§140. For the Greek poetry, maidens plus play regarding meadows, hence subject has received a whole lot scholarly interest you to complete conversation the following is hopeless. ” Given that Stehle Stigers demostrates, the newest meadow try a place from virginity, as well as of their loss, the newest fate of the plants parallel compared to that out of an excellent maiden. The brand new vintage illustration of the newest motif is, obviously, Persephone’s fateful picking of one’s plant life into the a lovely meadow and you will in the company of her family unit members. It’s got long been pointed out that among the many meadow’s defining functions are the unproductiveness, seeking arrangement hesabД± nasД±l kapatД±lД±r which really stands inside evident examine toward fertility of ploughed community. Just as the metaphor out-of ploughing is actually shown in the Athenian well-known dictum into function of wedding, so it’s implicit throughout the Russian individualized of dangling a good plough along side door of newlywed’s room. This new bride’s tunes, alternatively, should never be worried about fertility, doubting by the the loud silence the point that something is provided on bride-to-be inside the payment for just what she loses. The latest concern of maiden’s tunes together with bride’s lament was perhaps not generation, however, pure beauty and its own irrevocable losings, illustrated just like the natural destruction.

Alternatively, brand new meadow are an excellent locus from erotic potentiality and “awakening sexual awareness,” an appealing yet , hazardous spot for girls, in which, just like the Rosenmeyer places it, there are not any dudes, however, “risks out-of predation hover at the sides

§141. The new haunts of your maidens are stunning and ineffective, getting it nuts rooms, like meadows and you will forests, otherwise places which might be, actually, grown and you can secure. That it second option is just like the common since former, however, has actually other connotations. From the meadows, the fresh new maiden was exposed as well as in the company regarding their own age-mates-it is in this setting you to definitely she is viewed from the their own husband to be, and from this means you to definitely she tends to be snatched. The image from a safe rose lawn, while doing so, tend to is due to the newest bride’s moms and dads, along with her sheltered and you will lavish lifetime about parental domestic, that’s coming to an end since surely due to the fact to tackle when you look at the the new meadows. Right here more hitting parallel towards the Russian wedding music appear yet again out of Catullus 62, where the chorus off maidens won’t offer much better to relationships and compares a great maiden to help you a rose when you look at the an excellent walled backyard where none cattle nor plough can threaten it. While it’s secure, the fresh new rose is stunning and you may fashionable, however, as soon as it’s plucked they one another goes out and you will is out off view, not any longer “sweet” and you may “dear” in order to boys and girls, a destiny similar to that of the fresh new maiden:

Ut flos et celle-ci in the saeptis secretus nascitur hortis, ignotus pecori, nullo convulsus aratro, quem mulcent aurae, firmat sol, educat imber. multi illum pueri, multae optavere puellae: idem spunk tenui carptus defloruit ungui, nulli illum pueri, nullae optavere puellae: sic virgo, dum intacta manet, dum cara suis est; sperm castum amisit polluto corpore florem, nec pueris iucunda manet, nec cara puellis.

Serve it to state that the new meadow might have been aptly described due to the fact a great “space filled with Eros” and you may “build to possess game that lead so you’re able to pleasure regarding amorous attention,” and yet as well as a gap which is barely the newest locus regarding sex

Same as a flower grows invisible when you look at the a sealed lawn, unknown so you can cows, uprooted because of the zero plough, a rose the breezes caress, the sunlight strengthens, the new precipitation rears. Of many youths, of numerous maidens interest it- That same rose once it withers, plucked from the a soft complete, Zero children, zero maidens interest: Just thus a maiden, provided the woman is untouched, was dear so you’re able to her family; Once she will lose the new pure flower, their particular system defiled, She doesn’t are nevertheless exciting so you can youngsters, neither dear so you can maidens.