The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth

516 Pages·1999·23.898 MB·English

by  Robert Graves

T H E
W H I T E G OD D E S S

T H E
W H I T E G O D D E SS
A H I S T O R I C A L G R A M M A R
OF P O E T I C M Y T H
R O B E R T G RAVE S
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
NEW YORK
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
19 Union Square West
New York 10003
Copyright © 1948 and renewed 1975 by Robert Graves
All rights reserved
Distributed in Canada by Douglas & McIntyre Ltd.
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress catalog card number: 48-8257
First published in 1948 by Creative Age Press
First amended and enlarged Noonday paperback edition, 1966
Thirty-fourth printing, 1999
IN DEDICATION
All saints revile her, and all sober men
Ruled by the God Apollo’s golden mean—
In scorn of which I sailed to find her
In distant regions likeliest to hold her
Whom I desired above all things to know,
Sister of the mirage and echo.
It was a virtue not to stay,
To go my headstrong and heroic way
Seeking her out at the volcano’s head,
Among pack ice, or where the track had faded
Beyond the cavern of the seven sleepers:
Whose broad high brow was white as any leper’s,
Whose eyes were blue, with rowan-berry lips,
With hair curled honey-coloured to white hips.
Green sap of Spring in the young wood a-stir
Will celebrate the Mountain Mother,
And every song-bird shout awhile for her;
But I am gifted, even in November
Rawest of seasons, with so huge a sense
Of her nakedly worn magnificence
I forget cruelty and past betrayal,
Careless of where the next bright bolt may fall.

CONTENTS
FOREWORD page 9
I. POETS AND GLEEMEN I7
II. THE BATTLE OF THE TREES 27
III. DOG, ROEBUCK AND LAPWING 49
IV. THE WHITE GODDESS 6l
V. GWION’S RIDDLE 74
VI. A VISIT TO SPIRAL CASTLE 97
vu. gwion’s riddle solved 113
VIII. HERCULES ON THE LOTUS I23
lx. gwion’s heresy 140
X. THE TREE-ALPHABET (i) 165
XI. THE TREE-ALPHABET (2) 189
XII. THE SONG OF AMERGIN 205
XIII. PALAMEDES AND THE CRANES 223
XIV. THE ROEBUCK IN THE THICKET 245
XV. THE SEVEN PILLARS 259
XVI. THE HOLY UNSPEAKABLE NAME OF GOD 272
XVII. THE LION WITH THE STEADY HAND 3OI
XVIII. THE BULL-FOOTED GOD 314
XIX. THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST 342
XX. A CONVERSATION AT PAPHOS— A.D. 43 349
XXI. THE WATERS OF THE STYX 364
XXII. THE TRIPLE MUSE 383
XXIII. FABULOUS BEASTS 409
7
CONTENTS
XXIV. THE SINGLE POETIC THEME page 422
XXV. war in heaven 442
XXVI. THE RETURN OF THE GODDESS 474
XXVII. POSTSCRIPT i960 488
INDEX 493
8