Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

Both can be interesting.   But if we're talking about our world today
(or the world in Swift's time), it is worth looking at what our
efforts at prolonging life are giving us.

Not always.  There's a Greek legend of a guy named Tithonus who
was loved by a goddess (Artemis maybe?), who asked Zeus to give
him immortality.  Zeus obliged, but she hadn't thought to ask for
perpetual youth for him as well, so he got older and older and
older and finally the goddess got tired of him and turned him
into a grasshopper.

Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djheydt@kithrup.com

[rehash of the lesson of Eos and Tithonus]

That you have just discovered one of the oldest themes in literature is
not surprising.  We have seen your providing evidence of your ignorance
before.  The importance of Swift's writing is not in new deep insights;
rather, it is in the way he constructs new stories from old materials,
producing commentary on his own society in a palateable way. For the
story of Tithonus, check the Homeric hymn to Aphrodite (l, 213-238).

From English literature, we have
                        TITHONUS
                Alfred, Lord Tennyson
         (Composed 1833, revised 1859, published 1860)

        The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
        The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
        Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
        And after many a summer dies the swan.
        Me only cruel immortality
        Consumes; I wither slowly in thine arms,
        Here at the quiet limit of the world,
        A white-hair'd shadow roaming like a dream
        The ever-silent spaces of the East,
        Far-folded mists, and gleaming halls of morn.
        Alas! for this gray shadow, once a man--
        So glorious in his beauty and thy choice,
        Who madest him thy chosen, that he seem'd
        To his great heart none other than a God!
        I ask'd thee, "Give me immortality."
        Then didst thou grant mine asking with a smile,
        Like wealthy men who care not how they give.
        But thy strong Hours indignant work'd their wills,
        And beat me down and marr'd and wasted me,
        And tho' they could not end me, left me maim'd
        To dwell in presence of immortal youth,
        Immortal age beside immortal youth,
        And all I was in ashes. Can thy love
        Thy beauty, make amends, tho' even now,
        Close over us, the silver star, thy guide,
        Shines in those tremulous eyes that fill with tears
        To hear me? Let me go: take back thy gift:
        Why should a man desire in any way
        To vary from the kindly race of men,
        Or pass beyond the goal of ordinance
        Where all should pause, as is most meet for all?

        A soft air fans the cloud apart; there comes
        A glimpse of that dark world where I was born.
        Once more the old mysterious glimmer steals
        From any pure brows, and from thy shoulders pure,
        And bosom beating with a heart renew'd.
        Thy cheek begins to redden thro' the gloom,
        Thy sweet eyes brighten slowly close to mine,
        Ere yet they blind the stars, and the wild team
        Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise,
        And shake the darkness from their loosen'd manes,
        And beat the twilight into flakes of fire.
        Lo! ever thus thou growest beautiful
        In silence, then before thine answer given
        Departest, and thy tears are on my cheek.

        Why wilt thou ever scare me with thy tears,
        And make me tremble lest a saying learnt,
        In days far-off, on that dark earth, be true?
        "The Gods themselves cannot recall their gifts."

        Ay me! ay me! with what another heart
        In days far-off, and with what other eyes
        I used to watch ‹ if I be he that watch'd ‹
        The lucid outline forming round thee; saw
        The dim curls kindle into sunny rings;
        Changed with thy mystic change, and felt my blood
        Glow with the glow that slowly crimson'd all
        Thy presence and thy portals, while I lay,
        Mouth, forehead, eyelids, growing dewy-warm
        With kisses balmier than half-opening buds
        Of April, and could hear the lips that kiss'd
        Whispering I knew not what of wild and sweet,
        Like that strange song I heard Apollo sing,
        While Ilion like a mist rose into towers.

        Yet hold me not for ever in thine East;
        How can my nature longer mix with thine?
        Coldly thy rosy shadows bathe me, cold
        Are all thy lights, and cold my wrinkled feet
        Upon thy glimmering thresholds, when the steam
        Floats up from those dim fields about the homes
        Of happy men that have the power to die,
        And grassy barrows of the happier dead.
        Release me, and restore me to the ground;
        Thou seest all things, thou wilt see my grave:
        Thou wilt renew thy beauty morn by morn;
        I earth in earth forget these empty courts,
        And thee returning on thy silver wheels.