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Apollo and Marsyas |
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| The flaying of Marsyas, by Titian (1575) | ||
| In Greek Myth, the satyr Marsyas was so proud of his playing on the flute that the God Apollo challenged him to a music contest. The God played his lyre while Marsyas continued on his flute. After some trickery by the God, the Muses awarded victory to Apollo. Apollo then took revenge for the effrontery of Marsyas by flaying him alive and pinning up the removed skin on a pine tree. | ||
| The real duel of Apollo with Marsyas (perfect ear versus immense range) is held at dusk when as we already know the judges have already awarded victory to the god tightly bound to a tree meticulously flayed of his skin Marsyas shouts before the shout reaches his tall ears he rests in the shadow of that shout shuddering with disgust Apollo is cleaning his instrument only apparently is the voice of Marsyas monotonous and composed of a single vowel A in reality Marsyas tells of the inexhaustible wealth of his body bald mountains of liver white ravines of aliment rustling forests of lung sweet hills of muscle joints bile blood and shudders the wintry wind of the bone over the salt of memory shuddering with disgust Apollo is cleaning his instrument now to the chorus is joined the backbone of Marsyas in principle the same A only deeper with the addition of rust this is beyond the endurance of the god with nerves of plastic along a gravel path hedged with box-trees the victor departs wondering whether out of Marsyas' howling will not one day arise a new kind of art - let us say - concrete suddenly at his feet falls a petrified nightingale he turns his head and sees that the tree to which Marsyas was tied is white completely (Zbigniew Herbert (1957) translated by John and Bogdana Carpenter ) |
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