(d) The doorknocker on the entrance to Cocaigne (150). These were simply the nude figures of Adam and Eve. Jurgen, being conventional, and yet seeking sin, is embarrassed at the nude, and thinks it is indecent; so he talks about it.
Pages 196–200, 203—Jurgen’s meeting, and marriage, with Chloris, the Hamadryad. There is nothing in this does not bear comparison with the “Endymion” of Keats, or the Chorus from Swinburne’s “Atalanta in Calydon”. As to the marriage, see two books in common publication:—Flaubert’s “Temptation of St. Anthony,” Modern Library, p. 226: “These are the deities of marriage. They await the coming of the bride. Domiduca should lead her in,—Virgo unfasten her girdle,—Subigo place her in the bed,—and Praema open her arms, and whisper sweet words into her ear.” Tooke’s “Pantheon of the Heathen Gods, Adapted for the Use of Students of Every Age and of Either Sex,” p. 281: “Jugatinus joined the man and the woman together in the yoke of matrimony. Domiducus guided the bride into the bridegroom’s house * * * Priapus, or Mutinus was also reckoned one of the nuptial gods, because in his lap the bride was commanded to sit.”
Pages 271–2, 286—The marriage with the vampire goes no further than passages in Sterne’s Sentimental Journey and the novels of Fielding. The conversation of the vampire leaves things unsaid rather than said. There is no reason for taking in a wrong sense the reference to the sceptre.
Pages 236–9, 241–2. Jurgen’s conversation with the Queen of Philistia is nothing but a take-off on the mediæval—occasionally modern—belief in the magic of numbers. See Baring-Gould’s “Curious Myths of the Middle Ages,” Appendix E, p. 651: “Pythagoras taught that each number had its own peculiar character, virtue and properties. The unit, or the monad, he says, is the principle and the end of all; it is this sublime knot which binds together the chain of causes; it is the symbol of identity, of existence, of conservation, and of general harmony * * * The number Two, or the dyad, the origin of contrasts, is the symbol of diversity, or inequality, of division, and of separation. Two is accordingly an evil principle, characterizing disorder and confusion * * * Three, or the triad, is the number containing the most sublime mysteries, for everything is composed of three substances * * * Nine, or the ennead, being the multiple of Three, should be regarded as sacred. Finally, Ten, or the decad, is the measure of all, since it contains all the numeric relations and harmonies.” “Eight (p. 652) is the number of the Beatitudes.”
Pages 340–3—contain nothing but a statement of the fact that Venus, as a cult, has her followers and her temples,—nothing that poets of times past have not told us again and again. The temples existed, and are mentioned freely in all books of classical mythology.
We are almost at the end of Mr. Sumner’s particulars; but there are two that deserve notice.
He finds obscenity on pages 228–9. There we find Jurgen standing at the bed of the sleeping Helen, but leaving her untouched, because he wants to retain his “unreasonable dreams”. If this is obscenity, then indeed Keats wrote in lewdest mood the “Eve of St. Agnes”.
And Mr. Sumner finds obscenity on page 142. What do we find there? We find Jurgen kneeling before a crucifix!
And there let us leave the case.