Selected Writings (Dario, Ruben) (70 page)

Olympus:
In Greek mythology, home of the gods.

Ossa upon Pelion:
In the
Odyssey
(XI, 315), when the Giants tried to scale heaven, they set Ossa upon Pelion (or Pelion upon Ossa, depending on how this expression is transmitted) to make a scaling ladder. These are two peaks in Thessaly.

Oton:
(
See
ELCIIS.)

Ovid:
(43 B.C.-17 A.D.) “Art for pleasure’s sake.” At the age of fifty, Publius Ovidius Naso, Roman lawyer and poet, was banished from an easy life in the court of Caesar Augustus to spend his last ten years at Tomi (or Tomis, now Constanta), a seaport in Romania. Ovid found life away from Rome uninspiring, and his final poems and letters are tinged with remorse and sadness. Fortunately he had already completed his masterpiece, a harmonious rendering of Greek and Roman mythology, written in perfect hexameters, that he called the
Metamorphoses
. Darío’s swans, beloved by Apollo, are perfect exemplars of the potential for unpredictable and often violent change that Ovid (and Darío) found in all creatures—human, animal, mythological or poetical.

Palenque:
Mexican village, site of ancient Mayan ruins.

Palisse, M. de la:
M. de la Palisse is the protagonist of a French song first sung during the sixteenth century. The real de la Palisse was a soldier killed at the battle of Pavie in 1525, under the reign of François I. The jingle sung by the other soldiers went like this:
M. de la Palisse est mort, // Mort devant Pavie. // Un quart d’heure avant sa mort // Il était encore en vie!
(M. de la Palisse is dead / Dead at the battle of Pavie // A quarter of an hour before his death / He was alive as you or me!) As the years passed, more and more verses were added to the song, and it was published in the eighteenth century; now some scholars have documented more than fifty verses.

Palma, J[osé] J[oaquín]:
(Cuba; 1844-1911) Poet and educator who, after fighting in the War of 1868, fled Cuba and went finally to Guatemala, where he lived out his days. Palma composed the Guatemalan national anthem.

Pan:
Elemental Greek goatherd, minor deity of mirth, and prankster who allegedly spent his days and nights in drunken revelries with the Maeneds and any other nymphs he could catch, playing his flute. He dressed himself in virgin white fleece and seduced Semele, goddess of the moon, and reluctantly taught Apollo the art of prophecy.

Pandora:
“All-gifted,” Pandora was the first mortal woman. Each of the gods contributed a favorite trait to her, including an overdose of curiosity from Hera which led her to open the jar or box she had been entrusted with, containing all the evils of the world. When the evils flew out, the legend has it, only Hope remained.

Paracelsus:
(
nom de plume
of Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim; German; 1490-1541) “Paracelsus” means “above/superior to Celsus,” the famous first-century writer and physician. Paracelsus studied alchemy and chemistry and wrote a number of treatises on medical and alchemical processes and theory. He was an innovator, and apparently by nature mistrustful of authority and tradition, which led him into disputes with many of the leading “scientists” of his time.

Pardo Bazán, Emilia:
(Spain; 1851-1921) Novelist and short story writer; named countess in recognition of her literary achievements. Pardo Bazán was a feminist (which led to the breakup of her marriage) and militated for improvement in the situation of women, especially working women. Her novels and stories are naturalistic, dealing generally with the urban underclasses (for the first time in the history of Spanish literature); her style is polished. Late in life her novels took on religious overtones, perhaps under the influence of the Russians, whom she read approvingly.

Pardo, Miguel Eduardo:
(Venezuela; 1868-1905) Author of poetry, novels, plays, short stories, and criticism best known for
Todo un pueblo
(1899), a Naturalist social satire of life in Caracas.

Parnassians:
A group of late-nineteenth-century French poets in reaction to the Romantics. Led by THÉOPHILE GAUTIER, LECONTE DE LISLE, CATULLE MENDÈS, etc., the tenets of the group’s aesthetics were that art was an end in itself (art for art’s sake, with poetry being almost a religion, an idea that struck many at the time as shockingly “decadent”), that the poet was like a sculptor (hence analogies with the plastic arts), and that poetry should be objective, with the poet’s personality or ego eliminated. Some of the forms used were renovations of older forms: the
ballade, rondeau,
and
villanelle,
for example.

Passerat, Jean:
(1534-1602) Though also known for political satire, French poet Passerat was best known for his charming, lightsome poetry.

Pasteur, Louis:
(France; 1822-1895) World-renowned French chemist and biologist, who founded the science of microbiology, proved the germ theory of disease, invented the process of pasteurization, and developed vaccines for several diseases, including rabies.

Patmos:
Volcanic island in the Aegean Sea, where the exiled Christian disciple St. John wrote his Apocalypse (Revelations).

Payne, John:
(British; 1842-1916) Poet and distinguished translator not just of the
1001 Nights
(1882-84), for which he is famous, but also Boccaccio, French poetry (especially François Villon), and Arabic and Persian texts, including some by Omar Khayyam. Some say his translation of the Nights is a bit ponderous, but it has the virtue of being translated “from the original Arabic,” a claim that many English (and other) translators cannot make, as many translations were rendered from GALLAND.

Pegasus:
Winged horse, born of the sea-foam and the blood of the slaughtered Medusa. When Bellerophon attempted to ride him to heaven, and was thrown off by an angry Zeus, the horse kept on flying and became a constellation.

Péladan, Joséphin:
(1858-1919) French poet. Born into a Lyonnaise family fascinated by alchemy, magnetism (at the time an “occult” power), homeopathy, science, literature, and Christian mysticism, Péladan became a Rosicrucian and published a novel on occult themes, making him famous. In Paris, he fell in with a group of Occultists and attempted to organize a Rosicrucian chapter there. Interestingly, Péladan organized art shows that became very popular, as they drew heavily on the Pre-Raphaelite and Symbolist schools. Péladan is also known for his writing of mystico-Catholic and occultist poetry.

Pelion:
(
See
OSSA.)

Penthesilea:
Queen of the Amazons, slain by Achilles.

Petronius:
(27-66 A.D.) The Imperator Nero’s
arbiter elegantiae,
and alleged author of the
Satyricon,
which described, among other things, the sexual carnival that was Rome. “This is what Romans read for entertainment,” writes one commentator. Petronius was once the consul of Bithynia, and then fell into a life of indolence and luxury, often reversing night and day. Betrayed by a rival and arrested, he cut his own wrists. “He made dying a leisurely procedure, attended by festivity. . . .”

Philegon:
A first-century historian. His
Chronicles
have been lost, but he is mentioned and quoted by Africanus and Origen.

Phocás:
Darío’s nickname for his infant son, Rubén Darío Sánchez, taken from a poem by the French poet Vielé-Griffín. The child died in 1904 from pneumonia.

Pichot Gironés, Ramón:
(Barcelona; 1872-1925) He began studies in Barcelona and continued them in Paris, and in 1894 he gave his first show in Barcelona, at the Fine Arts Exposition, where he was awarded an Honorable Mention. A painter mainly of local color who was well received by both critics and collectors, he was influenced by Parisian Modernism, which had been introduced to Barcelona by RUSIÑOL and CASAS.

Pindar:
(522-438 B.C.) “Words have a longer life than deeds.” Theban poet-for-hire who wrote paeans, religious hymns, and hundreds of victory odes in honor of winners at various games.

Pléiade:
A group of young sixteenth-century French poets, with Ronsard and Du Bellay those best remembered today, who sought to renew French poetry through imitation of Greek and Latin writers; they became the models for French Renaissance poetry. Because there were seven poets in the group, Ronsard gave them the name
Pléiade
after the group of stars in the constellation Taurus. By asserting that there is no “pléiade” of
modernista
poets, Darío both rejects the general notion of a school and, by ironically harking back to the renovators of French poetry, admits that there is such a “conspiracy” afoot.

Poil de Carotte:
Title character in a popular novel (1894) by Jules Renard (1864-1910), Poil de Carotte (carrot-top) was a miserably unhappy child of miserably unhappy-together parents. Renard and others made the novel into a play and several films.

Porfirio Díaz:
Full name: José de la Cruz PORFIRIO DÍAZ (Mexico; 1830-1915) Dictator who ruled Mexico from 1876 until 1911 (with the exception of one four-year period), Díaz was of Mixtec Indian and Spanish ancestry. An army officer with humble rural roots, he became something of a hero due to his participation in the war against the French, where he won several important victories. In 1876 he overthrew the government of President Sebastián Lerdo de Tejada. Initially, he advanced a platform of reform, using the slogan “No Reelection” (for the President). After appointing himself President on November 29, 1876, he served one term and then dutifully stepped down in favor of Manuel González, one of his underlings. The four-year period that followed was marked by corruption and official incompetence, so that when Díaz declared his candidacy for the next election he was a welcome replacement, and there was no remembrance of his “No Reelection” slogan. In the event, Díaz had the constitution amended, first to allow two terms in office, and then to remove all restrictions on reelections. Díaz embarked on a program of modernization, attempting to bring Mexico up to the level of a modern state. His principal advisers were of a type called
científicos,
akin to modern economists, because they espoused a program of “scientific” modernization. This included the building of railroad and telegraph lines across the country and the construction of factories in Mexico City. In 1910, elections were held. FRANCISCO I. MADERO ran against Díaz for president. Madero quickly gathered much popular support, but when the official results were announced by the government, Díaz was proclaimed to have been reelected almost unanimously, with Madero garnering only a minuscule number of votes. This massive electoral fraud aroused widespread anger. Madero called for revolt against Díaz, and the Mexican Revolution began. Díaz was forced from office and fled the country in 1911. He died in exile in Paris in 1915; he is buried there in the Cimetière du Montparnasse.

Poussin, Nicolas:
(France; 1594-1665) The great master of the classic school of painting in Europe (Poussin worked mainly in Rome), Poussin is famed for his paintings of mythological, historical, and religious subjects. His style is incomparably clean and effortless appearing, with his ambition being to approach the calm, measured grace of classical sculpture. Though unquestionably masterful, even virtuoso, and immensely influential, his principles later became the basis of a sterile academicism.

Pythagoras/Pythagoreanism:
(sixth century B.C.) Greek philosopher and mathematician. Born in Samos, he is sometimes represented as a man of science, sometimes as a preacher of mystical doctrines. Mistrust and jealousy forced him to flee from the religious/scientific community he had founded at Kroton, and he died in exile. The main tenets of his philosophy are that music is related to health; bodies, like musical instruments, are strung to a certain pitch; all things are numbers; and men can be classified as being lovers of wisdom, honor, or gain.

Quevedo [y Villegas], Francisco de:
(Spain; 1580-1645) Poet, satirist, moralist, novelist, Quevedo is unquestionably one of the greatest and most prolific of Spanish writers. Jorge Luis Borges said that Quevedo was “more than a writer, a vast literature unto himself.” He was never, perhaps, as popular as Cervantes or Lope de Vega, no doubt because of his complicated (tortured) style (
conceptismo
; see also GRACIÁN); he was also a master of the grotesque, as shown in his
Sueños
(
Visions
) and
La vida del buscón
(the Swindler).

Quijano, Alonso:
The “real” name of Don Quixote de la Mancha (the hero of Miguel de Cervantes’ famous novel) before he goes mad and begins his adventures; Quijano was a man of the lower, more or less impoverished nobility who lived a quiet life until his reading of chivalric romances convinced him that the world was filled with magi, knights-errant, etc.

Quillard, Pierre:
(France; 1864-1912) One of the Symbolist/Decadent writers (poet, playwright, and translator) of fin-de-siècle France, he contributed writings to the
Mercure de France
from 1891 to his death. He believed in the relationship between anarchy and art, and was also a graphic artist of some note.

Rachilde:
(
Nom de plume
of Marguerite Eymery; France; 1860-1953) Rachilde wrote over sixty works of fiction, drama, poetry, memoir, and criticism, including
Monsieur Vénus,
one of the most famous examples of decadent fiction (the novel is filled with sex reversals and steamy eroticism, though it is tame by today’s standards). She was closely associated with the literary journal
Mercure de France,
inspired parts of Oscar Wilde’s
The Picture of Dorian Gray,
and mingled with all the literary lights of the day.

Rameau, Jean Philippe:
(France; 1683-1764) Composer and organist.

Ranvier (Infancy of Bacchus):
Joseph Victor Ranvier, French painter, 1832-1896; the somewhat saccharine painting discussed in this essay was reproduced in lithographs and etchings countless times in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.