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 develop 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, several(prenominal) 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 faltering mind and knock over (Waugh 211). As for The Orchard Pit, a fragmentary prose tale, there is little that even could be said.   Yet, in the sonnet A Sea-Spell, there exists imagery directly relating this Siren-figure to Lilith, qualification 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. only if to what sound her listening 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 midmost main shall gathering 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, both specific Lilith-imagery and Lilith-related themes are shew 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 eyepatch 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 contem plative, Draws men to watch the silky 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 character is a charming 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 yield to the Sirens charms, causing their own demise.