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8/11/2019 Slaves to their Masters
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Slaves to their
Masters
Celia Lord
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Sl
aves to their Masters
First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Lady Lord
Press.
Salisbury Close, Gainsborough
Copyright Celia Lord 2014
The right of The Author to be identified as the author of
this work has been asserted by her in accordance with
the Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988
All rights reserved
ISBN 9768-5674-9948
To my Mother, Pat Greatorex, who inspired me to begin
writing again.
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Contents Page
Preface
Mariana by Sir John Everett Millais
Mariana
Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti
Beata BeatrixApril Love by Arthur Hughes
April Love
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PREF CE
I have often looked at the paintings of the Pre-
Raphaelite group and wondered, 'What if these
women, so famous for their images, could talk?'
'What would they be saying?' Out of that, the idea
for this pamphlet was born. The more I pondered
on this, the more I realised that the women who
modelled for the Pre-Raphaelites or the historical or
fictional characters which inspired them have
fascinating stories of their own. To be trapped
within a canvas, unable to give voice to their stories
and feelings seemed like a gross injustice to me!
Moreover we could learn so much more about
history if we could make these characters speak.
The artists who captured the enduring beauty of
their muses were often household names, especially
in the Victorian era when the Pre-Raphaelite
Brotherhood were at their zenith. However, I have
discovered through in depth research for this
pamphlet, that the lives and loves of the women are
more captivating than those who painted them.
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I realised that they could be described as
'Slaves to their Masters'. Beautiful young womentrapped within their circumstances at a moment in
time by the Masters who portray them. They have
no choice but to be enslaved within the situation in
which they have been cast until eternity. But what
would they wish for if they could escape from that
moment in time? What would they be saying to
their Masters...their creators if they had the chance?
'Mariana' by Sir John Everett Millais is my
first 'slave'. The character of Mariana was created
by William Shakespeare in his comedy 'Measure for
Measure'. Mariana was further developed by
Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Millais captures this noble
lady in hopeless desolation, cut off from the world.
Her dowry has been lost at sea and her lover Angelo
has rejected her. Mariana is forever destined to be
heartbroken and frustrated at the loss of her truelove and her seeming inability to escape from her
ensuing isolation while nursing her broken heart.
Her love is unrequited and she is bound to that
which is not returned. Just as Millais is her master
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was so obsessed by the Florentine poet Dante
Aligheri that he adopted his forename! Thepainting captures the moment when Dante's true
love Beatrice is moving from life into death.
However, I have chosen to give voice not to Beatrice,
the eponymous subject of this work, but rather
Rossetti's wife & muse Lizzie Siddal who posed for
this painting. She was the first 'supermodel', her
looks beloved of several within the Pre-Raphaelite
movement. An artist and poet in her own right she
never achieved the recognition she felt she deserved
and this coupled with enduring ill health, drug
addiction and the ongoing infidelities of Rossetti
turned her into a truly tortured soul. The artist
painted this work as a memorial to Lizzie after her
death using his obsession with Dante as the vehicle.
I felt Lizzie craved recognition and singular love
and wanted to tell Rossetti at the point of her deathabout her true feelings. It seemed to me that she
might resent being cast as Beatrice but would rather
have been recognised in this final work carrying
her image, within her own right.
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shedding tears after heartbreak with her first love.
Hughes has trapped her forever within thismoment, with the lover with who has caused so
much pain, seated in the shadows behind her. It is a
shorter piece of narrative than the two preceding
pieces, but I hope captures the passion of first young
love & its fragility.
Whilst the circumstances of their lives are
different, there are common elements running
through the stories of Mariana, Lizzie and April
Love... themes which are often woven into the
paintings and artistic works of the Pre-Raphaelites.
They include:
Unhealthy addiction and obsession
Cruelty and its results
A moment of transfiguration and change
Passionate and enduring love Unfulfilled hopes and dreams
Suppressed sexuality
This has been a fascinating journey for me, listening
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to Mariana, Lizzie and the beautiful young lady in
April Love and letting them speak. I think I havefallen under their spell!
It is my hope that through this pamphlet, you
too will join me in wondering what might have
become of these women if only they had been
mistresses of their own fate and not the slaves of
their masters!
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M RI N
Why did you bind me forever to this piteous
existence? I am young and some would say quite
beautiful, and so I shall remain. But what use is this
when I am destined to be forever in isolation?
I am Mariana of noble birth, whose status
would have drawn many an admirer. But my love
was for Angelo and our union was celebrated
between our kin.
But cruel fate, you took my dowry and lost it
to the seabed. Then my lover spurned me, for my
beauty alone was not enough. My heart has been
broken, and my world seems at an end. Who now
will want me without riches and bearing the stigma
of rejection? I have no place in a world where
women are prized for their wealth, connections or
vitality. I grow more distant by the day as the world
moves on and I become less and less a part of it. I
am a slave to my love, for he shall remain forever in
my heart. He has put a chain around it which time
shall never break. My mind too remains a captive
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of my lost love.
All is stillness in this silent place, save for therustling of the leaves. They fall about my
needlepoint, but I have no care. Let it lie
abandoned. My eyes are strained through long
hours with the needle and they pain me from the
river of tears I have shed for Angelo.
This was a noble palace, a place of
sumptuous beauty. Rich damask graces the walls,
the patterns echoing the gardens beyond. The
beauty of the stained glass which would delight
many an eye, serves only to taunt my own. The
Blessed Virgins fulfilment, so rich a contrast with
my own frustration and longing. Fine silver graces
the table, placed as for communion.perhaps for a
time when I might slip from the bonds of this
existence and into eternity. I crave a time when
viaticum given, I might slip towards that peacewhich the world cannot give. At present the altar
lamp shines brightly, but at the appointed hour I
pray it might be snuffed out, and my life with it.
But this is no holy place. It is a gilded cage
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from which I cannot flee. In truth, I yearn to be
free, at liberty to love again and feel great passioncoursing through me from a lovers loins. Would
that my glossy velvet dress, like a sumptuous sheath
be ripped from my body, and I might feel the hot
breath of a lover as I submit to ecstasy. Oh that a
lover would caress my ripe curves and thrust into
me with a passion that would leave me gasping for
breath.
As I rise from my rich buffet, it is not the aching in
my back which penetrates my thoughts, but rather
the desire for these curves to love and be loved in
return. Like the needle thrust into the chaste white
flowers of my embroidery, I would that a lover
could pierce my pure body. Forsaken by Angelo, I
dare to dream yet that there may be another who
will break the chains around my heart and loins,
placed there by Angelo, and set me free. I wouldnot then contemplate liberty from my captive state,
through death.
Look upon this body Blessed Gabriel and see
that it too awaits an annunciation. Tell me the good
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news I yearn to hear, and break me free from the
isolation which defines my existence. I amenslaved bound to unrequited love. Free me I
beseech you, that I may live as I would wish, loved
and fulfilled. Or let me slip from this world to a
heaven where there is rest in coelo quies.
Good Gabriel, gather up the fallen leaves
which lie around and replace my Autumn with
another Spring. Like the snowdrop in the window-
pane give me a sign that for me too new life will
come and break me from this piteous existence to
which I seem forever cast.
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BE T BE TRIX
It is come! The hour of my death...blessed relief
from the torture of suffering. A time more welcome
than any before. Do not wish me to stay, for my
soul is ready to take flight and seek that peace
which the world cannot give. You would have me
cast forever in the transfiguration between life and
death, whereas I yearn for heavenly ascendance.
Look upon my face. See is it not already prepared to
enter into eternity? Who are you to bind me to this
moment forever? If you have love for me, let me
go!
And yet, whose face is it that you see when
you gaze upon me? Your obsession with another,
has cast me forever as your idol Dante's Beatrice.
Many times in life you sketched me, Lizzie, in this
pose, but now at the moment of my death it is to the
memory of that great poet Dante's true love
Beatrice, that I am forever bound. Perchance I
should have pleasure in being so greatly esteemed,
but I would have you idolize Lizzie and put me on
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the eternal pedestal whereon you have set Beatrice.
Am I not worthy in your eyes to be venerated withinmy own right? For I am surely the face that
captivated a generation, the muse of great artists.
Those who gaze upon their works may not know
my name, but they will know my face. It will haunt
them forever. For greatest of all, I am Millais's
'Ophelia', tormented lover of Hamlet. I was a slave
to Millais's art. For long hours I lay in cold water
whilst his oils captured my fragile beauty. Amongst
the many blooms scattered over me in that icy bath,
I remember the air rich with the infused fragrance
of rue, the herb of grace. How rich an irony that
this symbol of regret should mirror my own
remorse at the heavy price I paid to be so
immortalised. Wracked by the intense coldness of
the water, my health waned. Yet it was my slavish
devotion to his art that helped Millais to his creativezenith.
Greatness came to me as the muse. I will be
forever Millais's doomed Ophelia and your beatified
Beatrice. But I am Elizabeth Eleanor, esteemed artist
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and poet in my own right. The admiration and
patronage of John Ruskin, testimony to myprecocious talent. In another life, out of the shadow
of great men, I might have earned the acclamation I
desired.
I have born such deep unhappiness and a
frustration you will never understand. You have
been at once my impassioned lover and my eternal
torment. Your love for me punctuated with
infatuation for other slaves to your art. Your 'Fair
Ladies'. Jane Morris, your 'Proserpine' taken from
the arms of her husband William, and Fanny
Cornforth, plucked like me from obscurity to grace
your canvasses and your bed.
Such irony that you, the great devotee of
Dante, with his singular devotion to the elusive
Beatrice, should be so complete an antithesis. Your
life and work enriched by tangible lovers eachscarred by their own imperfections.
And yet I have loved you with a singular
passion, my devotion evident for all to see.
Conversely, your fascination for me a stepping stone
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to great art. Beata Beatrix, my eternal memorial,
and your revered masterpiece to enduring love andI would chance contrition.
Now in the moment of my death, the time is
come to put aside past cares and prepare to
embrace my heavenly life as revealed to the eyes of
my spirit. Death, I surrender to you. See I make
way for the coming of paradise. I am at that point
from which there is no return. I am in ecstasy.
The angel at my head holds in her palm the
flickering flame of life. Would that it were soon
extinguished that I might find happiness in the life
to come. Such a delicate flame, how easily it could
be snuffed out, my spirit ascending like the rising
smoke. Yet while it burns it illumines my scarlet
hair, the glorious tresses so beloved by you. My
locks shine out, in contrast to the earthy hues of my
robes. The green and grey so reminiscent of hopeand sorrow, life and
love.
My hands are
open to receive the
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messenger who summons me to my impending fate.
Heavenly dove you bring the poppies whose blessedlaudanum eased my troubled years and will unlock
my coming destiny.
It haunts me that even at the moment of my
blessed release from earthly suffering, you see me
not as Lizzie but Beatrice. You would deny me even
in death. For in the shadows I feel the all-
consuming presence of Dante Aligheri, keeping
silent vigil as his true love Beatrice prepares for
death. He watches as the sundial foretells the hour
of her passing....
'Creep shadow creep
The hour of death foretell.
I cannot halt you,
So you may as well'.
This was a perfect, idealized love, the kind of whichI do not think you could ever know. He yearns for
Beatrice, his love courtly, like knights of old. She is
a distant obsession, never sullied by the coming
together of their flesh. Dante's love is pure but total.
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So keenly does he feel the loss of this unrequited
love, he believes all Florence to be desolate.'Quomodo sedet sola civitas'...'How doth the city sit
solitary'. Would that I could be so respected and
mourned. And yet whilst your devotion is flawed, I
still have known a love which is passionate,
consummated and fulfilled.
Chance that our daughter had lived, and you
had idolised me with a singular devotion, fate might
well have dealt to me a different hand.
All I ask of you at this late hour is, be not
consumed with remorse and guilt, but rather, when
you look upon this face, smile and remember me.
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Ophelia by Millais.
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PRIL LOVE
First love, so sweet and yet so bitter. I have felt that
passion that may only come once in a lifetime. My
heart has beaten as one with yours and my eyes
have longed to gaze into your very soul and see my
love mirrored in return. Every waking hour has
been filled with a yearning to be in your arms, and
feel your lips pressed closely against mine. Your
sweet kisses the tangible sign of our great love, but
also a prelude to still greater passion.
I was blind to all but you. I moved within a
world where only you and I existed. Our earthly
paradise, unsullied by other mortals. Every moment
of that time, a cherished memory that will stay with
me forever.
How my heart would pound when you
looked upon me, and race to the feel of your touch.
My trembling body, helpless to the feel of your hot
breath upon my face. The words we spoke during
those moments of passion, are etched into my very
soul. They are the lyrical refrain to my first taste of
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love.
Blinded by such intense passion and longing,I never once thought that this would not last
forever. This, I believed was a perfect love.
Nurtured from the early days of Spring, it should
have blossomed through all the seasons of our lives.
Everlasting like the ivy.
But now, in the fullness of time, I see more
clearly. The tears I have shed have washed the
scales from my eyes. Mine was a passion far deeper
than yours, and more enduring. The season when
you felt love for me, has passed. Like the faded rose
petals strewn on the ground, a thing of fleeting
beauty.
I cannot move on. I am trapped in hopeless
self-pity, nursing my broken heart. I feel the dull
rhythm of its beat so clearly through my bosom. No
more shall it race in eager expectation of yourembraces.
Would that I might break out of the shadows
and into the light, but I am trapped, destined to be
in this moment forever. And crueller still, I feel
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your presence in the shadows at my side. What
would I give to turn and look upon that face againand see my love returned. But this is not my
destiny. I shall remain forever young with a
haunting beauty that will captivate those who
chance upon my fate.