglet for bacon after chasing it round the sty. And I did not know that war thrilled men so: they come home laughing like schoolboys after a prank; but they have blood on their hands and a smear of something on their cloaks and the smell of smoke in their hair and a terrible ugly excitement on their faces.
I understand now why they break into convents, force women against their will, defy sanctuary to finish the killing chase. They arouse in themselves a wild vicious hunger more like animals than men. I did not know war was like this. I feel I have been a fool not to know, since I was raised in a kingdom at war and am the daughter of a man captured in battle, the widow of a night, the wife of a merciless solider. But I know now.
”
”
Philippa Gregory
“
For the worst is this after all; if they knew me, not a soul upon earth would pity me.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
For the White Horse knew England When there was none to know; He saw the first oar break or bend, He saw heaven fall and the world end, O God, how long ago.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Ballad of the White Horse: An Epic Poem)
“
I wish we were dead together to-day,
Lost sight of, hidden away out of sight,
Clasped and clothed in the cloven clay,
Out of the world's way, out of the light,
Out of the ages of worldly weather, Forgotten of all men altogether,
As the world's first dead, taken wholly away,
Made one with death, filled full of the night.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
Sweet for a little even to fear, and sweet,
O love, to lay down fear at love’s fair feet;
Shall not some fiery memory of his breath
Lie sweet on lips that touch the lips of death?
Yet leave me not; yet, if thou wilt, be free;
Love me no more, but love my love of thee.
Love where thou wilt, and live thy life; and I,
One thing I can, and one love cannot—die.
Pass from me; yet thine arms, thine eyes, thine hair,
Feed my desire and deaden my despair.
Yet once more ere time change us, ere my cheek
Whiten, ere hope be dumb or sorrow speak,
Yet once more ere thou hate me, one full kiss;
Keep other hours for others, save me this.
Yea, and I will not (if it please thee) weep,
Lest thou be sad; I will but sigh, and sleep.
Sweet, does death hurt? thou canst not do me wrong:
I shall not lack thee, as I loved thee, long.
Hast thou not given me above all that live
Joy, and a little sorrow shalt not give?
What even though fairer fingers of strange girls
Pass nestling through thy beautiful boy’s curls
As mine did, or those curled lithe lips of thine
Meet theirs as these, all theirs come after mine;
And though I were not, though I be not, best,
I have loved and love thee more than all the rest.
O love, O lover, loose or hold me fast,
I had thee first, whoever have thee last;
Fairer or not, what need I know, what care?
To thy fair bud my blossom once seemed fair.
Why am I fair at all before thee, why
At all desired? seeing thou art fair, not I.
I shall be glad of thee, O fairest head,
Alive, alone, without thee, with thee, dead;
I shall remember while the light lives yet,
And in the night-time I shall not forget.
Though (as thou wilt) thou leave me ere life leave,
I will not, for thy love I will not, grieve;
Not as they use who love not more than I,
Who love not as I love thee though I die;
And though thy lips, once mine, be oftener prest
To many another brow and balmier breast,
And sweeter arms, or sweeter to thy mind,
Lull thee or lure, more fond thou wilt not find.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads)
“
First is a poem, a ballad, out of Scotland. You may say there is no king in it, and of course there isn't, which is what makes it so sad. The last line of the third verse, 'O he might hae been a king' is so sad that I don't like to look at it with both eyes at once.
”
”
William Mayne
“
Mr. Morris's poem is ushered into the world with a very florid birthday speech from the pen of the author of the too famous Poems and Ballads,—a circumstance, we apprehend, in no small degree prejudicial to its success. But we hasten to assure all persons whom the knowledge of Mr. Swinburne's enthusiasm may have led to mistrust the character of the work, that it has to our perception nothing in common with this gentleman's own productions, and that his article proves very little more than that his sympathies are wiser than his performance. If Mr. Morris's poem may be said to remind us of the manner of any other writer, it is simply of that of Chaucer; and to resemble Chaucer is a great safeguard against resembling Swinburne.
”
”
Henry James (Views and Reviews (Project Gutenberg, #37424))
“
An Eastern Ballad I speak of love that comes to mind:
The moon is faithful, although blind;
She moves in thought she cannot speak.
Perfect care has made her bleak. I never dreamed the sea so deep,
The earth so dark; so long my sleep,
I have become another child.
I wake to see the world go wild.
”
”
Allen Ginsberg (Collected Poems, 1947-1997)
“
No. It’s Dandilion this time, your fellow. That idler, parasite and good-for-nothing, that priest of art, the bright-shining star of the ballad and love poem. As usual he’s radiant with fame, puffed up like a pig’s bladder and stinking of beer. Do you want to see him?"
"Of course. He’s my friend, after all.
”
”
Andrzej Sapkowski (The Last Wish (The Witcher, #0.5))
“
For the crown of our life as it closes Is darkness, the fruit thereof dust; No thorns go as deep as a rose's, And love is more cruel than lust.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems & Ballads (First Series))
“
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long broken run,
For his mourners will he outcast men
And outcasts always mourn.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY.
”
”
William Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 1)
“
So doth thy Beauty make my lips to fail,
And all my sweetest singing out of tune.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
He did not wring his hands, as do
Those witless men who dare
To try to rear the changeling Hope
In the cave of black Despair:
He only looked upon the sun,
And drank the morning air.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
The security of society lies in custom and unconscious instinct, and the basis of the stability of society, as a healthy organism, is the complete absence of any intelligence amongst its members. The great majority of people being fully aware of this, rank themselves naturally on the side of that splendid system that elevates them to the dignity of machines, and rage so wildly against the intrusion of the intellectual faculty into any question that concerns life, that one is tempted to define man as a rational animal who always loses his temper when he is called upon to act in accordance with the dictates of reason.
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
Tread lightly, she is near Under the snow, Speak gently, she can hear The daisies grow. All her bright golden hair Tarnished with rust, She that was young and fair Fallen to dust. Lily-like, white as snow, She hardly knew She was a woman, so Sweetly she grew. Coffin-board, heavy stone, Lie on her breast, I vex my heart alone, She is at rest. Peace, Peace, she cannot hear Lyre or sonnet, All my life’s buried here, Heap earth upon it. AVIGNON Poem:
”
”
Oscar Wilde (Ballad of Reading Gaol)
“
And about Ro’s bizarre reaction to Bo—which they still hadn’t gotten the details on. Keefe had tried everything he could think of to pry the secret out of her. He’d even been tormenting her with an epic poem he’d written—The Ballad of Bo and Ro. But the princess still hadn’t cracked.
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Flashback (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #7))
“
What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind..."
from "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood
”
”
William Wordsworth (Ode : Intimations of immortality from recollections of early childhood, by William Wordsworth. 1884 [Leather Bound])
“
Hardy’s astonishing technical versatility has won the admiration of major poets from Ezra Pound and Cecil Day Lewis to Philip Larkin. Among other genres he employs the lyric, narrative, ballads, and the sonnet. He also moves easily between the amplitude of dramatic monologue and the compression of imagism. He experiments continually with an ingenious variety of stanza forms and rhyme schemes, rejecting the fluidity of contemporary poetry for his own idiosyncratic style, based on a real understanding of the variety of speech rhythms and registers. Each individual poem is designed to express in its language and form, and with utter honesty, Hardy’s impressions of life.
”
”
Geoffrey Harvey (Thomas Hardy (Routledge Guides to Literature))
“
This is the work of a junior scribe, One of the many bards, balladeers and storytellers who walk the earth. We weave poems, songs and stories out of every breath. May you remember us. This is a rather unusual thing for a scribe to add, but it is the dedication that follows that is even more disturbing: Now and always, Praise be to Nisaba
”
”
Elif Shafak (There Are Rivers in the Sky)
“
The Garden of Proserpine"
Here, where the world is quiet;
Here, where all trouble seems
Dead winds' and spent waves' riot
In doubtful dreams of dreams;
I watch the green field growing
For reaping folk and sowing,
For harvest-time and mowing,
A sleepy world of streams.
I am tired of tears and laughter,
And men that laugh and weep;
Of what may come hereafter
For men that sow to reap:
I am weary of days and hours,
Blown buds of barren flowers,
Desires and dreams and powers
And everything but sleep.
Here life has death for neighbour,
And far from eye or ear
Wan waves and wet winds labour,
Weak ships and spirits steer;
They drive adrift, and whither
They wot not who make thither;
But no such winds blow hither,
And no such things grow here.
No growth of moor or coppice,
No heather-flower or vine,
But bloomless buds of poppies,
Green grapes of Proserpine,
Pale beds of blowing rushes
Where no leaf blooms or blushes
Save this whereout she crushes
For dead men deadly wine.
Pale, without name or number,
In fruitless fields of corn,
They bow themselves and slumber
All night till light is born;
And like a soul belated,
In hell and heaven unmated,
By cloud and mist abated
Comes out of darkness morn.
Though one were strong as seven,
He too with death shall dwell,
Nor wake with wings in heaven,
Nor weep for pains in hell;
Though one were fair as roses,
His beauty clouds and closes;
And well though love reposes,
In the end it is not well.
Pale, beyond porch and portal,
Crowned with calm leaves, she stands
Who gathers all things mortal
With cold immortal hands;
Her languid lips are sweeter
Than love's who fears to greet her
To men that mix and meet her
From many times and lands.
She waits for each and other,
She waits for all men born;
Forgets the earth her mother,
The life of fruits and corn;
And spring and seed and swallow
Take wing for her and follow
Where summer song rings hollow
And flowers are put to scorn.
There go the loves that wither,
The old loves with wearier wings;
And all dead years draw thither,
And all disastrous things;
Dead dreams of days forsaken,
Blind buds that snows have shaken,
Wild leaves that winds have taken,
Red strays of ruined springs.
We are not sure of sorrow,
And joy was never sure;
To-day will die to-morrow;
Time stoops to no man's lure;
And love, grown faint and fretful,
With lips but half regretful
Sighs, and with eyes forgetful
Weeps that no loves endure.
From too much love of living,
From hope and fear set free,
We thank with brief thanksgiving
Whatever gods may be
That no life lives for ever;
That dead men rise up never;
That even the weariest river
Winds somewhere safe to sea.
Then star nor sun shall waken,
Nor any change of light:
Nor sound of waters shaken,
Nor any sound or sight:
Nor wintry leaves nor vernal,
Nor days nor things diurnal;
Only the sleep eternal
In an eternal night.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
Out of Dindymus heavily laden Her lions draw bound and unfed A mother, a mortal, a maiden, A queen over death and the dead. She is cold, and her habit is lowly, Her temple of branches and sods; Most fruitful and virginal, holy, A mother of gods. She hath wasted with fire thine high places, She hath hidden and marred and made sad The fair limbs of the Loves, the fair faces Of gods that were goodly and glad. She slays, and her hands are not bloody; She moves as a moon in the wane, White-robed, and thy raiment is ruddy, Our Lady of Pain.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems & Ballads (First Series))
“
EXPOSTULATION AND REPLY. "Why, William, on that old grey stone, Thus for the length of half a day, Why, William, sit you thus alone, And dream your time away?" "Where are your books? that light bequeath'd To beings else forlorn and blind! Up! Up! and drink the spirit breath'd From dead men to their kind." "You look round on your mother earth, As if she for no purpose bore you; As if you were her first-born birth, And none had lived before you!" One morning thus, by Esthwaite lake, When life was sweet, I knew not why, To me my good friend Matthew spake, And thus I made reply. "The eye it cannot chuse but see, We cannot bid the ear be still; Our bodies feel, where'er they be, Against, or with our will." "Nor less I deem that there are powers Which of themselves our minds impress, That we can feed this mind of ours In a wise passiveness." "Think you, mid all this mighty sum Of things for ever speaking, That nothing of itself will come, But we must still be seeking?" "—Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, Conversing as I may, I sit upon this old grey stone, And dream my time away.
”
”
William Wordsworth (Lyrical Ballads, with Other Poems, 1800, Volume 1)
“
If you go,” Sophie jumped in before she had to suffer through another round of the ogres-versus-goblins debate, “I’m sure Keefe will make you listen to more of The Ballad of Bo and Ro.” Bo’s lips curled back, revealing his pointed teeth. His relationship with Keefe’s ogre-princess bodyguard was equal parts tumultuous and complicated, a fact that Keefe never missed an opportunity to torment the two of them about—generally in the form of an epic poem that kept getting mushier with each new stanza. And Sophie couldn’t blame Keefe for the teasing. Not only did Bo’s and Ro’s names rhyme, but it turned out that they were also secretly married,
”
”
Shannon Messenger (Legacy (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #8))
“
TO SLEEP A flock of sheep that leisurely pass by, One after one; the sound of rain, and bees Murmuring; the fall of rivers, winds and seas, Smooth fields, white sheets of water, and pure sky; I’ve thought of all by turns; and still I lie Sleepless; and soon the small birds’ melodies Must hear, first utter’d from my orchard trees; And the first Cuckoo’s melancholy cry. Even thus last night, and two nights more, I lay, And could not win thee, Sleep! by any stealth: So do not let me wear to night away: Without Thee what is all the morning’s wealth? Come, blessed barrier betwixt day and day, Dear mother of fresh thoughts and joyous health!
”
”
William Wordsworth (The Complete Works of William Wordsworth: The Prelude, Lyrical Ballads, Poems Written In Youth, The Excursion and More)
“
Meanwhile, as one contemporary noted, the sheer number of British biographies of Napoleon published in the years after 1797 meant that they had ‘to out-Herod each other in the representations they give alike of the hateful and malignant cast of his features, and of the deformity and depravity of his moral character’.55 As well as newspapers, caricatures, books and even nursery rhymes, Napoleon was the regular butt of British ballads, songs and poems. In an age when absolutely everything was regarded as a fit subject for an ode – one was entitled ‘On a Drunken Old Woman Who was Accidentally Drowned on a Ferry Crossing’ – Napoleon’s supposed crimes excited an avalanche of poetry, none of it memorable.
”
”
Andrew Roberts (Napoleon: A Life)
“
Before The Beginning Of Years"
Before the beginning of years
There came to the making of man
Time, with a gift of tears;
Grief, with a glass that ran;
Pleasure, with pain for leaven;
Summer, with flowers that fell;
Remembrance, fallen from heaven,
And madness risen from hell;
Strength without hands to smite;
Love that endures for a breath;
Night, the shadow of light,
And life, the shadow of death.
And the high gods took in hand
Fire, and the falling of tears,
And a measure of sliding sand
From under the feet of the years;
And froth and the drift of the sea;
And dust of the laboring earth;
And bodies of things to be
In the houses of death and of birth;
And wrought with weeping and laughter,
And fashioned with loathing and love,
With life before and after
And death beneath and above,
For a day and a night and a morrow,
That his strength might endure for a span
With travail and heavy sorrow,
The holy spirit of man.
From the winds of the north and the south,
They gathered as unto strife;
They breathed upon his mouth,
They filled his body with life;
Eyesight and speech they wrought
For the veils of the soul therein,
A time for labor and thought,
A time to serve and to sin;
They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and space for delight,
And beauty, and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
In terms of literary history, the publication of Lyrical Ballads in 1798 is seen as a landmark. The volume contains many of the best-known Romantic poems. The second edition in 1800 contained a Preface in which Wordsworth discusses the theories of poetry which were to be so influential on many of his and Coleridge's contemporaries. The Preface represents a poetic manifesto which is very much in the spirit of the age. The movement towards greater freedom and democracy in political and social affairs is paralleled by poetry which sought to overturn the existing regime and establish a new, more 'democratic' poetic order. To do this, the writers used 'the real language of men' (Preface to Lyrical Ballads) and even, in the case of Byron and Shelley, got directly involved in political activities themselves.
The Romantic age in literature is often contrasted with the Classical or Augustan age which preceded it. The comparison is valuable, for it is not simply two different attitudes to literature which are being compared but two different ways of seeing and experiencing life.
The Classical or Augustan age of the early and mid-eighteenth century stressed the importance of reason and order. Strong feelings and flights of the imagination had to be controlled (although they were obviously found widely, especially in poetry). The swift improvements in medicine, economics, science and engineering, together with rapid developments in both agricultural and industrial technology, suggested human progress on a grand scale. At the centre of these advances towards a perfect society was mankind, and it must have seemed that everything was within man's grasp if his baser, bestial instincts could be controlled. The Classical temperament trusts reason, intellect, and the head. The Romantic temperament prefers feelings, intuition, and the heart.
”
”
Ronald Carter (The Routledge History of Literature in English: Britain and Ireland)
“
In ballads, love is a disease, an affliction. You contract it as a mortal might contract one of their viruses. Perhaps a touch of hands or a brush of lips, and then it is as though your whole body is fevered and fighting it. But there’s no way to prevent it from running its course.”
“That’s a remarkably poetic and profoundly awful view of love,” Oak says.
Tiernan looks back at the sea. “I was never in love before, so all I had were ballads to go by.”
Oak is silent, thinking of all the times he thought himself to be in love. “Never?”
Tiernan gives a soft huff of breath. “I had lovers, but that’s not the same thing.”
Oak thinks about how to name what he feels about Wren. He does not wish to write her ridiculous poems as he did for so many of the people with whom he thought he was in love, except that he does wish to make her laugh. He does not want to give her enormous speeches or to make grand, empty gestures; he does not want to give her the pantomime of love. He is starting to suspect, however, that pantomime is all he knows.
“But…” Tiernan says, and hesitates again, running hand through his short blackberry hair. “What I feel is not like the ballads.”
“Not an affliction, then?” Oak raises an eyebrow. “No fever?”
Tiernan gives him an exasperated look—one with which the prince is very familiar. “It is more the feeling that there is a part of me I have left somewhere and am always looking for.”
“So he’s like a missing phone?”
“Someone ought to pitch you into the sea,” Tiernan says, but he has a small smile in the corner of his mouth.
”
”
Holly Black (The Prisoner’s Throne (The Stolen Heir Duology, #2))
“
Cochise Jones always liked to play against your expectations of a song, to light the gloomy heart of a ballad with a Latin tempo and a sheen of vibrato, root out the hidden mournfulness, the ache of longing, in an up-tempo pop tune. Cochise’s six-minute outing on the opening track of Redbonin’ was a classic exercise in B-3 revisionism, turning a song inside out. It opened with big Gary King playing a fat, choogling bass line, sounding like the funky intro to some ghetto-themed sitcom of the seventies, and then Cochise Jones came in, the first four drawbars pulled all the way out, giving the Lloyd Webber melody a treatment that was not cheery so much as jittery, playing up the anxiety inherent in the song’s title, there being so many thousand possible ways to Love Him, so little time to choose among them. Cochise’s fingers skipped and darted as if the keys of the organ were the wicks of candles and he was trying to light all of them with a single match. Then, as Idris Muhammad settled into a rolling burlesque-hall bump and grind, and King fell into step beside him, Cochise began his vandalism in earnest, snapping off bright bunches of the melody and scattering it in handfuls, packing it with extra notes in giddy runs. He was ruining the song, rifling it, mocking it with an antic edge of joy. You might have thought, some critics felt, that the meaning or spirit of the original song meant no more to Cochise Jones than a poem means to a shark that is eating the poet. But somewhere around the three-minute mark, Cochise began to build, in ragged layers, out of a few repeated notes on top of a left-hand walking blues, a solo at once dense and rudimentary, hammering at it, the organ taking on a raw, vox humana hoarseness, the tune getting bluer and harder and nastier. Inside the perfectly miked Leslie amplifier, the treble horn whirled, and the drivers fired, and you heard the song as the admission of failure it truly was, a confession of ignorance and helplessness. And then in the last measures of the song, without warning, the patented Creed Taylor strings came in, mannered and restrained but not quite tasteful. A hint of syrup, a throb of the pathetic, in the face of which the drums and bass fell silent, so that in the end it was Cochise Jones and some rented violins, half a dozen mournful studio Jews, and then the strings fell silent, too, and it was just Mr. Jones, fading away, ending the track with the startling revelation that the song was an apology, an expression, such as only the blues could ever tender, of limitless regret.
”
”
Michael Chabon (Telegraph Avenue)
“
In a land of sand and ruin and gold
There shone one woman, and none but she
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads & Atalanta in Calydon)
“
Atlantis
People would whisper about us
And our fall from grace
As our world fell to ruin
And our worst fears were realized,
We’d be submerged and forgotten
The stuff of speculation.
Legend at best,
We were a lost city,
Singing our siren ballads
Of heartbreak and woe
From the depths below,
We were here!
We were here.
We were here…
”
”
Liz Newman (Of Ruin and Renewal: Poems For Rebuilding)
“
baallad FW 593.15 n. A poem, song, or ballad that tells a story about young sheep or a lamb. The nursery rhyme about Mary’s little lamb that broke the rules by following her to school is perhaps the most famous “baallad” of them all, although the “baallad” about the black sheep that had three bags full of wool is equally well known. An English expression for a nice, sweet young person is a “baa-lamb.”(“And let Billey Feghin be baallad out of his hummuluation.”)
”
”
Bill Cole Cliett (A "Finnegans Wake" Lextionary: Let James Joyce Jazz Up Your Voca(l)bulary)
“
-"And you that sit by the fire are young, And true love waits for you; But the king and I grow old, grow old, And hate alone is true." - Ballad of the White Horse: Book III. The Harp of Alfred
”
”
G.K. Chesterton
“
We are all very familiar with the concept of faery queens, whether from Mab, Titania or from Spencer’s famous poem, and British folk tradition gives the strong impression that they are widespread. Other than Oberon, faery kings are rather less frequently mentioned. We hear of an unnamed monarch in the poem King Orfeo, the ‘eldritch king’ of the ballad Sir Cawline, the elf king of Leesom Brand and, finally, the small faery man of the ballad the Wee Wee Man seems to be some sort of faery ruler or noble.113 As mentioned earlier, the sixteenth century Scottish poet Montgomerie wrote of “the King of Pharie with the court of the Elph-quene.’ It’s not apparent whether there is any major significance to his choice of wording, which seems at least to imply that the king is in some manner subservient to his consort.
”
”
John Kruse (Who's Who in Faeryland)
“
THE BALLADE OF SUMMER'S FALL
Hues of pale green, on delicate olive branches the soft rustling of somberness along the fields of gold that lay themselves to gentle rest after another long summer.
I have nothing to bury under them
except my own heart -that is my soul's greatest regret, once my lines begin to fill in autumn, under the velvet gloom of shortening days.
The admiration of the Florentine sun had doomed my words to become eventually a remembrance once September falls in October's pale hands.
I shall have nothing to grieve for
once the winter arrives, coming over the distant hills and laying bare the orchards along his way.
I doomed them to become ruins by overthinking, hoping - at least once too often - for change;
So, let it be then.
I will mourn my mere passion for life in the presence of death - though my art may be eternal.
”
”
Laura Chouette
“
PERSEPHONE (the spring ballade)
Every heart
is blooming upon a field of doubt and the flowers autumn reaps
- he knows every name about.
They grow
never in line, although
always in the shape of each soul of every lonesome doubt.
So whenever
I wander along my sorrow's path the horizon behind me glows crimson with all the broken hearts it carries on.
A thought
yet not dreamt is a love unplanted by hands of grieve - For each who does not bloom by now is long lost in summer's eyes,
For autumn
reaps but does not give a single tear to water the ground in which he steers sometimes so aimlessly.
”
”
Laura Chouette
“
The age old question, what is Love?
Isn't it the greatest gift from the holy one Above?
Is it pure and white like a new born Dove?
Does it cuddle you up,Like a hand in a Glove?
Answer this hard question that what is LOVE??
the force that propels you ,through pain and despair,
the benevolence,the blessings,from the heavens above,
the ray of sunshine that pierces the clouds, a perennial hope, that's what is love;
Its the glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel,
Its the mirth that ends melancholy's reign,
A fountain of glee,the elixir of life,
Its the drug that heals,and cures all the pain;
Its an eternal promise, never meant to be broken,
Its the bond that adheres two hearts together,
People may die and their stories may end,
But their love is immortal,it lives on forever;
Its the river that cuts through boulders and rocks,
and the stream that flows through our barren lives,
And on its long course,
it leaves behind a trail Of vivid fragrant flowers,and clear blue skies;
Love is felt by the heart,relished by the soul,
Blissful like the divine touch of the Gods,
I yearn for more ballads and more metaphors,
But i fall short of verses, can't bind love in words.
”
”
Anamika Mishra
“
When he had ate his fill, and proceeded from the urgent first cup and necessary second to the voluntary third which might be toyed with at leisure, without any particular outcry seeming to suggest he should be on his guard, he leant back, spread the city’s news before him, and, by glances between the items, took a longer survey of the room. Session of the Common Council. Vinegars, Malts, and Spirituous Liquors, Available on Best Terms. Had he been on familiar ground, he would have been able to tell at a glance what particular group of citizens in the great empire of coffee this house aspired to serve: whether it was the place for poetry or gluttony, philosophy or marine insurance, the Indies trade or the meat-porters’ burial club. Ships Landing. Ships Departed. Long Island Estate of Mr De Kyper, with Standing Timber, to be Sold at Auction. But the prints on the yellowed walls were a mixture. Some maps, some satires, some ballads, some bawdy, alongside the inevitable picture of the King: pop-eyed George reigning over a lukewarm graphical gruel, neither one thing nor t’other. Albany Letter, Relating to the Behaviour of the Mohawks. Sermon, Upon the Dedication of the Monument to the Late Revd. Vesey. Leases to be Let: Bouwerij, Out Ward, Environs of Rutgers’ Farm. And the company? River Cargos Landed. Escaped Negro Wench: Reward Offered. – All he could glean was an impression generally businesslike, perhaps intersown with law. Dramatic Rendition of the Classics, to be Performed by the Celebrated Mrs Tomlinson. Poem, ‘Hail Liberty, Sweet Succor of a Briton’s Breast’, Offered by ‘Urbanus’ on the Occasion of His Majesty’s Birthday. Over there there were maps on the table, and a contract a-signing; and a ring of men in merchants’ buff-and-grey quizzing one in advocate’s black-and-bands. But some of the clients had the wind-scoured countenance of mariners, and some were boys joshing one another. Proceedings of the Court of Judicature of the Province of New-York. Poor Law Assessment. Carriage Rates. Principal Goods at Mart, Prices Current. Here he pulled out a printed paper of his own from an inner pocket, and made comparison of certain figures, running his left and right forefingers down the columns together. Telescopes and Spy-Glasses Ground. Regimental Orders. Dinner of the Hungarian Club. Perhaps there were simply too few temples here to coffee, for them to specialise as he was used.
”
”
Francis Spufford (Golden Hill)
“
Without the mellifluous notes of memory, there would be no songs to sing, no ballads dedicated to past afflictions or affections, and no church hymns celebrating the trials and tribulations of saints, martyrs, and holy deities. Without respect for memories for days gone by, we would lack impetuses to write poems or produce literature reflecting the bitter hardships and ineffable joys of human life. Without a reference to the past serving as an ethical compass pointing the way forward, we would be oblivious to the inequities committed by foes and the glorious deeds performed by our ancestors; we would lack the essential evenhandedness required of every caretaker; and we would be poor stewards of this planet. The loss of memory severs us at the stem from one another. Without the bond of shared memories, we would each remain forever unconnected to our brothers and sisters. Without the twigs of memory, we would lead a life as dry and disjointed as withered leaves scattered by a cruel wind.
”
”
Kilroy J. Oldster (Dead Toad Scrolls)
“
Yet each man kills the thing he loves, By each let this be heard, Some do it with a bitter look, Some with a flattering word. The coward does it with a kiss, The brave man with a sword!
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
Vincent Benét’s poem The Ballad of William Sycamore.
”
”
Louis L'Amour (Education of a Wandering Man: A Memoir)
“
With Ships the sea was sprinkled far and nigh, Like stars in heaven, and joyously it showed; Some lying fast at anchor in the road, Some veering up and down, one knew not why. A goodly Vessel did I then espy Come like a Giant from a haven broad; And lustily along the Bay she strode, Her tackling rich, and of apparel high. This Ship was nought to me, nor I to her, Yet I pursued her with a Lover’s look; This Ship to all the rest did I prefer: When will she turn, and whither? She will brook No tarrying; where she comes the winds must stir: On went She, and due north her journey took.
”
”
William Wordsworth (The Complete Works of William Wordsworth: The Prelude, Lyrical Ballads, Poems Written In Youth, The Excursion and More)
“
Earth has not any thing to shew more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in it’s majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and temples lie Open unto the fields, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendor valley, rock, or hill; Ne’er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will: Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!
”
”
William Wordsworth (The Complete Works of William Wordsworth: The Prelude, Lyrical Ballads, Poems Written In Youth, The Excursion and More)
“
sonnet in my soul
that spoke to you through the mist-covered fields
that whispered to you from inside the swirling waves
and the morning dew kissed your house
once there was a perfect ballad
filled with love, rain and rainbows
even the dark clouds loved you
once there was a perfect rhyme
your hair decorated with white jasmine flowers
your long white soft summer dress
loose and free on your beautiful body
once there was a love poem
once there were you
once there was a love poem
once there was me
once there were us
a beautiful love song
a beautiful love poem
”
”
Kenan Hudaverdi
“
Despair not that you are not articulate as those poets, or their ballads of love
For, you are more eloquent with your deeds in love, than any poet has been with his words on love,
For, your love is the poems they wrote about: one that lends colourful words even to the wordless,
Boundless love that makes limitless words appear inadequate;
Words less divine than the divinity they aspire to describe,
And in you, I see that divine
”
”
Rasal (I Killed the Golden Goose : A COLLECTION OF THOUGHTS, THOUGHTLESSNESS, SILENCES, POEMS & SOME ‘SHOT’ STORIES)
“
Only the dark and grieving
Could be the still believing.
For only the ill are well,
Only the hunted, free
So the story I have to tell
In the South was told to me.
- from the Ballad of the Sixties
”
”
May Sarton (A Grain of Mustard Seed: New Poems)
“
And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long broken urn,
For his mourners will he outcast men
And outcasts always mourn
”
”
Oscar Wilde (The Ballad of Reading Gaol and Other Poems (Dover Thrift Editions))
“
I have heard men tell of many battles in this cousins’ war, and they always spoke of heroism, of the courage of men, of the power of their comradeship, of the fierce anger of battle, and of the brotherhood of survival. I have heard ballads about great battles, and poems about the beauty of a charge and the grace of the leader. But I did not know that war was nothing more than butchery, as savage and unskilled as sticking a pig in the throat and leaving it to bleed to make the meat tender. I did not know that the style and nobility of the jousting arena had nothing to do with this thrust and stab. Just like killing a screaming piglet for bacon after chasing it round the sty. And I did not know that war thrilled men so: they come home like laughing schoolboys filled with excitement after a prank; but they have blood on their hands and a smear of something on their cloaks and the smell of smoke in their hair and a terrible ugly excitement in their faces.
”
”
Philippa Gregory (White Queen)
“
The Ballad of Maurice J. Lester, Carnival Ride Operator.’ This may be my best poem yet.
”
”
Jared Reck (A Short History of the Girl Next Door)
“
Time and the Gods are at strife; ye dwell in the midst thereof,
Draining a little life from the barren breasts of love.
”
”
Algernon Charles Swinburne (Poems and Ballads)
“
Though absent long, These forms of beauty have not been to me, As is a landscape to a blind man’s eye: But oft, in lonely rooms, and mid the din Of towns and cities, I have owed to them, In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart, And passing even into my purer mind With tranquil restoration: — feelings too Of unremembered pleasure; such, perhaps, As may have had no trivial influence On that best portion of a good man’s life; His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love.
”
”
William Wordsworth (The Complete Works of William Wordsworth: The Prelude, Lyrical Ballads, Poems Written In Youth, The Excursion and More)
“
The same year that the third great Viking ship found in Norway was excavated, at Oseberg, the town of Ålesund burned. At that time the Viking ships were displayed in makeshift exhibition halls, and the great Ålesund fire hastened the process of building a separate museum for them. The architect Fritz Holland proposed building an enormous crypt for them beneath the royal palace in Oslo. It was to be 63 metres long and 15 metres wide, with a niche for each ship. The walls were to be covered with reliefs of Viking motifs. Drawings exist of this underground hall. It is full of arches and vaults, and everything is made of stone. The ships stand in a kind of depression in the floor. More than anything it resembles a burial chamber, and that is fitting, one might think, both because the three ships were originally graves and because placed in a subterranean crypt beneath the palace gardens they would appear as what they represented: an embodiment of a national myth, in reality relics of a bygone era, alive only in the symbolic realm. The crypt was never built, and the power of history over the construction of national identity has since faded away almost entirely. There is another unrealised drawing of Oslo, from the 1920s, with tall brick buildings like skyscrapers along the main thoroughfare, Karl Johans Gate, and Zeppelins sailing above the city. When I look at these drawings, of a reality that was never realised, and feel the enormous pull they exert, which I am unable to explain, I know that the people living in Kristiania in 1904, as Oslo was called then, would have stared open-mouthed at nearly everything that surrounds us today and which we hardly notice, unable to believe their eyes. What is a stone crypt compared to a telephone that shows living pictures? What is the writing down of Draumkvedet (The Dream Poem), a late-medieval Norwegian visionary ballad, compared to a robot lawnmower that cuts the grass automatically?
”
”
Karl Ove Knausgård (Winter)
“
THE GRANDEST, MOST eloquent evocation of Depression-era populism came from the Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg, whose 1936 offering was a book-length poem called The People, Yes. Aside from its iconic title, the work is almost completely forgotten today, a strange outlier amidst the last century’s highbrow taste in poetry. Sandburg’s verse is not abstract; it is not avant-garde. But let us put our cynicism aside for a moment. As the title suggests, The People, Yes was a full-throated celebration of ordinariness: the manners of the people, their dreams, their folly, their aspirations, and above all their speech, the “plain and irregular sounds and echoes from / the roar and whirl of street crowds, work gangs, sidewalk clamor,” as he wrote in the introduction. As with Ballad for Americans and so many other works of the time, there is a compulsive listing of identities, repeated efforts to name-check everyone. Sandburg gives us cantos that are lists of occupations, cantos made up of slang expressions and lines from folktales and popular jokes. There are strikers, angry farmers, tricksters, soldiers, armies, and, of course, a big fat rich guy, ordering others off his property. Naturally Sandburg attacks the elite, mocking the pretenses of aristocracy and reminding his Depression-era audience of something they knew all too well—that justice treats rich and poor differently. He reminds us that bank robbers go to prison but, if you’re a bank officer who loots the company, “all you have to do is start another bank.
”
”
Thomas Frank (The People, No: The War on Populism and the Fight for Democracy)
“
but in any case, it is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment; to see all ages in a sort of splendid foreshortening. That is the use of tradition: it telescopes history. G.K.C.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (The Ballad of the White Horse: An Epic Poem)
“
For Penina Mezei petrify motive in folk literature stems from ancient, mythical layers of culture that has undergone multiple transformations lost the original meaning. Therefore, the origin of this motif in the narrative folklore can be interpreted depending on the assumptions that you are the primary elements of faith in Petrify preserved , lost or replaced elements that blur the idea of integrity , authenticity and functionality of the old ones . Motif Petrify in different genres varies by type of actor’s individuality, time and space, properties and actions of its outcome, the relationship of the narrator and singers from the text. The particularity of Petrify in particular genres testifies about different possibilities and intentions of using the same folk beliefs about transforming, says Penina Mezei. In moralized ballads Petrify is temporary or eternal punishment for naughty usually ungrateful children. In the oral tradition, demonic beings are permanently Petrifying humans and animals. Petrify in fairy tales is temporary, since the victims, after entering into the forbidden demonic time and space or breaches of prescribed behavior in it, frees the hero who overcomes the demonic creature, emphasizes Mezei.
Faith in the power of magical evocation of death petrifaction exists in curses in which the slanderer or ungrateful traitor wants to convert into stone. In search of the magical meaning of fatal events in fairy tales, however, it should be borne in mind that they concealed before, but they reveal the origin of the ritual. The work of stone - bedrock Penina Mezei pointed to the belief that binds the soul stone dead or alive beings. Penina speaks of stone medial position between earth and sky, earth and the underworld. Temporary or permanent attachment of the soul to stone represents a state between life and death will be punished its powers cannot be changed. Rescue petrified can only bring someone else whose power has not yet subjugated the demonic forces.
While the various traditions demons Petrifying humans and animals, as long as in fairy tales, mostly babe, demon- old woman. Traditions brought by Penina Mezei , which describe Petrify people or animals suggest specific place events , while in fairy tales , of course , no luck specific place names . Still Penina spotted chthonic qualities babe, and Mezei’s with plenty of examples of comparative method confirmed that they were witches. Some elements of procedures for the protection of the witch could be found in oral stories and poems. Fairy tales keep track of violations few taboos - the hero , despite the ban on the entry of demonic place , comes in the woods , on top of a hill , in a demonic time - at night , and does not respect the behaviors that would protect him from demons .
Interpreting the motives Petrify as punishment for the offense in the demon time and space depends on the choice of interpretive method is applied. In the book of fairy tales Penina Mezei writes: Petrify occurs as a result of unsuccessful contact with supernatural beings Petrify is presented as a metaphor for death (Penina Mezei West Bank Fairytales: 150). Psychoanalytic interpretation sees in the form of witches character, and the petrification of erotic seizure of power. Female demon seized fertilizing power of the masculine principle. By interpreting the archetypal witch would chthonic anima, anabaptized a devastating part unindividualized man. Ritual access to the motive of converting living beings into stone figure narrated narrative transfigured magical procedures some male initiation ceremonies in which the hero enters into a community of dedicated, or tracker sacrificial rites. Compelling witches to release a previously petrified could be interpreted as the initiation mark the conquest of certain healing powers and to encourage life force, highlights the Penina.
”
”
Penina Mezei