A Mysterious Roman Vase

Back in April, I blogged about the Riddle of the Portland Vase: who are the figures depicted on it?

Yesterday Bonhams, the London-based antiquities dealers, announced they have another Roman cameo vase on loan from a mysterious owner. You can read about it HERE. This is very exciting news to all Roman historians, archaeologists and glass experts. If the vase is genuine, and not a clever fake, it could rival or even surpass the Portland Vase in fame. This vase is so 'new' that experts aren't even sure what to call it. I will call it the Bonham's Vase**.

So far the pictures of it are so small that it is hard to see any detail, but it is possible to get a rough idea of what is happening.

On one side is an heroically nude beardless youth trying to calm a horse. Beneath the horse a woman rises up out of the ground: maybe a person-ification of a river? On the hero's left is a woman with lots of babies or Cupids. There are more figures to her left, including a struggling pair?

On the other side of the Bonham's Vase** is a bearded man on a throne holding what might be a trident: Neptune? He is turning his head to look at a man in a tunic on his right. The man is turned away. A woman is clinging to the man's leg as if asking for mercy. To the right of the seated god are three other figures, one of whom seems to be dancing, like a maenad. In front of her a boy may be clapping his hands.

Underneath the two main scenes is a battle between figures on horseback and foot soldiers. We might expect Greeks v. Amazons or Centaurs v. Heroes but the battle depicted on the Bonham's Vase is not either of these.

Experts will be poring over this vase during the next few weeks, trying to determine whether it is real. One of the tests they might perform is on the chemical content of the glass, which will contain amounts of lead. If the lead content of the white glass on the Bonham's Vase** matches the percentage of lead content of the Portland Vase then the Bonham's Vase is almost certainly genuine.*

Despite the handicap of not being able to examine the vase in close detail, my detectrix Flavia Gemina might try to determine whether it was real or not by making a list of clues.

Clues that the Bonham's Vase might be real.

1. The owner does not want to sell at the moment and if it was a fake, the main motive would be getting rich by selling it.
2. Though bigger, the Bonham's Vase is similar in shape to the Portland Vase.
3. The figures on the vase are just as mysterious as those on the Portland Vase, a forger might go for a well-known scene.
4. The hair and drapery of the figures is so close to those on the Portland Vase that they might be from the same workshop.
5. The handles are almost identical to those on the Portland Vase.

Clues that it might be a fake.

1. Perhaps the shape and style is too similar to the Portland Vase!
2. At first glance, it seems coarser than the Portland Vase, but it might just need a good clean.
3. The scenes are much more crowded and not as 'artistically' composed.

On balance, Flavia would conclude that the Bonham's Vase** is genuine.
(Or by a very skilled and diabolically clever forger!)

Want to know more about Roman cameo glass? A new book called Roman Cameo Glass in the British Museum will be out in March. It is written by a team of experts: Paul Roberts, William Gudenrath, Veronica Tatton-Brown and David Whitehouse.
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*P.S. My friend Mark Taylor, a Roman glass expert, says this:
The white glass will have lead in it, but it will not necessarily be similar in amount to that of the Portland Vase, though it would be nice if it was. Glass batches in the ancient world, although all based on a soda-lime composition, were different for virtually every potfull that was melted - due to the impurities in the raw materials and to the recycled glass that was added to the melt. They were also dependent on the required colour. If the compositions are very similar, then it is possible that the blanks were made within a day or so of each other.

**P.P.S. I have since decided that The Newby Vase is a better name. Martine Newby of the Ashmolean Museum is the clever scholar who first realised the worth of this big Roman cameo vase.

Odysseus in Portus?

There is great excitement among Classicists and archaeologists about the University of Southampton's find of what may or may not be a luxury mini-amphitheatre in Portus, the imperial harbour fourteen miles west of Rome. I've just been looking at the pictures on the BBC photo gallery and saw this wonderful head of a bearded man (left) wearing what might be a pileus. The pileus was a felt skullcap, rounded or pointed. It could be the hat of a freedman, but also of a craftsman.

The bearded head from Portus made me think of a marvellous collection of oil-lamps I saw in Lipari (one of the Aeolian Islands in Sicily) in May. One of the oil-lamps depicts a bearded man wearing a pileus. His hammer and tongs show he is a blacksmith. His heroic nudity hints that he might be Vulcan, god of fire and the forge (and fish), and husband of Venus. I wonder if the bearded head from Portus could be Vulcan? According to Smith's Dictionary, Vulcan (AKA Hephaistos) was one of the few mythological figures who wore a felt skullcap. Also, Vulcan had a strong presence in Ostia, a few miles south of Portus.

But another famous character from Greek and Roman mythology often shown in a skullcap is Odysseus. The bearded head from Portus is very similar to the head of the Odysseus from Sperlonga , where the emperor Tiberius had a monumental sculpture of Odysseus blinding the cyclops in a grotto of his summer retreat. (The name Sperlonga comes from Latin speluncae i.e. "grottoes"). (below: bearded head from Portus & Odysseus from Sperlonga)


The monumental sculptural group of Odysseus blinding the Cyclops Polyphemus was a popular one. The emperor Domitian had a similar sculpture in a grotto of his imperial retreat on Lake Albano, fourteen miles southeast of Rome. I saw fragments of it last April when I toured the ruins of Domitian's Alban Citadel at the Pope's summer retreat in Castelgandolfo. Sadly, Polyphemus is all that survives of Domitian's monumental group. (below)


Other figures from Greek mythology who wore the felt skullcap were Charon the ferryman and Daedalus the craftsman and father of Icarus.

You can read all the reports about the 'luxurious mini-amphitheatre' at Portus on the official Portus Project site, but do also read Mary Beard's caveat!
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Cleopatra in Bath

(A review of the Thermae Bath Spa in the town of Bath)

After a my talk at the Bath Festival of Children’s Literature (which was great, BTW) I thought it might be fun to try out the new luxury Thermae Bath Spa. Built of glass and stone, it is surrounded by Georgian Buildings. You book your session in advance and if you get one of their 50 special ‘treatments’, you get two hours in the baths as well. I studied the options as listed on their website and plumped for the ‘Cleopatra goat’s milk bath flotation and foot massage’. After all, this session was for research purposes.

You pay for your session in advance (I’m sure Cleopatra had a gold card) and you turn up half an hour beforehand with your swimming things. If you book a treatment, the Spa loans you a white robe and towel for no extra charge, and they give you white terrycloth slippers to use and keep. (If you just visit the pools and steam room you have to rent these three items or bring your own.) Upon entry, you are given a plastic bracelet called a ‘SmartBand’ which you use to open and close your locker and to pay for meals in the restaurant. Most efficient. I think Julius Caesar would have approved.

The partitions between the changing rooms and shower cubicles are a made of frosted glass in eau-de-nil (pale Nile-water-green). At first glance they look as if they might be see-through but thankfully, they aren’t. After changing into my swimsuit and stowing my belongings in locker number LXXI, I don the white robe and terrycloth slippers and shuffle off to the lower ground floor. You can get to different levels by lift or stairs.


There are skylights and glass walls everywhere, so you get a delicious sense of space and light. Well done, Vitruvius! (Or whoever designed it…)

For treatments, you go to the Minerva Bath on the lowest floor and follow a ramp up. The glass walls allow you to see people frolicking in the Minerva Bath as you wait. The Minerva Bath is actually a big curved swimming pool with a circular section for a whirlpool and a fan shaped downward-pointing spout for an intermittent jet of water. As I fill out a brief medical questionnaire and wait for my treatment, I notice lots of cuddling couples in the pool. Plus ça change. The Romans knew very well how sensual a few hours of steam and water and massage could be. I imagine Cleo and Anthony would have enjoyed that big warm pool.

At precisely 6.15, the time of my appointment, one of the therapists comes to get me. She is dressed in blue uniform like the scrubs they wear in American hospital TV shows. Natalie takes me into a private room with ambient generic new-age mood music. There is a ceiling fan, a shower and a treatment table.

Natalie is charming. She asks me a few questions based on the questionnaire, then tells me to ‘Take off your robe and swimsuit and lie down on the table, please.’

‘Naked?’ I ask.

‘No, you put on these paper panties.’

I notice the massage table is covered by two sheets of plastic, a towel and some alarming looking pieces of blue marsh grass.

‘Are you going to whip me with those first?’ I ask.

Natalie laughs as she removes them. ‘No, they’re for decoration.’

As she leaves me to get ready I wonder if Cleopatra ever wore papyrus panties.

I lie face down on the bed, with a towel over me. Natalie comes back in and gives me a rather cursory dry skin brushing with a natural fiber brush (camel hair, perhaps?) Then she slathers me with a warm mixture of goatsmilk, ‘minerals’ and aloe vera. I guess a whole bath of the stuff would be terribly expensive, but I am a little disappointed. I imagined myself descending into an Alma-Tadema circular marble bath filled with warm goatsmilk as muscular Nubian slaves fanned me with peacock feathers. Oh well…

The goatsmilk mixture gets cold very quickly and there is a lot of tactful faffing about with the towel to preserve my modesty. (When I had a hot fango mud treatment in Ischia, my female therapist encouraged me to slather my modesty myself.) After I am more or less coated in this quickly cooling milky mixture, Natalie wraps the two plastic sheets around me and puts a warm, rosemary filled eye-mask over my eyes. Now for the floatation bit. A cushion filled with warm water rises up around me as the platform beneath my back sinks down into its base. I can feel the cushion’s warmth on my arms and cheeks, along with a sensation of floating. This reminds me of waterbeds from the 1980’s, only the warmth makes it much nicer. Nicer still is when Natalie gently massages my feet – the only part of me still sticking out - with ‘Oriental oil’. This is good because otherwise the water-filled flotation cushion might be a bit claustrophobic; the gentle foot massage gives your mind another point of focus. The ambient music is still playing. Although I wish it was more exotic and Egyptian, this part is blissful. I even drift off once or twice. The bright yellow chime of a yoga bell brings me back to the here and now.

I feel ‘stretched out’ as the panel comes back up and the floatation device melts away. Most of the goatsmilk and aloe vera mixture should have soaked into my skin, but Natalie massages in the last remnants to make sure it is all absorbed. After the delicious warmth of the floatation cushion it is uncomfortably chilly as my naked back is exposed, and I ask her to turn off the ceiling fan. She removes the plastic sheets by having me lift up my back and then my legs and finishes massaging in the mixture.

A final chime of the bell marks the end of my session. Natalie says she will get me a glass of water and that I can then dress in my own time. She reminds me not to forget to put on my ‘SmartBand’. I have just finished dressing when she comes back with a plastic cup of water. She shows me an area where I could go to have a herbal tea and relax, but I forego that because I want to go up to the rooftop pool and see the sunset.

Eheu! I’m too late. The sun has already set and it’s a bit overcast now. But never mind. The town of Bath still looks lovely from up here, with the Abbey floodlit and the sky not quite dark. Again, I notice lots of canoodling couples in the water, most in their 20’s. Suddenly, some bubbles start to rise up. ‘Here they come,’ says a hairy-backed man to his girlfriend. The bubbles are pretty feeble. Nothing to write home to Julius Caesar about. And the pool isn’t as warm as I’d expected. When you get out it is quite chilly. Not as nice as the hot pool in Bamff, surrounded by snowly peaks. Another flaw is that the terrycloth slippers soon get sodden and cold. White plastic flip-flops would be better, but probably not as cheap to produce.

Next I go to the steam room one floor below the rooftop pool. This is a huge steamy room with a central shower and four large cylindrical frosted glass pods full of even more steam. In one of the pods I see a couple alone and embracing. Edepol! This place really is like Baiae, the ancient mixed baths of Rome. Baiae was notorious for bathing establishments with mixed sex bathing and the inevitable debauchery that went along with that.

Most people are up on the rooftop pool, so apart from the embracing couple and one or two others, the steam pods are empty. I find one pod for myself. A circular bench of stone is very warm, but not too hot to sit or lie on. I try out the frankincense steam, the lavender, and the breathless eucalyptus. Of course, eucalyptus is from Australia and was unknown in Roman times. Cleopatra would have enjoyed saffron, rose or lotus. The foot massage pools around the side of the room don’t seem to be working. For some reason the plugs don’t stop the water going out. So I have to forego the ‘gentle water massage’ on my tootsies. By Isis! This is not good.

There are three hot baths in the complex, including the Cross bath at a slightly removed site, now closed for the evening. In actual fact the pools are warm - not hot - and as it s a cool September evening, it makes it slightly a chilly exercise as I descend three floors to the Minerva Bath. The water in this pool is only lukewarm, too. I wish it were warmer, like the baths I tried in Pamukkale in Turkey a year or two ago. I wonder if this is the natural temperature of the springs. I remember seeing the milky green water in the great pool of the Roman bath next door steaming in the cool air above it and I suspect not. I wait in the lukewarm pool under the fan-shaped shower for the massage jet. One of the bathers tells me that it comes on unexpectedly. This seems a bit pointless. I wait for ten minutes and am finally rewarded with a powerful jet of lukewarm water. Would be nice if it were hotter. But I suppose that might lead to people overheating and health and safety issues. Hmf. Cleopatra never had to worry about health and safety.

Now I am getting hungry. I decide to visit the Spring Restaurant. You get two complimentary hours in the baths with any treatment, and if you eat in the Spring Restaurant they add on 45 minutes. Suddenly I realize I left my ‘SmartBand’ in my therapy room. Doh! That wasn’t very smart of me. Luckily Natalie turned it in at reception and they hand it back with a smile. The restaurant could be warmer, too. But I find a table by a window and sit down in my damp bathing suite and toweling robe. I blink in surprise as a man and woman in Georgian costume walk by on the night cobblestones below me. Apparently Bath is popular for Jane Austen-themed weddings.

I long for my notebook or iPhone so I can make notes, but have to content myself with sipping my glass of house white and watching the other diners. It is quite a surreal experience to be dining in a room full of people wearing white robes and slippers. One bespectacled man has tucked his dark green paper napkin into the neck of his robe. I think of Fellini’s great film 8 1/2, with all its great spa scenes.

My crab cakes with sweet chili sauce and lemongrass salad arrive. Ugh! The sauce and pineapple in the salad are cloyingly sweet and the crab cakes too fishy. I should have ordered the Greek salad in honour of Cleopatra, who was Greek not Egyptian. She would have dined on crocodile steaks and ibis tongues, no doubt.

Another flaw in the Thermae Bath Spa is that you have to go right to the lowest level to shower, then back up a floor to the changing rooms. And the showers demand that you constantly hit their buttons, otherwise they only give you ten seconds of water. Annoying. Chop off somebody’s head. (right: the Pink Panther and Scooby Doo outside the baths... don't ask!)

What would Anthony and Cleopatra think of the Thermae Bath Spa? Well, apart from the absence of oiled Nubian slaves with peacock-feather fans and full immersion pools of goatsmilk (wasn’t it asses’ milk, anyway?) they would have loved the look of the place: the pale Nile-water-coloured cubicles, the light, the glass, the water and the romantic atmosphere. They might have enjoyed a steamy embrace in the frankincense pod and a luxurious couples’ massage in the therapy rooms. But if I were Cleopatra, heads would roll about the following flaws:
1. Too chilly
2. Soggy, clammy terrycloth slippers
3. Foot massage pools malfunction
4. Cloying crab cakes
5. Too many hoi polloi! I want it all to myself!

You can book a treatment at the Thermae Bath Spa by phoning 0844 888 0844, or by visiting their website www.thermaebathspa.com
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Golden Sponge-Stick Comp '09

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Are you a budding young writer?

Could you create the next Flavia Gemina or Falco?

Think you can do just as well as Lindsey Davis, Steven Saylor or me?

Jeremy Pine, one of the co-sponsors of last year's Golden Sponge-stick Competition has moved from The Royal High School in Bath to Burgess School for Girls, but he is still game to put it on again.

The competition was inspired by one of my visits to Jeremy's previous school a few years ago. I shared my writing tips and told the story of how a little girl in Year 3 thought my sponge-stick (Roman toilet paper) was 'an award for my books'. I joked that a golden sponge-stick would be a good award for the best Roman mystery... and this inspired Jeremy to start a competition. The prize? A prestigious golden sponge-stick! Euge!

Here are the rules:

THE STORY ITSELF

1 Your story should be a Roman story and based in Roman times. It can be set in any part of the Roman world. It can be either a Roman short story or a Roman mystery/ detective story/thriller.

2 Your story should be an individual entry and written entirely by you. Please would a parent or guardian/carer sign your entry at the end or on the back to verify this.

3 Your story should not exceed 1500 words in length. Handwritten and typed entries are both welcome but please ensure that a handwritten entry is legible. Your entry should include your full name, school or college and date of birth.

4 Knowledge of Latin is certainly not essential but you should display some historical research and/or knowledge of Roman daily life in your story. If you do study Latin then it would be excellent to use some in your story or story dialogue.

5 Your story should have a clear, logical plot, a set of characters, possibly including a hero/heroine and ideally a series of twists and a striking ending!

COMPETITION RULES AND DETAILS

1 A panel of judges will choose the winning entries for each age category.

2 The age categories will be split into four: ages 8 and below; ages 9-11; ages 12-13; ages 14 and above.

3 In each age category three prizes will be awarded; the best in each will receive the prestigious golden sponge-stick. Other classical prizes including books and vouchers will be awarded.

4 Entries are welcome now and the closing date for all entries is Friday 10 December 2009.

5 The judges reserve the right to keep all entries unless a stamped addressed envelope is included for return of your entry.

6 All winners will be notified of the result by Friday 8 January 2010.

Please send your entries by email or post to:

Jerry Pine
Burgess Hill School for Girls
Keymer Road
Burgess Hill
West Sussex RH15 0EG

email: j.pine610@btinternet.com

To find out exactly what a SPONGE-STICK is, go HERE.

And if you need some writing tips go to my WRITING TIPS PAGE or come hear me speak about 'How to Write a Roman Mystery' at one of my upcoming EVENTS.

You can see last year's winners HERE.

Jerry Pine has confirmed that this event is open to international students as well! Euge! (Yay!)

Bona fortuna! (Good luck!)

Henslow's Rose

If you're a fan of the 1998 Oscar-winning film Shakespeare in Love, and if you're in London in the next few weeks, why not drop by the Rose Theatre? It's not a full reconstruction like The Globe (which is just around the block), but rather a real archaeological site. The Rose was built in 1587 by Philip Henslow. Who can forget Henslow (as immortalised by Geoffrey Rush) getting his feet toasted by a debt collector? Or some of his wonderful lines like: 'Love and a bit with a dog, that's what they like.' And: 'Strangely enough it all turns out well.' How? 'I don't know. It's a mystery.'

Henslow built the Rose and maintained it for two decades. For five of those years he even kept a diary. This diary, now at Dulwich College, is full of fascinating facts about the day-to-day running of an Elizabethan theatre. There are lots of delightful details like how much he spent on gold braid for the actors' costumes. Coincidentally, when archaeologists were digging on the site of the Rose, they found several lengths of gold braid. They also found a gold ring. And the thigh bone of a Russian bear! Apparently, as well as plays by Shakespeare and Marlowe, the Rose put on combats between bears and bulls, and sometimes mastiffs, too. Those Elizabethans loved a good bear-baiting!

Anyway, every Monday to Saturday evening at 6.00 for the rest of August, you can see a short film called 'The Genius of Chrisopher Marlowe'. Some of Britains best actors perform scenes from Marlowe's plays: Joseph Fiennes, Tobias Menzies, Alan Rickman, Ian McKellan, Rebecca Knight, Anthony Sher and Henry Goodman just to name a few. (above right: Alan Rickman as the Duke of Guise from Marlowe's Massacre at Paris)

After this delightful Marlowe-taster, one of the site historians will tell you something about the Rose and its history. Did you know it was only rediscovered in 1989? Did you know it was originally surrounded by canals for market gardens? Did you know that they didn't use blanks in prop guns but rather real bullets? In 1587 an actor waved his hand while firing a pistol on stage. The bullet killed a pregnant member of the audience and her baby, and it also wounded a man. Eek!

The 35 minute film and the talk only cost £4.50. Great value.

The Rose Theatre isn't hard to find. I went to Waterloo, then walked up to the river, going along the South Bank past the polka dot trees and the skateboard park and the second-hand bookstall outside the NFT and Gabriel's Wharf and the Millenium Bridge and the Tate Modern. Turn right at the reconstructed Globe and walk down New Globe Walk with The Globe on your right and Starbucks on your left.

Take the first left down Park Street (left) and walk for about a minute until you reached the door by the blue plaque (below). If you pass some stairs or go under the bridge, you've gone too far. The doors of The Rose usually open from 5.45pm on. (If the door isn't actually open, give it a push) The film starts at 6.00. While you're waiting for it to start you look down at the level of the original Rose which - like almost every building from the past - is below street level. The archaeologists have marked its outline out in red lights, so you can see how big it was and where the stage was. There's also literature about the Rose, a small model of it and info boards on the wall.

There are several productions planned over the next few months, all on a much more intimate scale than the Globe. From 17 - 29 August, the Carpe Diem Theatre Company will be performing Shakespeare's Othello. A performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream is also planned. For mid-winter! Unusual? Maybe. But I think it will turn out well. How do I know? 'I don't! It's a mystery.'

For information about The Rose Theatre, go to the official site: www.rosetheatre.org.uk. The address is: The Rose Theatre, 21 New Globe St, London SE1 9DT

Orpheus & Orphée

In Greek mythology, Orpheus was the Thracian musician who was so talented that he could charm wild animals and trees and even rocks with his music.

He went with Jason on his quest for the Golden Fleece and had a novel way of deactivating the dangerous song of the Sirens: he played his music to drown out theirs.

One day Orpheus (pronounced or-fee-uss) fell in love with a beautiful girl called Eurydice, (pronounced yoor-id-iss-ee). On their wedding day she was running through the grass when a deadly viper bit her foot. She died in the arms of Orpheus, her betrothed. He was so distraught that he decided to go down to Hades and plead with Pluto to let her take him back.

You know the story. With his beautiful music Orpheus charms the ferryman who guides souls across the River Styx. With his beautiful music Orpheus charms Cerberus, the three-headed watchdog. With his beautiful music Orpheus even charms Pluto and Persephone, the King and Queen of the Underworld. They tell him he can take Eurydice back to the land of the living. But there is one condition. He must lead the way and not look back at her until they have safely arrived.

Orpheus sets out on the upward-sloping path, groping his way because it is so dark and silent. As he ascends, he becomes more and more worried. He can’t hear his beloved Eurydice behind him. He begins to wonder if it could be a trick of Pluto to get him to leave peacefully. When the light from the exit up ahead begins to dimly light the way, he is desperate to glance back, just to reassure himself that she is behind him. But he does not dare. He tells himself to be strong and to resist the temptation to look. Just a little longer!

Finally he steps into bright sunshine. Immediately he turns to see if his beloved Eurydice is behind him. She is! But she is still in the passage, still in the underworld. Even as he watches, she recedes from sight, her arms stretched out hopelessly and helplessly towards him. In some versions the messenger god Mercury sadly takes her arm and stops Orpheus from following.

Orpheus is stunned by his wife’s double death. He is in a torment of guilt and grief. If only he had waited a few more moments! Some say he renounced music. Others say he renounced women. For whatever reason, the frenzied followers of Dionysus called ‘maenads’ (pronounced mee-nadz), become angry with Orpheus and eventually kill him and tear him limb from limb. According to some accounts his head rolls into a stream and floats away, singing as it goes. The artist J.W. Waterhouse has chosen to paint the moment when two startled nymphs discover the beautiful, almost effeminate head with the long hair tangled in the chords of the lyre. Were these two among the crazed women of the night before? Or are they innocent?

We don’t really know. All we know is that Orpheus is finally reunited with his beloved Eurydice. In death.


Another artist fascinated by the myth of Orpheus was a multi-talented French genius named Jean Cocteau who flourished in the 50’s. He was not only a filmmaker but also a brilliant artist (see his head of Orpheus at the top right of this post) and poet. His black and white film Orphée, made from 1949-1950 soon after WWII, is considered a classic. (Orphée, pronounced or-fay, is the French for Orpheus) In Cocteau’s retelling of the myth, Orphée is a handsome poet who is adored by all. He is married to a pretty blonde named Eurydice, whom he loves, but in a twist to the tale, he also falls in love with Death, who is personified as a beautiful almost vampirical woman in black. Death is in love with him, too. When Eurydice dies, Orpheus goes to the underworld with a version of Mercury called Heurtebise, (pronounced... no, there is no way I can transliterate that!). A nice twist is that Heurtebise is in love with Eurydice. The scenes of the underworld were filmed in parts of Paris still in ruins from German bombing. They are some of the most haunting and dreamlike footage you will ever see. Orphée and Heurtebise bring Eurydice back from the underworld, but Orphée is forbidden to look at her ever again. Not just on the way back, but FOR EVER. (see above)

This is too much to ask, of course, and one day he accidentally catches sight of her in the rear view mirror of his car. She instantly returns to the underworld. Orphée goes back a second time and, in a poignant twist, Death decides to give him back Eurydice, even though she must suffer a punishment for this, and even though it means Orphée will not even remember her.

Cocteau introduces elements of other myths. For example, Death is like Persephone, who loved Adonis. Cocteau also likes the Narcissus myth. He uses mirrors a lot, in particular as the entrance to the underworld. These are some of the most breathtaking sequences. My favourite scene is where Orphée must put on magic gloves to pass through the mirror to the underworld. For this effect, Cocteau used a vat of mercury, because the actor’s fingers would have been visible beneath the surface of water. In this sequence there are several tricks. First, the footage of Orphée putting on the gloves is reversed. Second, the cameraman filmed his own gloved hands approaching those of the actor Jean Marais, who is in an identical room on the other side of the ‘mirror’. Third, the camera was tilted 90% to film the hands going into the vat of mercury. You can see the mirror sequence HERE.

The strongest reference to the Narcissus myth is in a sequence where Orphée awakens and hovers over a mirror-like pool. (below)

For me this is especially fascinating as I’m currently working on my own reworking of the Narcissus myth.

If you get a chance, visit the Waterhouse exhibition at the Royal Academy in London. And watch Orphée if you haven’t already. In America there is the Criterion DVD and in Europe and the UK there is an excellent DVD produced by the BFI with extras including an audio commentary and booklet about the making and makers of the film.

J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite is on at the Royal Academy until 13 Sept 2009

P.S. Thanks to Rod McKie, my twitterpal, for recommending that I re-visit Cocteau's 1950 masterpiece!

P.P.S. If you want to practice your Latin, you can read Ovid's version HERE, with excellent illustrations, vocabulary and notes.
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Thracian O

(inspired by J.W. Waterhouse's Nymphs finding the Head of Orpheus)

Thracian O
by Caroline Lawrence

My tears are small and bitter and hard to squeeze out.
What do you expect? I’m a raccoon.
I half resent him for making me feel this way…
Half love him, too. I want to rub up against his calf,
To kiss his ankle with my small wet nose.
But something in his manner keeps us at all a distance
Even though his music ensnares and attracts us,
We are held in his Thracian thrall. Gripped by his woodland notes.
Those rainbow chords strummed out on his lyre.
That throbbing net of music that holds me – paralysed – next to
Brother Wolf. (The Grey One will probably gobble me whole
The moment O puts down his lyre. More of embarrassment
Than instinct, I suspect - a desire to eliminate
any creature who witnessed his tears.)
O’s fingers pluck the dried stretched entrails of my pal,
A mountain lynx who perked his tufted ears and came too close
‘Pluck me,’ squeals my dead amigo. ‘Pluck me, baby!’

He fell in love once, our Thracian bard,
But she was one of those ethereal types: too beautiful to last long.
You know the type. Marble skin, laughing eyes, pillowy lips.
The kind of girl the cosmos likes to snuff out
Between its forefinger and thumb?
Brother Snake snacked on her heel one afternoon,
Trading her sweet blood for his poisoned saliva.
Not such a good deal if you ask me.
But she was running barefoot and carefree at the time,
All annoying with her slo-mo flying hair and backward glances,
luring O on, making him put down his lyre, taking him from us.
Serves her right for being all carefree and happy and barefoot.
Besides, he didn’t play as much when he was with her.
They did other things instead. Like get grass stains on their tunics.
Selfish O. Selfish E. We craved his music, like a drug.
But she kept him from us. So she had to go.
Even Brother Wolf hoped that now E was dead and gone
O would get back to his Woodland Tour.

The maenads felt the same way. They really resented E,
That groupie par excellence. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised
To learn that one of them had planted that snake in the grass
Just so he’d come back to us, his fans. But he didn’t come back.
He went away. And the woods were dark and rank
And empty and dank without him. For a long time.
We missed him. Missed his music. How dare he?
We never asked for his lachrymose music. But it was like
A drug. We craved it. He got us hooked. And then to just leave us?
Like a dealer leaves his junkie hanging around?
When we could be getting some useful scavenging done?

We skulked and moped and did some half-hearted foraging
The carnivores forced themselves to swallow a few herbivores.
I tell you: the latter went willingly. The pleasure had gone out of life
For us all. Then one day the trees themselves whispered the rumour
With rejoicing leaves; ‘He’s back! Back from death.
Back from the underworld!’ The aspen shuddered with pleasure.
The oak stood frozen with joy. The trees clapped.
See? Even they love his music. Hell, even the rocks like his music.

And then… Then he does nothing but mope. Come on, O!
Snap out of it! We’re waiting, man. We bought our tickets last year.
We’ve all been waiting. I camped out in line for three days
So I could get this seat near the front.
And now you say you’re retiring? I’m sorry, but no. That won’t do.
The maenads start the rave without him and then he appears
All sulky and in an artistic funk, saying his manager betrayed him.
And he refuses to play! Those crazy nymphs are furious.
Incandescent. One of them starts to beat him
With her thyrsus. The others join in. They just want to be noticed.
They all want a piece of him. Odi et amo, baby. They love him
And they hate him. One of them is kissing him while
Another bites off his toe. One nibbles his ear. Literally.
Then they get carried away and tear him limb from limb.
The fingers that plucked the strings? Scattered and bloody in the grass.
The arms that cradled the lyre? Pulled out of their shoulder sockets
And tossed away. One arm up a tree, the other down a ravine.
It was too hard to pull the legs from the torso.
So they left that. And trust me, there are some bits
You don’t even want to know about. And what about his head?
His beautiful rock-star head that we loved to gaze upon?
Floating down the stream, dude. Floating down the stream.

And then the next day they see his head and they’re like: ‘Ohmygod!
What happened?’ Stupid nymphs. Still, now I can get back to business.



J.W.Waterhouse: The Modern Pre-Raphaelite is on at the Royal Academy until 13 Sept 2009
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