Mythistorema - Triceratops Home

36 JOURNAL OF THE HELLENIC DIASPORA
involvement of Ares and the wounding of Adonis, symbolized by the
tearing of the ground by the plow, are inextricable parts of the life cycle.
In Greek mythology, Cygnus (Swan) was the son of Mars and Pelopeia;
he was the king of Amphanae, who used to catch passing strangers and
force them into a duel that he always won until he was finally killed by
Hercules. Seferis writes in his Journals that he uses the swan as a cruel
and very vindictive bird? He uses the motif of the swan repeatedly to
associate beauty and love with destructiveness. Only in very few places
is the swan imagery used with exclusively positive overtones, as for example
in poem "7": "calmer than swan's down." In most other cases
where the swan motif appears, there is an unpleasant or destructive implication,
as for instance in "Helen," in the Three Secret Poems (section
6 of "On Stage") and most notably in the "Decision to Forget.""
The line "In the winter nights the strong wind from the east maddened
us" can be interpreted only in relation to the cycle of life, the
"immemorial drama" mentioned in the beginning of the poem. Traditionally
the wind is considered a symbol of poetic inspiration, but also, along
with the sun, it can be a "fructifier and creator."" Thus, the line very
probably has erotic symbolic overtones. C.G. Jung, discussing in his
Symbols of Transformation the American Indian legend as it appears in
Longfellow's poem "The Song of Hiawatha," refers to the West Wind
as "the fertilizing breath," the father of all winds, and mentions in
particular the "wooing" and the "caressing courtship" of the East Wind."
The motif of the wind is encountered in two other poems of Mythistorema,
"7" ("South Wind") and "19," in both of which it has erotic
connotations. In all three poems the effect of the wind is tyrannical:
And once again this wind
Stropping its razor's edge upon our nerves.
("South Wind")
Even if the wind blows it brings us no refreshment.
("19")
degrees did the activities of the god become specially connected with the domain
of war" (91).
"Journal C, 180.
YBIn the "Decision to Forget" Seferis presents the hunter-victim situation using
swans as symbols of destructiveness and the village girls as innocent victims. On
another level, these cruel birds, the descendants of Ares (Mars), represent the
Aryan invaders slaughtering people and ravaging Europe. See Nora Anagnostaki's
essay "10 Iscpinc tilc MALI.% xal t5 friap.ovtffg" ("Seferis of Memory and
Forgetfulness"), in rtat 'thy Istpipn [For Seferis), eds. Leonidas Zenakos and
George Savidis (Athens: n.p., 1961) 240.
"C.G. Jung, Symbols of Transformation, tr. R.F.C. Hull, 2d ed. (Princeton,
N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1967) 100.
"Jung, 316-7,