During school life, I was really
appreciative of the syllabus we had for our literature subject. I still find
the selection of stories, poems and drama in my secondary and higher secondary
syllabus as excellent choices for studying. It’s not that I liked all of them,
but I had many favourites among them and most of them were unique and thought
provoking in their own manners. We had Lord Alfred Tennyson’s Tithonus in our
tenth standard board exam syllabus. This one was based on a Greek legend and it
captivated my heart like anything. The mythical story of Tithonus is like any
other nice Greek fable of the Gods and Goddesses, and their eccentricities that
are symbolic of human vices.
The legend of Tithonus talks of a
strong mortal warrior, the son of Laomedon, the king of troy. Tithonus can be
imagined as the robust, brimming warrior with the (un)usual drop-dead gorgeous
looks the Greeks are famed of. All in all, his youthful radiance and imposing
demeanour was enough to make one goddess named Eos to fall in love with him. Now
this Eos was a divine goddess; by Greek legend the goddess of dawn. The Roman
counterpart of Eos is Aurora. Eos’s beauty has been described in many
mythological verses. When I read Tithonus I imagined her to be a celestial
goddess, whose eyes shone like the morning star and her head bore a crown of
red wavy locks that streamed across her divine face. Since she was associated
with twilight (as Greek legend talks of Eos being responsible for bringing dusk
and dawn to the mortal world), I imagined that she must be dressed in a golden
robe which gleamed like fire. Later I found that the Greek goddess also had a
pair of angelic wings (nothing unusual for a divine maiden!). Coming back to
Tithonus, Eos kind of kidnapped him from the mortal world to her celestial
palace of the east. Some mention that Eos’s abode was in the west, but
according to the poem her heavenly dwelling is in the eastern limit of the
horizon.
Eos was more than elated to bring
the handsome Tithonus to her divine realm. But soon she discovered the curse of
mortality that looms over mankind. Even if Tithonus accompanied her in the
eastern palace, he was still a mortal. It meant that Tithonus would age and die
in due course of time like all mortals do. This was unacceptable to the
lovelorn goddess, who was simply head over heels with Tithonus. The idea of
losing him seemed like the most repulsive thought that had ever come across her
mind. So what did Eos do? How could she protect him from the impending death
that threatens the mortal man once he steps into the mortal world? Voila! She
had an idea. An idea that would change Tithonus’s fate for forever. She planned
to turn Tithonus into an immortal god and went begging to Zeus for the same. Zeus
made it straight to her; a mortal cannot be transformed into a god, even if a
goddess is in love with him. So Eos used her wits and asked for the boon of
immortality for Tithonus. This Zeus however, granted. The original legend of
Tithonus and Eos talks of Eos asking for immortality for Tithonus but
Tennyson’s poem has Tithonus, who asked for immortality from Eos. Either way,
what follows is a story filled with pathos about the life of Tithonus.
Taking the case of the poem, it
is Tithonus who asks for immortality and as described by Tithonus; Eos granted
him with immortality like ‘wealthy men’ who don’t care showering others with
lavish gifts. The grave mistake that was made while asking for the boon of
immortality is that Tithonus did not ask for eternal youth. He only asked for
immortality. So while Tithonus and Eos made sure that Tithonus would never die,
they could not stop him from ageing. Poor Tithonus grew old and older. The
entire poem is a monologue by Tithonus where he laments and curses himself for
this stupid boon that proved to be a painful curse. Tithonus describes himself
as a ghostly shadow with white hair- the result when one defies the law of
nature. His body cannot exist anymore; it is as well reduced to dust. Alas! He
cannot die. The poem talks about the three daughters of Zeus- the sisters of
fate, who are responsible for the mortal span of a man’s life. Tithonus deems
these three ladies as diabolic as they can ever be- since a puny mortal like
him dared to challenge their power.
Tithonus’s laments will sadden
your heart. He is explicit with his jealousy and his own depressed state of
mind as he cries out how fortunate are the mortal beings who follow the
nature’s course to death. Tithonus begs Eos to set him free by letting him die.
Eos herself cannot bear the sight of Tithonus suffering so much. She doesn’t
reply and leaves every day with teary eyes to bring daylight to the mortal
world. Her taciturn stance scares Tithonus. He had once heard on the mortal
world that gods cannot recall their gifts- and he realizes that it might actually
be true. The part of Tennyson’s verses that really saddened me was Tithonus’s
helplessness when he could see himself growing old each passing day lying
beside Eos, while the goddess had the divine privilege of rejuvenating her
youth every new morning. This is also the part where I felt amused thinking
that gods are lucky enough not having to apply anti-aging creams to hold onto
their fleeting youth. Lucky them! They enjoy eternal youth (chuckle!). But for Tithonus, he could only haplessly
watch himself getting wasted and couldn’t help but witness “immortal age beside
immortal youth”.
I feel bad for Tithonus. I really
do. He can’t be blamed actually- fancy a mortal being courted by a goddess! I
mean who could resist such a temptation? Later on Tithonus truly understands
how arrogant he was when Eos fell in love with him during his pinnacle of
youthful exuberance. Wooed by Eos he was on cloud nine (literally speaking, as
he shared the celestial palace of the goddess) and considered himself nothing
less than that of a god. According to the legend, Eos turns Tithonus into a
cricket and he lived eternally. So Tithonus was relieved from the immortality
curse, albeit turning into an insect.
Tennyson’s poem guided me into a deep
insight. You see Tithonus is not uncommon in our daily lives. A person comes
into this world and inevitably goes through the phases of infancy, childhood,
adulthood and finally there comes a time when you start counting your days on
this planet (unless you face an untimely death!). We are no less a Tithonus in
our youth and during times of prosperity. This feeling of invincibility creeps
into our psyche one time or the other. But there comes a time, either in the
form of death or a stumbling fall when you realize how short-lived these apparent
moments of glory are actually. You can get scared and even choose to freak out
when you realize this. It kind of makes you feel doomed and cheated by this
lustrous world of allurement. However I personally feel that these are
opportunities to learn. Frankly, if you never know the worst you can never
appreciate the best! Thank you Tennyson and Tithonus; for people like you some
might get the message you are trying to throw at us. Also, not everything that
seems like the end is necessarily so. Tithonus thought his reduced existence
was a vicious suffering, maybe worst than hell. But when Eos turned him into a
cricket, I am sure he enjoyed his life as an insignificant insect: hopping around
the grasses and discovering the working of nature. If Tithonus didn’t live a
life of plummeting glory, he wouldn’t have understood the serenity of the life
of an anonymous insect.
Pardon me if you found this post to be a bit
philosophical. My purpose of this blog series is to vent out some parts of my
life and its understanding, and not necessarily meant to give cognizable and
conforming facts which appeals the intellect. You see, I believe humans are driven
more by emotions, likes and dislikes than by popular concepts of logic and propriety.
Being one among the seven billion 'emotional' humans, I just created a series of my random
musings. In short I want to create something fun and different.
Thank you if you read through the whole of it. Some may have already read Tennyson’s Tithonus. For those who didn’t, check it out sometime. It might evoke different feelings in you.
You can leave your comments. Next
post coming soon! Take care.
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| Eos chasing Tithonus- a painting on a vessel. I am sure if Tithonus saw this he would wish that she never caught him! |
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