I'm not going to assert that this is anything but a Rorschach-sort-of-reaction on my part, but it strikes me very strongly as having something to do with death.
"The bailey beareth the bell away" made me think of Eliot's "Time and the bell have buried the day" in Burnt Norton (or one of the Quartets).
"The silver IS white, red Is the gold" gives me pause. I know that the words for colors shift, and that "silver" and "white" were not as distinct as they are for us, and that "red" and "gold" go together, all over Tolkein for example. That said, I wonder what the insistence on the equivalence here ( signifies. Gold of wedding, virginal blood? Reaching? Doesn't help with silver/white?
The Guardian writer's take on this as a healthy discovery of sexuality in the marriage bed strikes me as not just wrong but willful, Sally — as though the newspaper writer has so absorbed the dogma of her modern age that everything must bend to the goodness of the sexual revolution. The girl seems a token in aristocratic affairs, and I get little sense that — taken from her mother's bower and now, the next morning, left alone in a strange room — she thinks the loss of her virginity anything other than a loss of childhood happiness and painful deliverance into adult politics.
Well, it was the Guardian . . . Spurred by my desire to comment, I actually just upgraded to paid (maybe reupgraded, can't keep straight). And then saw this, which pretty much says what I wanted to say.
The red could be a reference to her wedding dress. Prior to Mary, Queen of Scots, first wedding, brides had been married in red since or before Rome was the world's ruler. Mary, not liking the way it went with her complexion, chose white, which is now the rule, in general for wedding dresses. It could well be her, laying he wedding dress away. From purity, the lily, to bride, to putting it all away. Something over and done, alas perhaps.
Yes, I was definitely connecting the robes to wedding finery, but I didn't know that red was THE color for a bride. I did know that white for brides was a fairly late convention. Thanks for that detail!
I can't shake the feeling that the bride-to-be was still in her mother's womb, the maidens who came were midwives, and on the bridal morn she was stillborn and taken away in the folded cloths: "How could I love, and I so young?"
Oh, that's an interesting reading. I was actually looking for suggestions that "bower" was a figure for the womb in medieval poetry, but my admittedly on-the-fly research didn't turn up anything conclusive enough to develop ideas from that starting point.
But I don't think I was right about midwives -- they are maidens, and if it's not overdoing the funereal reading, they could be seen as virgins whose lives (and loves) were similarly cut short in the womb, and who have come to claim her for their company.
Beautifully written, thank you! I hear the lament in the poem way more than any kind of exultation. The “bearing” the bell “away” first had me thinking it was a processional of some sort, the bailiff leading her away to her wedding. As if that’s the scene she takes herself back to over and over. But I love all the bell/belle possibilities you opened up here.
Thank you for such a careful musing on this. I wouldn't have been able to find my way into the poet's meaning. "Glass" stands out to me. In such a compressed poem, the poet allows an adjective for the window (already understood to be clear). She can see clearly what she does not have.
Glass was a luxury and heavily taxed, which seems significant --- a further indication of the richness of her position, but also the way that very richness isolates her.
One of my favourites, and also one of my mother’s. I always thought it was about death, or any way that the mood is morbid. I think the Bailey is the Bailiff - I think there are other writers who call the Bailiff the Bailey, but perhaps I am imagining it. I think perhaps it is appealing to modernS because it has a romantic, Lady of Shallot feel to it.
I'm not going to assert that this is anything but a Rorschach-sort-of-reaction on my part, but it strikes me very strongly as having something to do with death.
"The bailey beareth the bell away" made me think of Eliot's "Time and the bell have buried the day" in Burnt Norton (or one of the Quartets).
"The silver IS white, red Is the gold" gives me pause. I know that the words for colors shift, and that "silver" and "white" were not as distinct as they are for us, and that "red" and "gold" go together, all over Tolkein for example. That said, I wonder what the insistence on the equivalence here ( signifies. Gold of wedding, virginal blood? Reaching? Doesn't help with silver/white?
The Guardian writer's take on this as a healthy discovery of sexuality in the marriage bed strikes me as not just wrong but willful, Sally — as though the newspaper writer has so absorbed the dogma of her modern age that everything must bend to the goodness of the sexual revolution. The girl seems a token in aristocratic affairs, and I get little sense that — taken from her mother's bower and now, the next morning, left alone in a strange room — she thinks the loss of her virginity anything other than a loss of childhood happiness and painful deliverance into adult politics.
Well, it was the Guardian . . . Spurred by my desire to comment, I actually just upgraded to paid (maybe reupgraded, can't keep straight). And then saw this, which pretty much says what I wanted to say.
Well, thank you for leaping in (and yes, not really a surprise, though I have often liked Carol Rumens's commentary on her Poem of the Week choices).
I don't disagree with you at all.
The red could be a reference to her wedding dress. Prior to Mary, Queen of Scots, first wedding, brides had been married in red since or before Rome was the world's ruler. Mary, not liking the way it went with her complexion, chose white, which is now the rule, in general for wedding dresses. It could well be her, laying he wedding dress away. From purity, the lily, to bride, to putting it all away. Something over and done, alas perhaps.
Yes, I was definitely connecting the robes to wedding finery, but I didn't know that red was THE color for a bride. I did know that white for brides was a fairly late convention. Thanks for that detail!
Your most welcome!
Thanks for the poetry!
I can't shake the feeling that the bride-to-be was still in her mother's womb, the maidens who came were midwives, and on the bridal morn she was stillborn and taken away in the folded cloths: "How could I love, and I so young?"
Oh, that's an interesting reading. I was actually looking for suggestions that "bower" was a figure for the womb in medieval poetry, but my admittedly on-the-fly research didn't turn up anything conclusive enough to develop ideas from that starting point.
"I had all that I would" seems significant, too. Thank you for this and for all!
Thank you for reading and commenting!
But I don't think I was right about midwives -- they are maidens, and if it's not overdoing the funereal reading, they could be seen as virgins whose lives (and loves) were similarly cut short in the womb, and who have come to claim her for their company.
Beautifully written, thank you! I hear the lament in the poem way more than any kind of exultation. The “bearing” the bell “away” first had me thinking it was a processional of some sort, the bailiff leading her away to her wedding. As if that’s the scene she takes herself back to over and over. But I love all the bell/belle possibilities you opened up here.
What a gorgeous poem! Thanks for this, Sally.
Thank you for such a careful musing on this. I wouldn't have been able to find my way into the poet's meaning. "Glass" stands out to me. In such a compressed poem, the poet allows an adjective for the window (already understood to be clear). She can see clearly what she does not have.
Glass was a luxury and heavily taxed, which seems significant --- a further indication of the richness of her position, but also the way that very richness isolates her.
One of my favourites, and also one of my mother’s. I always thought it was about death, or any way that the mood is morbid. I think the Bailey is the Bailiff - I think there are other writers who call the Bailiff the Bailey, but perhaps I am imagining it. I think perhaps it is appealing to modernS because it has a romantic, Lady of Shallot feel to it.
Agreed.