Preface

Page 1

THIS PREFACE about the myth may be critical to your understanding of the stories in the cycle of Pygmalion Revisited.

Each chapter is an independent short story with a common theme. The stories run between 4,000 and 20,000 words. They all revolve around the love between an artist and his or her artwork. Each is a romantic story that involves one or more sexual episode. In some, the sex is limited but very sensual. As the stories are of differing lengths, I have divided them into “pages” to prevent having to scroll through 20,000 words on a single page. Navigation is included at the end of each page to advance to the next.

Many authors have riffed on the story of Pygmalion. The most famous in the English language is probably George Bernard Shaw’s play Pygmalion on which the popular musical My Fair Lady was based. This is an example of the story with both a happy and a bittersweet ending. In Shaw’s version, Eliza Doolittle leaves Henry Higgins and makes her own way in society, marrying Freddy Sanford-Hill, and opening a flower shop. Shaw held that Galatea, the sculpture embodied in Eliza, could only be truly considered alive if she were independent of the sculptor, Henry. In the musical, she returns to Henry and fetches his slippers. Well, we all want a happy ending. Each means something a little different.

You should have a passing familiarity with the story of Pygmalion. Our most dependable source for the story is from an epic poem by Ovid, titled Metamorphoses, that recites most of Greek and Latin mythology in a single narrative. Frankly, making sense of Ovid’s poem might be challenging but I have included it below. To our contemporary ears, the language is certainly stilted at best.

The very short version:

Pygmalion is a sculptor on the island of Cyprus, probably sometime in the third or fourth century B.C. He has become disgusted with the behavior of the priestesses (the Propoetides) of Aphrodite (Venus) who have turned their back on the goddess and have become common prostitutes, selling their bodies in the name of love. Pygmalion himself is devoted to the goddess and swears off all women and refuses to take a wife.

He carves a statue from ivory. This is an obvious problem with the Ovid rendition, for it is a life-size statue and I have difficulty imagining any animal that could yield an ivory tusk or tooth that size. It probably means a piece of ivory-colored marble of which we have many examples in Hellenic and pre-Hellenic sculpture—some of which the English actually left in Greece. The statue is so lifelike and so beautiful that Pygmalion begins to treat it as if it were real, dressing it, putting jewelry on it, and even kissing and fondling it. He creates a bed for it and a soft pillow for its head.

At the festival of Aphrodite, Pygmalion brings his sacrifice and prays that the goddess might bring him a wife who is “the living likeness of my ivory girl.” The sacrifice is accepted. When he gets back to his studio, he repeats his ritual of kissing and fondling his statue and discovers the lips warm and her breast pliable. She opens her eyes and he names her Galatea. They are married and have two children according to the story, the first ten months later. Aphrodite turns the unfaithful priestesses to stone.

And here is Ovid’s version:

The Transformations of the Propoetides

The blasphemous Propoetides deny’d
Worship of Venus, and her pow’r defy’d:
But soon that pow’r they felt, the first that sold
Their lewd embraces to the world for gold.
Unknowing how to blush, and shameless grown,
A small transition changes them to stone.

The Story of Pygmalion and the Statue

Pygmalion loathing their lascivious life,
Abhorr’d all womankind, but most a wife:
So single chose to live, and shunn’d to wed,
Well pleas’d to want a consort of his bed.
Yet fearing idleness, the nurse of ill,
In sculpture exercis’d his happy skill;
And carv’d in iv’ry such a maid, so fair,
As Nature could not with his art compare,
Were she to work; but in her own defence
Must take her pattern here, and copy hence.

Pleas’d with his idol, he commends, admires,
Adores; and last, the thing ador’d, desires.
A very virgin in her face was seen,
And had she mov’d, a living maid had been:
One wou’d have thought she cou’d have stirr’d, but strove
With modesty, and was asham’d to move.

Art hid with art, so well perform’d the cheat,
It caught the carver with his own deceit:
He knows ‘ tis madness, yet he must adore,
And still the more he knows it, loves the more:
The flesh, or what so seems, he touches oft,
Which feels so smooth, that he believes it soft.
Fir’d with this thought, at once he strain’d the breast,
And on the lips a burning kiss impress’d.

‘ Tis true, the harden’d breast resists the gripe,
And the cold lips return a kiss unripe:
But when, retiring back, he look’d again,
To think it iv’ry, was a thought too mean:
So wou’d believe she kiss’d, and courting more,
Again embrac’d her naked body o’er;
And straining hard the statue, was afraid
His hands had made a dint, and hurt his maid:
Explor’d her limb by limb, and fear’d to find
So rude a gripe had left a livid mark behind:
With flatt’ry now he seeks her mind to move,
And now with gifts (the pow’rful bribes of love),
He furnishes her closet first; and fills
The crowded shelves with rarities of shells;
Adds orient pearls, which from the conchs he drew,
And all the sparkling stones of various hue:
And parrots, imitating human tongue,
And singing-birds in silver cages hung:
And ev’ry fragrant flow’r, and od’rous green,
Were sorted well, with lumps of amber laid between:
Rich fashionable robes her person deck,
Pendants her ears, and pearls adorn her neck:
Her taper’d fingers too with rings are grac’d,
And an embroider’d zone surrounds her slender waste.

Thus like a queen array’d, so richly dress’d,
Beauteous she shew’d, but naked shew’d the best.
Then, from the floor, he rais’d a royal bed,
With cov’rings of Sydonian purple spread:
The solemn rites perform’d, he calls her bride,
With blandishments invites her to his side;
And as she were with vital sense possess’d,
Her head did on a plumy pillow rest.

The feast of Venus came, a solemn day,
To which the Cypriots due devotion pay;
With gilded horns the milk-white heifers led,
Slaughter’d before the sacred altars, bled.
Pygmalion off’ring, first approach’d the shrine,
And then with pray’rs implor’d the Pow’rs divine:
Almighty Gods, if all we mortals want,
If all we can require, be yours to grant;
Make this fair statue mine, he wou’d have said,
But chang’d his words for shame; and only pray’d,
Give me the likeness of my iv’ry maid.

The golden Goddess, present at the pray’r,
Well knew he meant th’ inanimated fair,
And gave the sign of granting his desire;
For thrice in chearful flames ascends the fire.

The youth, returning to his mistress, hies,
And impudent in hope, with ardent eyes,
And beating breast, by the dear statue lies.
He kisses her white lips, renews the bliss,
And looks, and thinks they redden at the kiss;
He thought them warm before: nor longer stays,
But next his hand on her hard bosom lays:
Hard as it was, beginning to relent,
It seem’d, the breast beneath his fingers bent;
He felt again, his fingers made a print;
‘ Twas flesh, but flesh so firm, it rose against the dint
The pleasing task he fails not to renew;
Soft, and more soft at ev’ry touch it grew;
Like pliant wax, when chasing hands reduce
The former mass to form, and frame for use.

He would believe, but yet is still in pain,
And tries his argument of sense again,
Presses the pulse, and feels the leaping vein.
Convinc’d, o’erjoy’d, his studied thanks, and praise,
To her, who made the miracle, he pays:
Then lips to lips he join’d; now freed from fear,
He found the savour of the kiss sincere:
At this the waken’d image op’d her eyes,
And view’d at once the light, and lover with surprize.
The Goddess, present at the match she made,
So bless’d the bed, such fruitfulness convey’d,
That ere ten months had sharpen’d either horn,
To crown their bliss, a lovely boy was born;
Paphos his name, who grown to manhood, wall’d
The city Paphos, from the founder call’d.

The End

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