Art to Heart Invitation

Dante Gabriel Rossetti: Proserpine

©2002 by Jeff Dugan

Even before you know her story, her longing and her sense of loss are evident.  There is something in each of us that yearns for something far off and inaccessible, as she seems to do.

This is a portrait of Proserpine, a figure from Roman mythology whose legend has her picking flowers in the valley of Enna when she is kidnapped by Pluto, king of Hades, and taken to his underworld.  Her mother petitions for her release, but it is granted only on the condition that she has not eaten any of the fruit of Hades.  Sadly, Proserpine has tasted just a single seed from a pomegranate there, so in a compromise she is allowed half of her time free in the world of the living, but is condemned to spend the other half of her time in Hades with Pluto.  Rossetti has painted her as she walks in despair through the underground passages and glimpses a brief flash of light from the world above.  She holds the fruit that has caused her predicament, and longs for the world of life and light and the love of those she has left behind.

So if she’s some mythological being, caught in a fantastical dilemma, why is it that our hearts resonate with her?  Maybe it’s because we, too, find ourselves suspended between heaven and hell, having once called Paradise our home, but now enslaved to this half-way existence because we wanted just that one little taste of the sweetness promised by the seducer.

We too, stand condemned, but like Proserpine, we sometimes catch a glimpse of that life of perfect freedom, and it reminds us that there is One in heaven who still loves us, and calls us back to the light.

This, of course, was the message of the prophets, who spoke to a people who found themselves in a real-world life full of its share of suffering and darkness.  But God sent these occasional shafts of His light into that dark world to remind them that His love for them had not been extinguished, and would some day break open the gates of Hell itself in the form of a Messiah.

Rossetti wrote a poem to accompany this painting, which eloquently speaks of Proserpine’s longing, as well as the longing we all have for the day when there will be no more night.

Proserpine by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

(please note: The meaning of this poem is communicated more effectively if you pause only at the punctuation and not at the end of every line.)

Afar away the light that brings cold cheer

Unto this wall, -- one instant and no more

Admitted at my distant palace-door:

Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear

Cold fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here:

Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey

That chills me: and afar; how far away,

The nights that shall be from the days that were.

Afar from mine own self I seem, and wing

Strange ways in thought, and listen for a sign:

And still some heart unto some soul doth pine,

(Whose sounds mine inner sense is fain to bring,

Continually together, murmuring,)

"Woe's me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!"

How sad that Proserpine should be condemned to separation from the light and from her true love.  But how can we mourn for her and yet willingly condemn ourselves to separation from the light and love of him who calls to us, “Woe’s me for thee, unhappy sinner”?  Can you feel his entreaty tugging at your heart?  Can you sense the dreary darkness of life without him?  How blessed we are that a myth is just a myth.  Because unlike poor Proserpine, we are not without hope. 

If you will today declare that Jesus Christ is Lord of your life, there need never be another moment of despair in your life.  How far away earth is from paradise, and yet, in him, how near!