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 explicit appearances are in the poems Lilith and Eden Bower, images of her arise in a number of other poems by Rossetti, including A Sea-Spell and The Orchard Pit (Johnston 120). Considered minor poems, very little has been written on either. Of A Sea-Spell, some have gone so far as to proclaim it is kinder to the memory of the artist to say nothing. It is the work of a prematurely ill-defined mind and hand (Waugh 211). As for The Orchard Pit, a frag workforcetary prose tale, there is little that even could be said.   Yet, in the sonnet A Sea-Spell, there exists imagination directly relating this Siren-figure to Lilith, making 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 wild notes swell, The sea-bird for those branches leaves the sea. But to what sound her lis tening ear stoops she? What netherworld gulf-whispers doth she hear, In answering 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 Till he, the fated mariner, hears her cry, And up her rock, bare-breasted, comes to die? (Collected Works 361)   As evidenced above, twain unique(predicate) Lilith-imagery and Lilith-related themes are present in this sonnet. The poem begins with an immediate reference to Lilith, specifically Rossettis Lilith, with the line Her lute hangs shadowed in the apple-tree (line 1). This image is reminiscent of Liliths supposed tempting of Eve while in the apple-tree, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Bad. Line 2 then borrows imagery directly from Lilith. The corresponding lines of Lilith, for example, read And, subtly of herself contemplative, Dr aws men to watch the bright web she can weave, Till heart and body and life are in its hold. (lines 6-8) It is this same story which is told in A Sea-Spell. The share 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 succumb to the Sirens charms, causing their own demise.