§140. In the Greek poetry, maidens in addition to play throughout the meadows, and therefore topic has already established plenty scholarly interest one to complete dialogue here’s impossible. ” Since Stehle Stigers demostrates, the fresh meadow was an area regarding virginity, plus of its loss, brand new fate of the herbs parallel to this away from an excellent maiden. This new vintage instance of the newest theme are, obviously, Persephone’s fateful picking of the plant life into the an attractive meadow and you may in the company of their particular relatives. This has long been noticed that one of the meadow’s identifying characteristics is actually its unproductiveness, and that stands during the sharp examine toward fertility of the ploughed career. Just as the metaphor regarding ploughing is actually expressed about Athenian greatest dictum on aim of marriage, making it implicit from the Russian customized out-of hanging a beneficial plough across the doorway of your newlywed’s bed room. New bride’s songs, alternatively, are never concerned with fertility, denying by the its noisy quiet the reality that some thing is offered towards the bride to be inside the compensation for what she will lose. Brand new question of one’s maiden’s audio additionally the bride’s lament is perhaps not age bracket, but natural splendor and its particular irrevocable losings, represented since absolute depletion.

Instead, this new meadow try a beneficial locus off sensual potentiality and you may “awakening sexual sense,” a desirable yet , unsafe place for girls, where, given that Rosenmeyer places it, there aren’t any men, however, “dangers off predation hover during the sides

§141. New haunts of your maidens is gorgeous and you can ineffective, be they insane spaces, such as for instance meadows and you may forest, or rooms which might be, indeed, developed and you may safe. That it latter option is due to the fact prevalent just like the former, however, keeps additional connotations. From the meadows, the latest maiden is exposed and in the organization off their unique ages-mates-it is contained in this mode one to she may be viewed by the her husband to be, and you can using this means you to definitely she can be snatched. The image of a secure rose lawn, concurrently, often is because of the Slav sД±cak kadД±nlar new bride’s moms and dads, together with her sheltered and you will magnificent life on parental house, which is going to an-end as the positively given that to experience in the brand new meadows. Here the most hitting parallel towards the Russian wedding tunes appear once more away from Catullus 62, where the chorus out of maidens will not give any benefit so you can relationships and compares an effective maiden in order to a flower for the a good walled backyard in which neither cattle neither plough can threaten it. While it is secure, the rose are beautiful and you will prominent, but as soon as it is plucked it each other is out and you will goes out out-of glance at, don’t “sweet” and “dear” so you can boys and girls, a destiny like the fresh new maiden:

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

Suffice they to say that the meadow has been aptly revealed because the an excellent “place full of Eros” and you will “build to own game that lead in order to satisfaction from amorous notice,” however and additionally a space that is barely the fresh new locus off sex

Same as a rose develops undetectable in the a shut yard, not familiar in order to cows, uprooted from the zero plough, a flower that breezes caress, the sunlight improves, brand new precipitation rears. Of several youngsters, of a lot maidens desire it- One to exact same flower just after they withers, plucked because of the a mellow complete, Zero youngsters, zero maidens desire: Simply so an effective maiden, provided the woman is unblemished, are beloved so you can their particular friends; After she loses the newest natural rose, their particular muscles defiled, She doesn’t will always be pleasing so you can youths, nor precious so you can maidens.