Raquel Jordα Bresσ                                                             23 – III – 06

 

MARY MAGDALENE AT THE DOOR OF SIMON THE PHARISEE

(For a Drawing.*)

Transcribed Footnote:   

* In the drawing Mary has left a procession of revellers, and is ascending by a sudden impulse the steps of the house where she sees Christ. Her lover has followed her and is trying to turn her back.

 

01 ‘Why wilt thou cast the roses from thine hair?

     Nay, be thou all a rose,—wreath, lips, and cheek.

     Nay, not this house,—that banquet-house we seek;

     See how they kiss and enter; come thou there.

05 This delicate day of love we two will share

     Till at our ear love's whispering night shall speak.

     What, sweet one,—hold'st thou still the foolish freak?

     Nay, when I kiss thy feet they'll leave the stair.’

 

     ‘Oh loose me! See'st thou not my Bridegroom's face

10 That draws me to Him? For His feet my kiss,

     My hair, my tears He craves to-day:—and oh!

     What words can tell what other day and place

     Shall see me clasp those blood-stained feet of His?

     He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!’

 

 

Rossetti, D.Gabriel. “ Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee.” Poems 1881.Ή

 

 

 

 

 

ANALYSIS

 

Title ΰ Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee describes the drawing the poem was written for and sets the place where the poem takes place.

 

            The poem narrates a dialogue between two persons – Mary Magdalene –who wants to enter Simon’s house- and, as the footnote explains, her lover –who tries to convince her not to do so.

 

            In my opinion, in this poem, Dante Gabriel Rossetti writes about the moment Mary Magdalene decides to leave her sinful live in order to achieve forgiveness and purity, by clasping Christ’s feet and thus the author makes a comparison with the Victorian society.

 

            First of all, the drawing – which dates from 1853-1859 – that Rossetti made before writing the poem (1869) describes the scene explained in the footnote found in the publication of the same text in  Poems 1881 (267). Therefore in the drawing we see more than what is explained in the poem. So the artist uses the painting to set a place and a time and uses the text to give live to that dead scene we can observe.

 

            In the poem we find a sort of dialogue between two characters – Mary Magdalene and her lover, as the footnote states - , delimited by quotation marks (L1 and L8; L9 and L14). This dialogue builds up the two unique stanzas of the poem, each one for each character, where the structure of the first one is abbaabba – an octave with ‘a’ verses in assonant rhyme and ‘b’ verses in consonantic rhyme –: L1 ‘hair’, L4 ‘there’, L5 ‘share’ and L8 ‘stair’ whereas lines 2 and 3 are ‘cheek’ and ‘seek’ and lines 6 and 7 are ‘speak’ and ‘freak’. The second stanza, on the other hand, is a sestet with a structure of cdecde (L9 ‘face’ & L12 ‘place’; L10 ‘kiss’ & L13 ‘His’; L11 ‘oh’ & L14 ‘go!’ ). Thus the poem as a whole is structured like an Italian sonnet.

 

            Rossetti, in the first stanza, through the voice of someone – Mary’s lover – who speaks in the first person – L8 ‘I kiss’ - , in direct speech, describes a ‘rose’ (L2), someone else – Mary Magdalene – who has roses in her hair, in a ‘wreath’ (L2), and both seem to be looking for a ‘banquet-house’ (L3) which is not the house where Mary has stopped at. It is ‘not this house’ (L3) but the one where the revellers – as the footnote states – are going to ‘kiss and enter’ (L4) and he tells her to ‘come there’ (L4).

So at this point the author has set a kind of election; the character that goes away from the procession – Mary Magdalene – has chosen to stop at the entrance of a house where Christ is – as he is in the drawing – whereas her lover claims that they must go away and follow the other people to the party house, where they will be able to share ‘this delicate day of love’ (L5). Moreover, I think that Dante Gabriel Rossetti uses these two houses, this division of elections, to symbolize Heaven and Hell. Obviously Simon’s house is Heaven with Christ inside it and the ‘banquet-house we seek’ (L3) is a symbol of all the human, world sins and negative attitudes, anti-Christian manners that Hell entails.

The whole procession, all the people in the drawing – who do not appear in the poem but are its context – are well dressed, some even semi-dressed, with wreaths in their heads – symbolizing human nature, freedom - , some playing music, dancing and having fun. Living their lives in liberty, living in licentiousness. There are even some corks in the low left corner of the picture that are a clear medieval symbol of Satan.

The ‘night’ (L6) in which ‘love’ – personificated – shall speak to their ear (L6) is also a symbol of free sex committed in the darkness, in private, where no one sees and people make things that they shall not do at sunshine.

            Furthermore we can consider Mary Magdalene’s lover as a representation of the Evil himself because he is trying to convince her to forget about Christ, forget about redemption and he does so by repeating ‘Nay’ – No – plus an imperative sentence: L2 ‘Nay, be thou all a rose’; L3 ‘nay, not this house’ and L8 ‘Nay, when I kiss your feet they’ll leave the stair’ – this last sentence can be observed in the drawing. He also calls Christ ‘foolish freak’ (L7) while he tells Mary sweet words to persuade her, such as ‘thou all a rose’ (L2, which is a metaphor) and L7 ‘sweet one’.

 

            But it is in the second stanza where Rossetti gives Mary her time to answer her lover’s proposals; and Mary is quite clear when she tells him to ‘loose me!’ (L9) and ‘let me go!’ (L14).

This second stanza is clearly Mary’s love statement towards Christ. But not with a sexual connotation – from my point of view – but a pure, spiritual one. She feels that something powerful ‘draws me to Him’ (L10) and she does not know what it is. This is a question Mary cannot reasonably answer but she knows in her heart that it is Him who calls her: ‘He craves to-day’ (L11).

And in such way she decides to render ‘for His feet’ (L10) ‘my kiss’ (L10), ‘my hair, my tears’ (L11) as a symbol of love, obedience and repentance, looking for forgiveness.

The author also introduces in lines 12 and 13 – with the exclamation in line 11 ‘and oh!’ - , through Mary’s voice and as a vision, the moment of the Crucifixion, which will happen in ‘other day and place’ (L12) and on that day Mary Magdalene will ‘clasp those blood-stained feet of His’ (L13).

 

            Rossetti finishes this poem with a statement which is a declaration of Mary’s feelings towards Christ and is also the answer to her lover’s intention to convince her to leave that house, as Mary says: ‘He needs me, calls me, loves me: let me go!’ (L14).

 

            I think - as I said in the second paragraph – that Dante Gabriel Rossetti could be outlining a metaphor, with the whole poem, of the situation the Victorian society was living at his time. Maybe the procession of revellers and Mary’s lover are an image of how deprived and permissive Victorian people have become. How through ‘beauty-false words’ – as Mary’s lover does with her – they tried to put inside your mind the ‘Carpe diem’ ideology without taking into account moral doctrines.

            The author uses those two figures to speak without speaking himself directly, because in the dialogue the poet gives his own live to Mary and her lover by using the personal pronouns ‘I kiss’ (L8), ‘loose me!’ (L9), ‘my hair, my tears’ (L11) and so. And thus the author remains as a witness of the scene.

 

PERSONAL OPINION

            This drawing and its poem are quite interesting in the way the artist, D. Gabriel Rossetti has mixed up, in my opinion, a biblical scene from around the 18th century with the reality he was living at that time and makes a criticism of that Victorian society.

            It is also interesting to me how from so crowded an image – the drawing – he developed a so simple dialogue, deep in meaning, and exploited it.

 

 

Ή Rossetti, D. Gabriel. “Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee.” Poems 1881. The Rossetti Archive Org. Ed. Jerome McGann. 27 – Feb – 2006 <http://www.rossettiarchive.org/docs/1-1881.astedn.rad.html#p267>

² Rossetti, D. Gabriel. Mary Magdalene at the door of Simon the Pharisee (drawing). The Rossetti Archive Org. Ed. Jerome McGann. 27 – Feb – 2006 <http://www.rossettiarchive.org/zoom/s109.img.html>

 

 

 

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