Images of Lilith in A Sea-Spell and The Orchard Pit :: Sea-Spell Essays

Images of Lilith in A Sea-Spell and The Orchard Pit   While Liliths only hard-core appearances are in the poems Lilith and Eden Bower, images of her arise in a get along of other poems by Rossetti, including A Sea-Spell and The Orchard Pit (Johnston 120). Considered minor poems, truly little has been written on either. Of A Sea-Spell, some have asleep(p) so far as to proclaim it is kinder to the memory of the artist to give voice nothing. It is the work of a prematurely faltering mind and hand (Waugh 211). As for The Orchard Pit, a frag custodytary prose tale, there is little that even could be said.   Yet, in the sonnet A Sea-Spell, there exists imagery directly relating this temptress-figure to Lilith, make the poem worthy of consideration here. The sonnet reads   Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree, While flashing fingers weave the sweet-strung spell Between its chords and as the nonsensical notes swell, The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. B ut to what sound her listening ear stoops she? What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear, In say echoes from what planisphere, Along the wind, along the estuary? She sinks into her spell and when full soon Her lips move and she soars into her song, What creatures of the in the midst main shall throng In furrowed surf-clouds to the summoning rune money box he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die? (Collected Works 361)   As evidenced above, some(prenominal) specific Lilith-imagery and Lilith-related themes are present in this sonnet. The poem begins with an immediate role to Lilith, specifically Rossettis Lilith, with the line Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree (line 1). This image is evocative of Liliths supposed tempting of Eve while in the apple-tree, the Tree of the experience of Good and Bad. Line 2 then borrows imagery directly from Lilith. The synonymic lines of Lilith, for example, read And, subtly of hersel f contemplative, Draws men to watch the bright web she rump weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. (lines 6-8) It is this aforementioned(prenominal) story which is told in A Sea-Spell. The character is a beautiful Siren who weaves her magic into a spell that will ensnare and kill men (Sea-Spell, line 2 Lilith, line 13). In both poems, the male figures render to the Sirens charms, causing their own demise.