The Ethics of Beauty

A Poem Inspired by Dr. Timothy Patitsas

I broke the biweekly pattern last week to bring you some nonsense. I promise not to do that too often. The unnecessary multiplication of email notifications is a grave sin. But here’s something that grew out of my reading of Dr. Tim’s book and partly from my endless obsession with Till We Have Faces. Consider Psyche’s words on being sacrificed to the Shadowbrute:

Or else…they are real gods but don’t really do these things. Or even—mightn’t it be—they do these things and the things are not what they seem to be? How if I am indeed to wed a god?

And for good measure, I’ll just add the lovely words of Hwin the Narnian mare:

“Please,” she said, “you’re so beautiful. You may eat me if you like. I’d sooner be eaten by you than fed by anyone else.”

Perhaps all genuine theophanies entail a kind of death. Well anyway, here it is.

Actaeon

Diane, no one could see thee
and stay unchanged, nor flee thee
except thy sacred hand,
anointing head and face, command
the new-made hart to understand
his flesh, made food, must yield its taste
to chasing Death to make him chaste.

Theophanies may strip us
of speech, our own hounds rip us
to pieces with delight—
so Love must do when mortal sight
comes stumbling into its merciless light;
so Hunger’s joys in hunting find
within their teeth a patient mind.

O goddess Beauty haunt us,
humiliate, and taunt us
from dark groves into bliss—
O violent Metamorphosis,
incline our stricken lips to kiss
the earth where faltering we kneel,
together groan, and hope to heal.