Modern American Poetry

(^378) Louis L. Martz
(Note the rich pun on “content.”) Delia of Miletus: why Miletus? It was the
greatest of all Greek cities at one time, standing on the Turkish shore of the
Aegean Sea, home of the earliest Greek philosophers, the pre-Socratics:
where else would one go to seek the sources of wisdom? It was also a city
famous for poets, one of which claimed to be a direct disciple of Homer. And
it was the birthplace of one of the earliest female intellectuals in recorded
history—the famous Aspasia, noted for her learning, her wit, and her beauty.
But more important, it was the city that sponsored the nearby temple of
Apollo at Didyma, one of the largest shrines ever built in the Greek world,
famous for the words of its prophetess. Yes, H.D. knew all the resources of
that word Miletus.
So Delia of Miletus becomes a priestess who speaks wisdom, but it is
a wisdom understood only by her deepest inner self, not by the outside
world, which sees her as a pure, beneficent, and dignified figure, but does
not know the anguished inner self. Even when they glimpse what they
would call her eccentricities, such as her refusal to write about war, they
misunderstand:
I answered circumspectly,
claiming no
virtue
that helped the wounded
and no fire
that sung of battle ended,
then they said,
ah she is modest, she is purposeful,
and nominated for the Herald’s place,
one
Delia of Miletus. (CP,372)
And when they learn that she has gone into the wild wood at night to gather
strange herbs and fruit, they see only the outward effects of her times of
inward anger, bitterness, and despair.
tasting leaf and root,
I thought at times of poison,
hoped that I
might lie deep in the tangle,
tasting the hemlock