Ariadne's Lament

post hunc consequitur sollerti corde Prometheus,
extenuata gerens ueteris uestigia poenae
quam quondam silici restrictus membra catena
persoluit pendens e uerticibus praeruptis.
[Catullus Poem LXIV, lines 294-7]

The Roman poet Catullus [c.84-54 BC] wrote the above of Prometheus, which can be translated thus;

There followed after him Prometheus of crafty heart,
Bearing faded traces of the ancient punishment
Which formerly, with limbs fast bound by chain to flint,
He paid by hanging over a sheer precipice.
[Catullus ib.,]

The poet placed this in close proximity to a recitation of the Ariadne tale. Lukacher in the aforementioned 'Time Fetishes' also refers to the Catullus poem in relation to what he calls an 'orgy box', full of 'time fetishes'.
The Dionysian orgy releases one from the tyranny of time, just as Prometheus's binding did so prolong and deepen it.
And what of Aridane - suffering abandonment on her island 'prison' [and don't we call prison 'doing time'?] - is she not to be 'rescued' by the Dionysian 'orgy box' just as Prometheus is rescued by Heraklean music?

Nietzsche's fascination for Ariadne is a counter-part to his subsumed Prometheanism. To transcribe again, those first lines from Nietzsche's 'Klage der Ariadne', where we are reminded of Shelley's opening lines to his Prometheus Unbound;

ARIADNE'S LAMENT

Who will warm me, who loves me still?
Give me your hot hands!
Give me your heart's coal-fire!
Stricken, shuddering,
Like one half-dead, whose feet are warmed,
I shake from unknown fevers,
O, how I tremble on the points of icy-frost arrows,
Hunted by you, my thought!
Unnameable, veil-ed one! Dreadful one!
O, hunter behind clouds!
Struck down by your lightning-bolt,
Your mocking eye, flashing out of the darkness!
Thus I lie,
Coiled, twisted, wracked
In every eternal torment,
Struck down
By you, cruel hunter,
Unknowable - God ...


But look at Nietzsche's inversion of Catullus' treatment of the same scene. In the latter Ariadne's feet are lapped by the island's sea-waves, not bizarrely warmed as in Nietzsche;

Often, they say, in frenzy, with her mind on fire,
She poured out shrill-edged cries from the depth of her heart,
And sometines in her sorrow she clambered up steep cliffs
From whence to extend her view of the ocean's empty swell;
Sometimes ran out to meet the restless brine's breakers
Kilting up her bared legs' light-weight covering.
[Catullus, ib., lines 124-133]

Here it is Ariadne who is on fire and needs to be cooled, whereas in Nietzsche the opposite is the case. In Catullus she vents her anger and asserts herself, while Nietzsche's Ariadne is masochistic;

These words at last she spoke of bitter lamentation,
Distorting with chill little sobs her tearful face:
'So, faithless one who took me from my father's altars,
You leave me, faithless Theseus, on a lonely beach?
So sailing off, contemptuous of the gods' will,
You carry home, ah heedless, accursed perjury?
And was there nothing that could turn your cruel minds'
Intention ...
[Catullus ib., lines 134-137]

When Dionysos [or 'Iacchus' as he is called here] comes to her, it is not the chill hyperborean terror of Nietzsche's poem, but very much the southern heat-wave of horrid abandon;

But in another part Iacchus in bloom flew by
With rout of Satyrs and Nysigenous Sileni,
Seeking you, Ariadne, and burning with love for you.
For him the Thyads raved around with frenzied mind,
Shrieking 'Evoe', 'Evoe', twisting their heads about.
Part of them were shaking 'thyrsi' with covered spike,
Part threw around the limbs of dismembered steer,
Part wrapped themselves about with wreaths of writhing snaked,
Part thronged the 'orgia' concealed in hollow creaks,
Those 'orgia' the profane desire in vain to hear ...
[ib., lines 251-60]

Now let Nietzsche's 'Ariadne's lament' continue;


Strike deeper!

Strike at me again!

Sting, spike, stab my heart!

What do these punsihments hope to achieve

With their toothstump arrows?

Why do you still look down,

Unweary of human sorrow

With malice flashing in those god-like eyes?

You do not wish to kill,

Only wound, only torture?

But why? Why torture me,

Malicious, unknowable God?

Aha!

You creep up on me

Under cover of midnight?

What do you want?

Speak!

You press upon me, force me down,

Ha! You are far too near!

You hear me breathe,

Listen to my heart-beat,

You jealous eavesdropper!

But jealous for what?

Away! Away!

[Nietzsche, Ariadne's Lament, lines 19-42]

This is a very different sensibility to that of Catullus - so different to that of the 'classical' that we must assume that 'Ariadne' is something personal to Nietzsche.
But then is that not how myths should present themselves to us?


As is well known, Nietzsche saw Ariadne personified in the person of Cosima Wagner.
On January 3rd, 1889, Nietzsche wrote a series of short missives to Cosima/Ariadne ['Ariadne' means 'purity'] from Turin.

These letters are usually dismissed as 'insane', however, I think they are philosophically significant;

"This 'breve' [breve=authoritative letter from sovereign or pope] to humanity is for you to publish, from Bayreuth, with the inscription:

The Joyous Message ...

To the Princess Ariadne, my Beloved.

It is a prejudice that I am human. But I have often lived among humans and know everything that humans can experience, from the lowest to the highest.

Among Indians I have been Buddha, in Greece Dionysos, -
Alexander and Caesar are my incarnations, as well as the poet of Shakespeare, Lord Bacon.
Last of all I was also Voltaire and Napoleon, perhaps Richard Wagner as well ...

This time, however, I am coming as the victorious Dionysos, who will turn the Earth into a day of celebration ...
Not that I have much time ...
The Heavens are pleased that I am there ...
I have also hung on the Cross ...

They tell me that a certain diine buffoon has these days completed the Dionysos Dithyrambs ...

Ariadne, I love you.

Dionysos".
[Nietzsche to Cosima Wagner, January 1889]

The 'Dionysos Dithyrambs' contain the 'Ariadne's Lament', of course. The series of avatars mentioned, from Buddha onwards, are very precise and thought-provoking.

Three days later, in a letter to Burckhardt, Nietzsche mentioned that;

"The REST is for Frau Cosima ... Ariadne ... from time to time we practice magic".
[Nietzsche letter to Burckhardt, January 6th 1889]

The mention of "magic" here is an allusion to the possibility recognised in an earlier thread that Nietzsche may have been an initiate in the occult arts.


"Who knows except me what ARIADNE is!"
[Nietzsche, EH, Z 7]

We, when repose demands us, welcomed are
In young white arms, like our great Exemplar
Who, wearied with creation, takes his rest
And sinks to sleep on Ariadne's .
[H.Belloc, 'Heroic Poem in Praise of Wine']

Let us put some more of Nietzsche's poem on Ariadne here, - let us continue it for awhile as we have much pondering to do, and can later attatch our thoughts to it as they come, for we are to sleep now;


For what is the ladder?

Would you climb inside my heart?

Would you steal

Into my secret thoughts?

Shameless, unknown thief!

What do you hope to steal?

What do you hope to over-hear?

What torments do you bring,

O, r!

O, Hangman-god!

Should I roll in the dirt before you

Like a dog?

Sacrificed, raving with mad passion,

Should I wag in heat for you?

In vain!

Stab away

Cruel thorn!

I am not a dog, but your sport,

Cruellest hunter!

I am the proudest of your prisoners,

Robber behind clouds!

Will you not speak at last?

You veiled in lightning! Unknowable! Speak!

Highwayman - what do you want from me?...

[lines 43-66]


To continue a commentary on the poem Araidne's Lament [AL];

"For what is the ladder?"
(AL line 43)

*Commentary: The Ladder is a profound symbol.
Note that in the Mithraic cult 'The initiate ascends the stages of the seven-runged ladder to communicate with spirits and the spirit world [see also line 83 and its 'seven-fold layers of ice'].

The Ladder is the passage from one plane to another ... the breakthrough to a new ontological level; communication between heaven and earth with a two-way traffic of the ascent of man and the descent of a divinity, hence the ladder as a world-axis symbol which in turn connects with the Cosmic Tree and the pillar...
The ladder is also associated with bridge symbolism in the rites of passage and, like the bridge, can have razor-edges.
[Encyclopedia of Symbolism]

"O, Hangman-god!
Should I roll in the dirt before you
Like a dog?
Sacrificed, raving with mad passion,
Should I wag in heat for you?"
[AL lines 52-56]

*Commentary: Once again, we feel the presence of the Nordic Wotan in the 'Hangman' God. Wotan. of course, discovered the esoteric knowledge while hung on the World-Tree [cf., Ladder above].
The base image of the dog is important - the dog is a keeper of boundaries between this world and the next... and is usually a companion of Mother Goddesses, the Mother Goddess often being called 'the bitch' and being portrayed as a whelping bitch.
The ual element in dog symbolism is linked with fire - 'wag in heat'. The cold and betrayed Ariadne is longing for warmth at the start of the poem.
She represents that ual danger which often threatened Nietzsche.
(ib.,)


[To continue the poem ...]


What?

A ransom?

What kind of ransom?

Demand much - thus speaks my pride!

And do not haggle - thus speaks my other pride!

Aha!

Me - do you want that?

Just me ..?

Aha!

Then me, fool that you are,

Do you presume to injure my pride?

Give me love - who warms me still?

Who loves me still?

Give me your hot hands,

Give me your heart's coal-fire,

Give me, the most solitary,

Taught by seven-fold layers of ice

To yearn for my enemies,

For enemies themselves,

Give me, offer up to me ... yourself,

O, cruellest enemy of all!

Yourself!

He has gone!

He has flown from me,

My only companion,

My best enemy,

My Unknown,

My Hangman-god!

No!

[Nietzsche, AL lines 67-95]


[onto the final section...]


Come back to me

With all your torments!

All my tears stream

Along their tracks towards you,

And the last embers of my heart

Burn out for you.

O. come back to me,

My Unknowable God!

My last happiness ..!

A flash of lightning.
Dionysos appears shimmering in emerald beauty.
Dionysos:
Be wise Ariadne ..!
You have small ears, you have my ears: let a wise word slip into them! -
Must one first not hate oneself, if one is to love oneself ,,?
I AM YOUR LABYRINTH ...
[Nietzsche, AL]


I am taken by Dionysos' entrance in this last section:

"Dionysos wird in smaragdenen Schonheit sichtbar".

Translation ;

"Dionysos appears, shimmering in emerald beauty".

We are reminded of the Emerald Tablet of Thrice-Great Hermes, as well as of these lines from Shelley's Prometheus, where Ione is describing the Spirit of the Earth;

"... how on its head there burns
A light, like a green star, whose emerald beams
Are twined with its fair hair! how as it moves,
The splendour drops in flakes upon the grass!".
[Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, Act III, scene iv]