Professor Borges - A Course on English Literature

When she has been expelled from Eden because they have created Eve. “
Con ella está el Infierno y con Eva está el Cielo
” [“With her was hell and with Eve was heaven”]. And this is what she could not bear, because she was in love with Adam. And so she tells the snake, who was her first lover: “
He aquí, vuelvo a ti cuando ha pasado lo demás, / yo era una serpiente cuando tú eras mi amante, / yo era la serpiente más hermosa del Edén
. . . ” [“To thee I come when the rest is over; / A snake was I when thou wast my lover. / I was the fairest snake in Eden . . . ”] This is a bit terrible but it is lovely, because there must also be beauty in snakes. “
Pero me dieron nueva forma y fui una mujer para la nueva criatura del Cielo
” [“ . . . new form and feature / Made me a wife for the earth’s new creature”], that is, for man. “
Tómame, cuando vuelvo de Adán
. . . ” [“Take me thou as I come from Adam . . . ”]. Because she does not hide from him that she is coming from Adam and that she has taken on the shape of a woman. She’s a bit like a witch, according to the Jewish superstition about the witches of the night. “
De nuevo te subyugará mi amor, el pasado ha pasado y yo vuelvo
” [“Once again shall my love subdue thee; / The past is past and I am come to thee”].
“O but Adam was thrall to Lilith!
(And O the bower and the hour!)
All the threads of my hair are golden,
And there in a net his heart was holden.”
    “
Pero Adán fue un vasallo para Lílith
,” and then it continues: “
Todas las hebras de mi pelo son de oro, / y en ese red estaba atado su coarzón
.”
“O and Lilith was queen of Adam!
(Eden bower’s in flower.)
All the day and the night together
My breath could shake his soul like a feather.”
    And now . . . Lilith was “
la reina de Adán
,” “
todo el día y toda la noche / podia mi respiración sacudir su alma como una pluma.
”
“What great joys had Adam and Lilith!—
(And O the bower and the hour!)
Sweet close rings of the serpent’s twining,
As heart in heart lay sighing and pining.”
    We can see Lilith’s monstrous love in these lines and the following ones. The repetition of the refrain gives it a fatalistic tone.
“What bright babes had Lilith and Adam!—
(Eden bower’s in flower.)
Shapes that coiled in the woods and waters,
Glittering sons and radiant daughters.”
    You can see that this poem has a lot in common with the other one, but there are aesthetic differences. Here, there is something … the poem is somewhat obsessive, because this man was a touch mad when he imagined the love of the first man with a snake, there is something monstrous in, “What bright babes had Lilith and Adam!”
    Now, there is another poem, also an erotic poem. I don’t know what is going on today, but Rossetti liked such things. This poem is a poem about Helen of Troy. 6 Now, Helen, as you know, was kidnapped by Paris. Then Paris takes her to Troy—Paris is the son of Priam, king of Troy—and this causes the Trojan War and the destruction of the city.
    So, let us look at this poem. The first stanza says “
Helena, de origen celestial, reina de Esparta
” [“Heavenborn Helen, Sparta’s queen”], and then “
O, ciudad de Troya
” [“
OTroy Town!
”] because as Rossetti tells this fable—this fable of the beginning of Prince Paris’s love for Helen—he knows that the consequence of this love is the destruction of the city. And in the poem he gives us both time frames simultaneously: the origins of love, of the love between Helen and Paris, and then the destruction of the city. It is as if the poem took place in eternity, as if the two things happened at once, even though they are separated by many years. Now, as far as the future, which for us is the past, this is between parentheses.
    So, it begins like this:
Helena, de orígen celestial, reina de Esparta,
(¡o, ciudad de Troya!)
Tenía dos senos de resplandor celestial,
el sol y la luna del deseo del amor.
[Heavenborn Helen, Sparta’s queen,
(
O Troy Town!
)
Had two breasts of heavenly sheen,
The sun and moon of the heart’s desire.]
    And he already knows, he foresees what will happen one day and says: “
Troya ha caído, la alta Troya está en llamas
.” [“O Troy’s down, / Tall Troy’s on fire!”] Then Helen is alone and she kneels in front of Venus’s shrine and offers her a cup that has been molded on her breasts, that is, in the shape of her breasts. Lugones takes up