For the source of memory's potency (often overshadowing our very reality) is a sense of unfinished business, of interruption. The same, it must be noted, lies behind the concept of history. Memory is essentially a continuation of that business—be that the life of your mistress or affairs of some nation—by different means. Partly because we learn about myths in our childhood, partly because they belong to antiquity, they are an integral part of our private past. And toward our past we are normally either judgmental or nostalgic, for we are not bossed around any longer by those beloveds or by those gods. Hence, the sway of myths over us; hence their blurring effect upon our own private record; hence, to say the least, the invasion of self-referential diction and imagery into the poem at hand. "Dumb impatience" is a good example, since self-referential diction, by definition, is bound to be unflattering.
Now, this is the beginning of a poem dealing with a mythological subject, and Rilke elects to play here by the rules of antiquity, stressing the one-dimensionality of mythological characters. On the whole, the representational pattern in myths boils down to the man-is-his-purpose principle (athlete runs, god strikes, warrior fights, and so forth), whereupon everyone is defined by his action. This is so not because the ancients were unwitting Sartreans but because everyone was then depicted in profile. A vase, or for that matter a bas relief, accommodates ambiguity rather poorly.
So if Orpheus is presented here by the author as being single-minded, it is pretty much in tune with the treatment of the human figure in the art of Greek antiquity: because on this "single pathway" we see him in profile. Whether deliberately or not (which is in the final analysis of no consequence, although one is tempted to credit the poet with more rather than with less), Rilke rules out any nuance. That's why we, accustomed as we are to multifarious, indeed stereoscopic representations of the human figure, find the first characterization of Orpheus unflattering.
XVI
Because things are not getting any better with "His steps devoured the way in mighty chunks/they did not pause to chew ..." let's say here something really corny. Let's say that our poet operates in these lines like an archaeologist removing the sediment ofcenturies from his find, layer by layer. So the first thing he sees about the figure is that it's in motion, and that's what he registers. The cleaner the find gets, the more psychological detail emerges. Having debased ourselves with this corny simile, let's address those devouring steps.
XVII
"To devour" denotes a ravenous manner of eating and generally pertains to animals. The author resorts to this simile not only to describe the speed of Orpheus' movements but also to imply the source of that speed. The reference here is clearly to Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades—as well as the exit from it, we must add, since it's one and the same gate. Orpheus, as we have him here, is on his way back to life from Hades, which is to say that he has seen that monstrous animal just recently and must feel terrified. So the speed of his movements owes as much to his desire to bring his beloved wife back to life as quickly as possible as to the desire to put as much distance as possible between himself and that dog.
By employing this verb in describing Orpheus' manner
of movement, the author suggests that the terror of Cerberus turns the ur-poet himself into a sort of animal, i.e., makes him unthinking. "His steps devoured the way in mighty chunks/they did not pause to chew ..." is a remarkable job, if only because it implies the true reason behind our hero's failing in his mission, as well as the meaning of the divine taboo forbidding one to look back: don't fall prey to terror. Which is to say, don't accelerate.
Again, there is no reason for us to believe that the author set out to decipher the myth's main provision as he embarked on the poem. Most likely this came out intuitively, in the process of composition, after his pen drew out "devoured" —a common-enough intensification of diction. And then it suddenly jelled: speed and terror, Orpheus and Cerberus. Most likely the connection just flashed into his mind and determined the subsequent treatment of our ur-poet.
XVIII
For Orpheus appears to be literally dogged by fear. Four lines and a half later—lines that theoretically put a bit of distance between Orpheus and that fear's source—the dog overtakes him to the point of becoming practically his own physical aspect:
It seemed as though his senses were divided: for, while his sight ran like a dog before him, turned round, came back, and stood, time and again, distant and waiting, at the path's next turn, his hearing lagged behind him like a smell.
What we are given in this simile is essentially the domestication of fear. Now our archaeologist has removed the last layer of soil from his find, and we see Orpheus' state of mind, which appears to be quite frantic. His sight's shuttling back and forth, however faithfully it serves him, compromises both his progress and his destination. Yet the little doggy seems to be doing far more running here than we initially realize, for Orpheus' hearing lagging behind him like a smell is yet another deployment of the same dog simile.
Now, quite apart from what these lines accomplish in portraying Orpheus' mental state, the mechanics behind their coupling of his senses (of sight and hearing) is of great significance itself. And attributing this to the poet's rhyming muscle showing won't tell us the whole story.
For the-rest of the story has to do with the nature of verse as such, and for that we have to go somewhat back in time. At the moment let me point out to you the remarkably mimetic fluency of the lines we are dealing with. This fluency, you would agree, is directly proportionate to our doggy's ability to shuttle back and forth. To use I. A. Rich- ards's terms, this little quadruped is indeed a vehicle here.
However, the danger with a successful metaphor lies precisely in the vehicle's ability to absorb the tenor entirely (or the other way around, which happens less often) and confuse the author—not to mention the reader—as to what is being qualified by what. And if the vehicle is a quadruped, it swallows the tenor real fast.
But now let's go somewhat back in time.
Well, not too far: to approximately the first millennium B.C., and if you insist on a precise location, to that millennium's seventh century.
The standard mode of ecriture (written language) in that particular century in Greek was called "boustrophedon." Boustrophedon literally means "ox way" and denotes the kind of writing which is similar to plowing a field, when a furrow reaching the end of that field turns and goes in the opposite direction. In writing, this amounts to a line running from left to right and, upon reaching the margin, turning and running from right to left, and so on. Most ofwriting in Greek at the time was done in this, I daresay, oxonian fashion, and one only wonders whether the term "boustrophe- don" was contemporaneous with the phenomenon, or coined post-factum, or even in anticipation? For definitions normally bespeak the presence of an alternative.
Boustrophedon had a minimum of two: the Hebrew and the Sumerian ways of writing. The Hebrew went, as it still does, from right to left. As for the Sumerian cuneiform, it went pretty much the way we are doing things now: from left to right. It s not that a civilization is exactly shopping around for a way to deploy its written language; but the existence of the term reveals a recognized distinction, and a very loaded one.