Poetic Musings - Eloise to Abelard

07 July 2007

Continuing from where i left off the previous post, here's the 2nd part to my poetic musings. This time it's the romantic love ballad by Alexander Pope - "Eloise to Abelard". I came across this obscure and unheard of poetry while watching the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, a movie which kind of brought me down to my knees in terms of the theme and performance and music. But its not about ESotSM that i am here to write - its about the poem from which the title line has been borrowed, and a paragraph of which Mary Svevo recites to the doctor ...

" How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd "

Probably only after the powerful dialogue delivery by Kirsten Dunst and the background images of Jim Carey - Kate Winslet fading into Beck's Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime do i realize that i must find the source to these amazingly beautiful and serene lines. And thus i read through another ballad about eternal love.



The story of Eloise and Abelard is similar to that of Romeo and Juliet to an extent. Need i say more. Boy loves girl, girl loves boy, families dont like either, lots of blood spilt.
Not really this way, but Abelard was one of the famous tutors of his age, and Eloise was his student. The love between them developed but Eloise's family were not ready to accept that, and had Abelard castrated. Both Eloise and Abelard entered into clerical service, where once again, Eloise's love for Abelard grew strong, and what followed was a series of letters exchanged between Eloise and Abelard.

The ballad speaks about this condoned love between the two fateful lovers. The archaic wordings lend it an odd mystery and charm that probably normal English would not have justified. The poetry is beautiful, and like all beautiful poetry, it is rhyming. Now that would sound very odd to many people. Why is this lunatic comparing good poetry with ryhmes !
Simply because i feel that to express your thoughts in rhyming poetry, where the correct words need to inter-weave, is an art in itself. Simple thoughts well laid out would constitute a prose, not poetry.

The difference between the two ballads i read - Rime earlier and Eloise now (apart from the rhyming scheme abcb v/s aabb respectively) - is that while Rime incites pity via horror and terror, Eloise incites the same via love and sorrow. One is the reminiscence of eternal darkness, the other of unconditional love. Coleridge stimulates the deepest fears plaguing the mind, Pope touches the inner sanctums of the heart. Coleridge is more easier to understand in first reading than Pope, though that does not take away the joy of reading 'Eloise to Abelard' to try and grasp the real meaning and the ballad's beauty. Some lines 'sound' so good, it sometimes becomes irrelevant to even understand what they mean.

As before, i quote here the lines i liked the most from this mega-scribe. Rest is for the reader to sift and explore and enjoy.

" In these deep solitudes and awful cells,
Where heav'nly-pensive contemplation dwells,
And ever-musing melancholy reigns;
What means this tumult in a vestal's veins?
Why rove my thoughts beyond this last retreat?
Why feels my heart its long-forgotten heat?
Yet, yet I love! — From Abelard it came,
And Eloisa yet must kiss the name."

" Relentless walls! whose darksome round contains
Repentant sighs, and voluntary pains:
Ye rugged rocks! which holy knees have worn;
Ye grots and caverns shagg'd with horrid thorn!
Shrines! where their vigils pale-ey'd virgins keep,
And pitying saints, whose statues learn to weep!
Though cold like you, unmov'd, and silent grown,
I have not yet forgot myself to stone.
All is not Heav'n's while Abelard has part,
Still rebel nature holds out half my heart;
Nor pray'rs nor fasts its stubborn pulse restrain,
Nor tears, for ages, taught to flow in vain."

" Then share thy pain, allow that sad relief;
Ah, more than share it! give me all thy grief. "

" No happier task these faded eyes pursue;
To read and weep is all they now can do."

" Canst thou forget what tears that moment fell,
When, warm in youth, I bade the world farewell?
As with cold lips I kiss'd the sacred veil,
The shrines all trembl'd, and the lamps grew pale: "

" Yet here for ever, ever must I stay;
Sad proof how well a lover can obey!
Death, only death, can break the lasting chain;
And here, ev'n then, shall my cold dust remain,"

I could have written so much more of these beautiful verses here. But that would defeat the purpose. Lines that i write here are significant to me, and me only. It is for the audience mesmerized to unravel the poetry in its entirety and decipher the meaning of lines that stand true for them. I for mine still have a long way to go doing that. I sign off with the last verse that rings so true, i can but visualize Eloise and Abelard, not as the characters they are, but as me penning these lines.

" Condemn'd whole years in absence to deplore,
And image charms he must behold no more;
Such if there be, who loves so long, so well;
Let him our sad, our tender story tell;
The well-sung woes will soothe my pensive ghost;
He best can paint 'em, who shall feel 'em most. "

Here, at last, i understand !
And So be it ...