The Afternoon of a Faun

Faun 1

The Afternoon of a Faun

These nymphs that I would perpetuate:

so clear

And light, their carnation, that it floats in the air

Heavy with leafy slumbers.

Did I love a dream?

My doubt, night’s ancient hoard, pursues its theme

In branching labyrinths, which being still

The veritable woods themselves, alas, reveal

My triumph as the ideal fault of roses.

Faun 5

Consider…

whether the women of your glosses

Are phantoms of your fabulous desires!

Faun, the illusion flees from the cold, blue eyes

Of the chaster nymph like a fountain gushing tears:

But the other, all in sighs, you say, compares

To a hot wind through your fleece that blows at noon?

No! through the motionless and weary swoon

Of stifling heat that suffocates the morning,

Save from my flute, no waters murmuring

In harmony flow out into the groves;

And the only wind on the horizon no ripple moves,

Exhaled from my twin pipes and swift to drain

The melody in arid drifts of rain,

Is the visible, serene and fictive air

Of inspiration rising as if in prayer.

Relate, Sicilian shores, whose tranquil fens

My vanity disturbs as do the suns,

Silent beneath the brilliant flowers of flame:

“That cutting hollow reeds my art would tame,

I saw far off, against the glaucous gold

Of foliage twined to where the springs run cold,

An animal whiteness languorously swaying;

To the slow prelude that the pipes were playing,

This flight of swans — no! naiads — rose in a shower

Of spray…”

Faun 6

Day burns inert in the tawny hour

And excess of hymen is escaped away —

Without a sign, from one pined for the primal A:

And so, beneath a flood of antique light,

As innocent as are the lilies white,

To my first ardours I wake alone.

Besides sweet nothings by their lips made known,

Kisses that only mark their perfidy,

My chest reveals an unsolved mystery…

The toothmarks of some strange, majestic creature:

Enough! Arcana such as these disclose their nature

Only through vast twin reeds played to the skies,

That, turning to music all that clouds the eyes,

Dream, in a long solo, that we amused

The beauty all around us by confused

Equations with our credulous melody;

Faun 7

And dream that the song can make love soar so high

That, purged of all ordinary fantasies

Of back or breast — incessant shapes that rise

In blindness — it distils sonorities

From every empty and monotonous line.

Then, instrument of flights, Syrinx malign,

At lakes where you attend me, bloom once more!

Long shall my discourse from the echoing shore

Depict those goddesses: by masquerades,

I’ll strip the veils that sanctify their shades;

And when I’ve sucked the brightness out of grapes,

To quell the flood of sorrow that escapes,

I’ll lift the empty cluster to the sky,

Avidly drunk till evening has drawn nigh,

And blow in laughter through the luminous skins.

Faun 4

Let us inflate our MEMORIES, O nymphs.

“Piercing the reeds, my darting eyes transfix,

Plunged in the cooling waves, immortal necks,

And cries of fury echo through the air;

Splendid cascades of tresses disappear

In shimmering jewels. Pursuing them, I find

There, at my feet, two sleepers intertwined,

Bruised in the languor of duality,

Their arms about each other heedlessly.

I bear them, still entangled, to a height

Where frivolous shadow never mocks the light

And dying roses yield the sun their scent,

That with the day our passions might be spent.”

I adore you, wrath of virgins-fierce delight

Of the sacred burden’s writhing naked flight

From the fiery lightning of my lips that flash

With the secret terror of the thirsting flesh:

From the cruel one’s feet to the heart of the shy,

Whom innocence abandons suddenly,

Watered in frenzied or less woeful tears.

Faun 3

“Gay with the conquest of those traitorous fears,

I sinned when I divided the dishevelled

Tuft of kisses that the gods had ravelled.

For hardly had I hidden an ardent moan

Deep in the joyous recesses of one

(Holding by a finger, that her swanlike pallor

From her sister’s passion might be tinged with colour,

The little one, unblushingly demure),

When from my arms, loosened by death obscure,

This prey, ungrateful to the end, breaks free,

Spurning the sobs that still transported me.”

Others will lead me on to happiness,

Their tresses knotted round my horns, I guess.

You know, my passion, that crimson with ripe seeds,

Pomegranates burst in a murmur of bees,

And that our blood, seized by each passing form,

Flows toward desire’s everlasting swarm.

In the time when the forest turns ashen and gold

And the summer’s demise in the leaves is extolled,

Etna! when Venus visits her retreat,

Treading your lava with innocent feet,

Though a sad sleep thunders and the flame burns cold.

Faun 8

I hold the queen!

Sure punishment…

No, but the soul,

Weighed down by the body, wordless, struck dumb,

To noon’s proud silence must at last succumb:

And so, let me sleep, oblivious of sin,

Stretched out on the thirsty sand, drinking in

The bountiful rays of the wine-growing star!

Couple, farewell; I’ll see the shade that now you are.

[by Stephen Mallarme

Translated from French by Henry Weinfeld and Mark Ebden]

Faun 2

Details

Pants: [sys] – “Comox Pants” – NEW @ Gen Neutral

Top: [sys] – “Rio t-Shirt”

Shoes: GizzA – “Combat Boots & Socks”

Armor: [LAB737] – “Ram Armor”

Horns: Wasabi Pills – “Inferno Horns”

Hair: EMO-tions – “Amare”

Face Decor: The Forge – “Face Chain”

Tattoo: [White~Widow] – “Criminal”

Makeup: +Nuuna+ – “Ere Makeup” & ” Hlaftone”

Location: Crest of Vrek’mar

Model & Photographer: Wicca Merlin

 

The Wood Fairy – A Fairytale…

Zibska 2

A while ago I found a wonderful fairytale on the www and it was stuck in my mind so bad that I really had to style something around it. It is not meant to kinda tell the story but it was heavily inspired by it 😉 The Fairytale is one of the favourite ones from Czechoslovakia and was told in London round about 1966 if my research was correct 😉

I am an addicted to old fairy tales myself and read a lot of them – maybe it is the child inside of me that always refused to fully grow up 😉

So I am not claiming that novel for myself, but I would like to share it with you.

Zibska 1

The Wood Fairy

Once upon a time there was a little girl named Betushka. She lived with her mother, a poor widow who had only a tumbledown cottage and two goats. But in spite of this poverty, Betushka was always merry.

From spring to autumn, Betushka drove the goats each day to pasture in a birch wood. Every morning her mother put a slice of bread and an empty spindle into her bag. The spindle would hold the flaxen thread she would spin while she watched the goats. She was too poor to own a distaff on which to wind the flax, so she wound it around her head, to carry it thus to the wood.

“Work hard, Betushka,” her mother always said, “and fill the spindle before you return home.”

Off skipped Betushka, singing along the way. She danced behind the goats into the wood of birch trees and sat down under a tree. With her left hand she pulled fibers from the flax around her head and with her right hand twirled her spindle so that it hummed over the ground. All the time she sang merrily and the goats nibbled the green grass among the trees.

When the sun showed that it was midday, Betushka stopped her spinning. She gave each of the goats a morsel of bread and picked a few strawberries to eat with what remained. After this, she sprang up and danced. The sun shone even more warmly and the birds sang yet more sweetly.

After her dance, Betushka began again to spin busily. At evening when she drove the goats home she was able to hand her mother a spindle full of flaxen thread.

Zibska 7

One fine spring day, when Betushka was ready as usual to dance, suddenly there appeared before her a most beautiful maiden. Her white dress floated about her as thin as gossamer, her golden hair flowed to her waist, and a wreath of forest blossoms crowned her head. Betushka was struck silent.

The wood fairy smiled at her and in a sweet voice asked, “Betushka, do you like to dance?”

At this, Betushka lost her fear. “Oh! I could dance all the day long!”

“Come then, let us dance together. I will teach you.” She took Betushka and began to dance with her.

Round and round they circled, while sweet music sounded over their heads. The maiden had called upon the birds sitting in the birch trees to accompany them. Nightingales, larks, goldfinches, thrushes, and a clever mockingbird sang such sweet melodies that Betushka’s heart filled with delight. She quite forgot her goats and her spinning. On and on she danced, with feet never weary, until evening when the last rosy rays of sunset were disappearing. The music ceased and the maiden vanished as suddenly as she had come.

Betushka looked around. There was her spindle — only half filled with thread. Sadly she put it into her bag and drove the goats from the wood. She did not sing while going down the road this time, but reproached herself for forgetting her duty. She resolved that she would not do this again. When she reached home she was so quiet that her mother asked if she were ill.

Zibska 3

“No, Mother, I am not ill.” But she did not tell her mother about the lovely maiden. She hid the half-filled spindle, promising herself to work twice as hard tomorrow to make up for today.

Early the next morning Betushka again drove the goats to pasture, singing merrily as usual. She entered the wood and began her spinning, intending to do twice her usual amount.

At noon Betushka picked a few strawberries, but she did not dance. To her goats she said, “Today, I dare not dance. Why don’t you dance, my little goats?”

“Come and dance with me,” called a voice. It was the beautiful maiden.

But this time Betushka was afraid, and she was also ashamed. She asked the maiden to leave her alone. “Before sunset, I must finish my spinning,” she said.

The maiden answered, “If you will dance with me, someone will help you finish your spinning.” With the birds singing beautifully as before, Betushka could not resist. She and the maiden began to dance, and again they danced till evening.

Zibska 5

Now when Betushka looked at her nearly empty spindle, she burst into tears. But the maiden unwound the flax from Betushka’s head, twined it around a slender birch tree, seized the spindle, and began to spin. The spindle hummed over the ground and grew thick with thread. By the time the sun had dropped from sight, all the flax was spun. As the maiden handed the full spindle to Betushka, she said, “Wind it and grumble not. Remember, wind it and grumble not.” Then, suddenly, she disappeared.

Betushka, happy now, drove the goats home, singing as she went, and gave her mother the full spindle. Betushka’s mother, however, was not pleased with what Betushka had failed to do the day before and asked her about it. Betushka told her that she had danced, but she kept the maiden a secret.

The next day Betushka went still earlier to the birch wood. The goats grazed while she sang and spun, until at noon the beautiful maiden appeared and again seized Betushka by the waist to dance. While the birds sang for them, the two danced on and on, Betushka quite forgetting her spindle and the goats.

When the sun was setting, Betushka looked around. There was the half-filled spindle! But the maiden grasped Betushka’s bag, became invisible for a moment, then handed back the bag stuffed with something light. She ordered her not to look into it before reaching home, and with these words she disappeared.

Betushka started home, not daring to look into the bag. But halfway there she was unable to resist peeking, for the bag was so light she feared a trick. She looked into the bag, and began to weep. It was full of dry birch leaves! Angrily she tossed some of these out of the bag, but suddenly she stopped — she knew they would make good litter for the goats to sleep on.

Zibska 6

Now she was almost afraid to go home. There her mother was awaiting her. “What kind of spindle did you bring me yesterday?” she asked. “I wound and wound, but the spindle remained full. ‘Some evil spirit has spun you,’ I grumbled, and at that instant the thread vanished from the spindle. Tell me what this means.”

Betushka then told her mother about the maiden and their dancing. “That was a wood fairy,” exclaimed her mother, alarmed. “The wood fairies dance at midday and at midnight. If you had been a little boy, you might not have escaped alive. But to little girls, the wood fairies often give rich presents.” Next, she added. “To think that you did not tell me. If I had not grumbled I might have had a room full of thread.”

Betushka then thought of her bag and wondered if there might not, after all, be something under those leaves. She lifted out the spindle and the unspun flax. “Look, Mother!” Her mother looked and clapped her hands. Under the spindle the birch leaves had turned to gold!

Betushka told her mother how the fairy had directed her not to look into the bag until she got home, but that she had not obeyed and had thrown out some of the leaves. “Tis fortunate you did not empty out the whole bagful,” said her mother.

The next morning Betushka and her mother went into the wood, to look carefully over the ground where Betushka had thrown out the dry leaves. Only fresh birch leaves lay there, but the gold that Betushka did bring home was enough for a farm with a garden and some cows. She wore beautiful dresses and no longer had to graze the goats. Nothing, however, gave her such delight as she had dancing with the wood fairy. Often she ran to the birch wood, hoping to see the beautiful maiden, but never again did the wood fairy appear.

[Favourite Fairy Tales, Czechoslovakia]

Zibska 4

Details

Outfit: Zibska – “Alfhildir”

Arms: [ContraptioN] – “The Cursed Hand”

Shoes: Wicca’s Wardrobe – “Gypsy Boots” – NEW

Headpiece: DRD – “Dead Religion Headdress”

Collar: Kibitz – “Strap Collar”

Hair: [e] (Elikatira)- “Sybil”

Eye Makeup: [White~Widow] – “Inca Gold”

Poses: ..::DARE::..

Location: Crest of Vrek’mar

Model & Photographer: Wicca Merlin