The Hymns of Orpheus

drawing by
Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule

TO PAN

THE FUMIGATION FROM VARIOUS ODOURS

I Call strong Pan, the substance of the whole,
Etherial, marine, earthly, general soul,
Immortal fire; for all the world is thine,
And all are parts of thee, O pow'r divine.



Come, blessed Pan, whom rural haunts delight,
Come, leaping, agile, wand'ring, starry light;
The Hours and Seasons, wait thy high command,
And round thy throne in graceful order stand.
Goat-footed, horned, Bacchanalian Pan,
Fanatic pow'r, from whom the world began,
Whose various parts by thee inspir'd, combine
In endless dance and melody divine.
In thee a refuge from our fears we find,
Those fears peculiar to the human kind.
Thee shepherds, streams of water, goats rejoice,
Thou. lov'st the chace, and Echo's secret voice:
The sportive nymphs, thy ev'ry step attend,
And all thy works fulfill their destin'd end.
O all-producing pow'r, much-fam'd, divine,
The world's great ruler, rich increase is thine.
All-fertile Pæan, heav'nly splendor pure,
In fruits rejoicing, and in caves obscure.



True serpent-horned Jove, whose dreadful rage
When rous'd, 'tis hard for mortals to asswage.
By thee the earth wide-bosom'd deep and long,
Stands on a basis permanent and strong.
Th' unwearied waters of the rolling sea,
Profoundly spreading, yield to thy decree.
Old Ocean too reveres thy high command,
Whose liquid arms begirt the solid land.
The spacious air, whose nutrimental fire,
And vivid blasts, the heat of life inspire
The lighter frame of fire, whose sparkling eye
Shines on the summit of the azure sky,
Submit alike to thee, whole general sway
All parts of matter, various form'd obey.



All nature's change thro' thy protecting care,
And all mankind thy lib'ral bounties share:
For these where'er dispers'd thro' boundless space,
Still find thy providence support their race.
Come, Bacchanalian, blessed power draw near,
Fanatic Pan, thy humble suppliant hear,
Propitious to these holy rites attend,
And grant my life may meet a prosp'rous end;
Drive panic Fury too, wherever found,
From human kind, to earth's remotest bound.

***

TO PROTOGONUS

O Mighty first-begotten, hear my pray'r,
Two-fold, egg-born, and wand'ring thro' the air,



Bull-roarer, glorying in thy golden wings,
From whom the race of Gods and mortals springs.



Ericapæus, celebrated pow'r,
Ineffable, occult, all shining flow'r.
From eyes obscure thou wip'st the gloom of night,
All-spreading splendour, pure and holy light
Hence Phanes call'd, the glory of the sky,
On waving pinions thro' the world you fly. 10
Priapus, dark-ey'd splendour, thee I sing,
Genial, all-prudent, ever-blessed king,



With joyful aspect on our rights divine
And holy sacrifice propitious shine.

***The Hymns of Orpheus

alterius non sit qui suus esse potest....Paracelsus

alterius non sit qui suus esse potest, "let no man belong to another that can belong to himself." Paracelsus

Philippus Aureolus Paracelsus (1493-1541) - original name Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim

“Thoughts are free and are subject to no rule. On them rests the freedom of man, and they tower above the light of nature. For thoughts give birth to a creative force that is neither elemental nor sidereal…. Thoughts create a new heaven, a new firmament, a new source of energy, from which new arts flow…. When a man undertakes to create something, he establishes a new heaven, as it were, and from it the work that he desires to create flows into him…. "

"He who is born in imagination discovers the latent forces of Nature. . . . Besides the stars that are established, there is yet another -- Imagination -- that begets a new star and a new heaven."

Poison is in everything, and no thing is without poison. The dosage makes it either a poison or a remedy.

“Know that man makes great discoveries concerning future and hidden things, which are despised and scoffed at by the ignorant who do not realize what nature can accomplish by virtue of her spirit…. Thus, the uncertain arts are in such a state that a new generation must come, full of prophetic and sibylline spirit, which will awaken and direct the skills and arts. The arts of this kind…are quite old, and enjoyed great reputation among the ancient. They were kept secret and taught secretly. For the students of these arts devoted their time to inner contemplation and faith, and by such means they discovered and proved many great things. But the men of today have no longer such capacity for imagination and faith; today their minds are exclusively concerned with things that are pleasant to the flesh and the blood; only what the flesh and blood want and desire is being studied, that alone is still being practiced…. These arts are uncertain today because man is uncertain in himself. For he who is not certain of himself cannot be certain in his actions; a skeptic can never create anything enduring, nor can anyone who serves only the body accomplish true spiritual works.”

The character of Paracelsus has inspired several writers, among them Jung, Robert Browning, (1812-1889), Arthur Schnitzler (1862-1931), and Jorge Luis Borges (1889-1986).

In Borges's story 'The Rose of Paracelsus' the doctor prays to his God to send him a disciple. A young man (Johannes Grisebach) appears. He is ready to follow Paracelsus, if he can prove his skills as an alchemist by burning a rose to ashes and making it emerge again. Paracelsus says that the rose is eternal, and only its appearances may change. "The path is the Stone. The point of departure is the Stone. If these words are unclear to you, you have not yet begun to understand. Every step you take is the goal you seek." (from 'The Rose of Paracelsus' by Jorge Luis Borges) The man throws the rose into the flames. Paracelsus tells that all the other physicians call him a fraud - perhaps they are right. The young man says: "What I have done is unpardonable. I have lacked belief, which the Lord demands of all the faithful. Let me, then, continue to see ashes. I will come back again when I am stronger, and I will be your disciple, and at the end of the Path I will see the rose." He leaves, promising to come back, but they both know that they would not see each other again. Alone, Paracelsus whispers a single word and the rose appears again.

DAT ROSA MEL APIBUS "The Rose Gives The Bees Honey" engraving (possibly) by Johann Thedore deBry (d. 1598).

"Stop making gold," he taught, "instead find medicines."

August Natterer...in the Time of Apparition

My Eyes in the Time of Apparition

Anti christ

The miraculous shepherd

World Axis with Hare around 1911/17

August Natterer, given the pseudonym Neter by his psychiatrist to protect him and his family from the immense social stigma associated with mental illness at the time, was born in 1868 in Schornreute, near Ravensburg, Germany, the son of a clerk and the youngest of nine children. Natterer studied engineering, got married, traveled widely, and had a successful career as an electrician but was suddenly stricken with delusions and anxiety attacks. On April Fool's Day, 1907 he had a pivotal hallucination of the Last Judgment during which "10,000 images flashed by in half an hour." He described it as follows:

“I saw a white spot in the clouds absolutely close – all the clouds paused – then the white spot departed and stood all the time like a board in the sky. On the same board or the screen or stage now images as quick as a flash followed each other, about 10,000 in half an hour… God himself occurred, the witch, who created the world – in between worldly visions: images of war, continents, memorials, castles, beautiful castles, just the glory of the world – but all of this to see in supernal images. They were at least twenty meter big, clear to observe, almost without color like photographs… The images were epiphanies of the Last Judgment. Christ couldn't fulfill the salvation because he was crucified early... God revealed them to me to accomplish the salvation.”[1]

This ordeal led to a suicide attempt and committal to the first of what would be several mental asylums occupied during the remaining 26 years of his life. Natterer thereafter maintained that he was the illegitimate child of Emperor Napoleon I and "Redeemer of the World." The vision had inspired an intense production of drawings, all documenting images and ideas seen in the vision. Because of the intense and psychotic imagery, Netterer's work is more often studied scientifically than artistically. He died in 1933 in an asylum near Rottweil.

pioneers of abstract cinema....Franciszka and Stefan Themerson

1945, black and white, 11 mins

We Are Transmitters...

Painting by DH Lawrence

We Are Transmitters by D. H. Lawrence

As we live, we are transmitters of life.

And when we fail to transmit life, life fails to flow

through us.

That is part of the mystery of sex, it is a flow onwards,

Sexless people’ transmit nothing.

And if, as we work, we can transmit life into our work,

life, still more life, rushes into us to compensate, to be ready

and we ripple with life through the days.

Even if it is a woman making an apple dumpling, or a

man a stool,

if life goes into the pudding, good is the pudding

good is the stool,

content is the woman, with fresh life rippling in to her,

content is the man.

Give, and it shall be given unto you

is still the truth about life.

But giving life is not so easy.

It doesn’t mean handing it out to some mean fool, or letting

the living dead eat you up.

It means kindling the life-quality where it was not,

even if it’s only in the whiteness of a washed pocket-handkerchief.

une nuit sur le Mont chauve...

Directed by Alexander Alexeieff & Claire Parker. 1933

SPRANGER, Bartholomaeus...

Hermes and Athena c. 1585 Fresco Castle, Prague

e.e. cummings ...excerpt...

Voices to Voices,Lip to Lip..

...(While you and i have lips and voices which
are for kissing and to sing with
who cares if some oneyed son for a bitch
invents an instrument to measure Spring with?

each dream nascitur,is not made...)
why then to Hell with that:the other;this,
since the thing perhaps is
to eat flower and not to be afraid.

Orryelle Defenestrate-Bascule...drawings

Pan

    Diana MultiMammia Lilith

Night on Bald Mountain...

Directed by Galina Shakitskaya.1998

Leonard Baskin (1922-2000)...

Born in 1922 in New Brunswick, New Jersey, Baskin was reared in Brooklyn, New York. The son of a Rabbi, Baskin was educated at a yeshiva (Jewish religious college), which had a profound effect on his aesthetic. Committed to art at an early age, Baskin had his first exhibition. of sculpture, at the Glickman Studio Gallery, New York, at the age of seventeen. He studied at Yale University from 1941 to 1943 and received his B.A. at the New School for Social Research in 1949. Baskin spent 1950 and 1951 abroad, studying in Paris and Florence. In 1953 he began teaching printmaking and sculpture at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, where he remained until 1974. It was while he was at Smith College that he founded Gehenna Press, a small private press specializing in fine book production. He moved to England in 1974 and stayed till 1983 when he returned to America.. These nine years were enormously productive and besides sculptures he created a fine selection of prints and paintings. Baskin became intrigued by Greek history, philosophy and mythology at an early age and this study inspired many of his sculptures and paintings. Other influences were early 20th century sculptors, notably Ernst Barlach

Leonard Baskin was one of the universal artists of the 20th century. He was a sculptor of renown. He was a writer and illustrator of books ranging from the bible to children's' stories and natural history. He was a talented water-colourist and a superb, prolific print-maker. His prints ranged from woodcuts through lithography and etching; his subjects covered portraits, flower studies, biblical, classical and mythological scenes.

The poetry of the zodiac...

Jacob Cats....Sinne- en minnebeelden

The poet Jacob Cats was the author of one of the best-known emblem books of the early half of the seventeenth century: 'Proteus ofte minnebeelden verandert in sinnebeelden' (Proteus, or from love emblems to moral emblems).The artist Adriaen van de Venne illustrated Cats's influential book. Many seventeenth-century artists borrowed the moral messages in their paintings from this emblem book.

drawings by Adriaen van de Venne (1589-1662)

Be not too rash, nor yet to eager bent

For hastie wedded folkes, by leasure doe repent.

When Pan first saw the faire which hee before did never knowe,

Och what a goodly thinge (quoth hee) is that, and straight did goe

And did embrace the flame, as if his deare frend it had bin,

And so did scorch and burne his handes, his armes, his mouth and chin.

So where you shall perceave loves toyes extended like a flame,

Imbrace it not in haste, least with your flesh you feele the same;

But first advised be, before unto such love you turne;

Who sups his pottadge hastely, may chaunce his mouth to burne.

If that thyne eyes be conquered, sure,

Then loves torments thou must indure.

The lyon thats both stout and stronge, beinge but debard of sight,

As captive mayst thou gouverne him, and bringe him to thy might:

Even so the lovely ruddy cheeke, of comely maydens hew,

Once gazde upon, getts eyes consent, and doth thy hart subdue.

Then of a valiant man forthwith, thou must becomme her drudge,

Her tauntes, her checks, her frompes, her frownes, gainst them thou must not grudge.

In fine, thy lyons hart shee wil so worke upon with might,

That like a lambe, shee'le leade thee forth, and feare thee with her sight.

This I accounte for no torment

Because my woundes give ornament.

Your needle is the pensill, and youre coloures are fine silke,

The ground-worke of your fragant fielde, more whyter is then milke;

You open, and you close againe, you cure that which you wounde,

You give more then you take, and still your worke is perfect founde.

The needle bores a hole, and with your silke the same is filde

Then come sweet-harte deale so with mee, and graunt all that I wilde;

You know my deadly wounde proceedes by vertue of youre face

Then give consent, come cure my grieffe, and helpe my woefull case.

I hunt, and toyle, I chase alway,

And ever others catch the prey.

No favoure at my Sweet-hartes hande, I coulde obtayne, god wott.

Untill a rusticke clowne beganne to woe my love as hott

As I had done: Whom shee disdaynde, and could him not abyde,

But from him fled, to hyde her head, when ever shee him spyde.

Then was the tyme for mee to learne, my businesse how to guyde,

That deare that others chased, then came and downe sate by my syde.

When clownes assay to woe thy love, then never feare the same,

A clowne the ferrit is which huntes, when others gett the game.

Love, causeth mirth, Ioy, and delight

And love revives the spiritlesse wight.

Like dead in grave I lay, of liffe berefte, O Venus bright,

Untill your Sonne, and Sunne revyvde, & made mee stand upright.

My winges your Sonne did give, your Sunne restord'e my liffe forlorne,

And so of a dead stock was I a lively Creature borne.

I who was but a drowsie droane, now trickt and trymd'e am I,

I who in darkenesse late was lod'gde, abroad i'th' light now flie,

I, that of late crept like a worme, now lifted to the skye:

Loe, al these wonders doe proceede from one glance of her eye.

If at loves game you cannot play,

Leave off in tyme, or keepe away.

This webb that's fra'mde here as you see, is Venus tanglinge nett;

Though many creatures fall therein, yet out againe they gett,

Except some few, that powerlesse bee, and fondly downe are cast:

For such are onely they that are, in Venus webb made fast.

Who any courage hath, with ease may breake this geare asunder;

For loftie myndes looke not so lowe, and scorne to creepe there under.

Ne'er suffer you like muggs to bee ta'en up as Venus swayne:

But manfully breake through the nett; or else turne back againe.

Who unto Idlenesse doth yeilde,

Is as a but in Venus feilde.

The spyder will not once come neare the serpent him t'offende,

When shee perceaves hee busie is, or watchfully doth tend:

But when to sluggishnesse hee's bent, and carelesse of his good,

Upon him streight the spyder falls, and poysoneth his blood.

Who soe therefore will love beholde, and would be free from smarte,

They must eschew all Idlenesse, and thereof take no parte:

Or else this poysoned Cupids shafte will stryke them to the harte,

For everie Idle persone is a whetstone for his darte.

Emblem books, or emblemata books are collections of symbolic prints ('emblemata'), each accompanied by a motto, a short explanatory text. Usually the prints have a rhyme as well, offering a slightly longer explanation below or beside the print. 'Emblematum liber' by the Italian Andrea Alciati (1531) was one of the first emblem books. The combination of picture, motto and poem became especially popular, particularly in Germany and the Low Countries with countless editions appearing in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. Typical of the Dutch tradition were the emblem books with realistic pictures and accompanying moralistic captions by Jacob Cats, Jan Luiken and Roemer Visschers. These emblemata reveal some of the opinions held in the 17th-century about how one should behave. In the 17th century (genre) paintings often contain references to these moral views and even to specific emblemata.

Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot...Bacchante

Bacchante with a Panther 1865

Of angels...

Anne Wagner 1795-1834.


I am the daughter of Earth and Water,
And the nursling of the Sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die,
For after the rain when with never a stain
The pavilion of Heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams with their convex gleams
Build up the blue dome of air, I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I arise and unbuild it again.

Shelly, The Daemon of the World, I.1.1

Alfred Kubin....."The Demiurge is a hybrid."

"The world is like a maze to me. I would like to find my way through it, and as a drafstman I should do so. Since I was a child, visions and evocative images have played an essential part in my life; they used to enchant me, and sometimes they made me tremble. I would like to keep a hold on these insubstantial, incomprehensible creatures. But the source of this phenomenon is of little concern to me. An irresistible impulse compels me to draw figures that spring from the shadows of my soul. How to pin down a constantly moving image in a drawing? By practice! Lost in contemplation but active as an artist, I analyze the vision, reconstruct it, and attempt to create a clarified image of my dream."

Alfred Kubin, Construction and Rhythm, 1924

the artists studio

"When I ventured back into the world of the living, I discovered that my god only held half-sway. In everything, both great and small, he had to share with an adversary who wanted life. The forces of repulsion and attraction, the twin poles of the earth with their currents, the alternation of the seasons, day and night, black and white - these are battles..."

from The Other Side - Alfred Kubin

Odilon Redon...

Dream Polyp
1891. Charcoal and chalk on colored paper, 19 x 14" (48.3 x 35.6 cm)