Mon 3 Sep 2007
On Reflection VI
Posted by anaglyph under 7 Famous Mirrors
[8] Comments
7 Famous Mirrors (cont)
•7: The Mirror Crack’d
She left the web, she left the loom,
She made three paces through the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She looked down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror cracked from side to side;
“The curse is come upon me,” cried
The Lady of Shalott.
The curse of Alfred Lord Tennyson’s faerie Lady is such that she must only view the world through the mirror in her tower. If she should dare to look upon the world directly she knows a terrible fate will befall her, though she doesn’t know what that fate might be.
The passing of Sir Lancelot ‘flashing in her crystal mirror’ on his progress down to Camelot is her undoing. She wrenches her view from the reflection to gaze directly down on the handsome knight, whereupon her lifetime’s occupation, the magical web she weaves, floats out into the world, and her mirror cracks dramatically in two.
Things go from bad to worse after she finds an abandoned boat on the river, grabs a spare moment to paint her name on the prow, and launches herself off under the willows toward Camelot. Her robes of snowy white, as fetching as they may have looked in her lonely tower, are not much protection against the chilly night, and as she drifts along toward the castle singing a mournful tune, she freezes to death.
The moral to this story is:
Objects in the mirror are closer than they appear.
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Well Acowlytes, that concludes the diversion that is 7 Famous Mirrors. I thank you for your indulgence.
Th storys more intresting than th painting …
… and th paitings DANGD intresting!
Too drunk fer a poemski at presnt …
… sorry.
I have always loved that peom.
Thankyou Reverend, visits to The Cow are always rewarding.
(looking forward to Joey’s poemski..)
The worst part of it is she left the web. I couldn’t leave the web. How would I read your postings?
Joey: I thought you got drunk to get yer Muse on, like Dylan Thomas.
Pil: My pleasure ma’am.
Catalyst: Now if I were a Post Modernist I could re-interpret that whole thing as an allegory of our times: The Lady of Shallot is preoccupied with her ‘magical web’ (the internet) and must view the world through her ‘magical mirror’ (her computer monitor). When she is forced to contemplate the real world by turning her gaze away from her ‘mirror’ to look at ‘Sir Lancelot’ (David Hasselhoff) riding down to ‘Camelot’ (Pizza Hut), she can’t cope and ‘freezes to death’ (ends up in an accounting job).
I guess you’re lucky I’m not a Post Modernist.
Until you told me the moral I thought you were talking about an old girlfriend of mine.
That was a very entertaining series of lectures, Reverend!
Here to visit on Catalyst’s recommendation.
Must say I have had a lot of fun reading your posts. I will return.
Colonel: Hmmm. We must have gone out with the same girl.
Meggie: Thanks for dropping by The Cow. I hope you find some things to entertain you.
Jam: Lancelot, like most good-looking people, just marches through the world causing havoc and remaining oblivious.
Does Lancelot know the trouble he’s caused?