In the Greek version of the myth, Laodamia’s actions are dictated by the love she feels towards her husband. Her life ends when his life ends. It is perhaps Ovid who best phrases Laodamias relationship and feelings towards her husband in his Heroides, with Laodamia saying to Protesilaus:
“If thou hast any care for me, have a care for thyself. ”
Laodamias love can be seen as a form of weakness, a burden upon her soul. The need to have her husband with her is most evident in her creation of a ‘bronze likeness’ of her husband, which she worships in his stead. Love can thus, in the eyes of the ancient Greeks, be a weakness so debilitating that it may result in one owns death were the afflication too great.
In Wordsworth’s poem, we can see that the poet seems to share this sentiment. Upon the request of Laodamia for Protesilaus to kiss her (“Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss ”), interestingly enough, “Jove frowned in heaven: ”. This seems to be the central point of the whole poem. There …show more content…
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Yes, the distance between Laodamia and the gods is great, but not untraversable. Because of this, Wordsworth sympathises with her, understands her decisions yet is unable to comfort either her, or the reader. Through this poem, we are given a view of the peak towering far above us and how difficult the climb is. So difficult, in fact, that some perish on the journey.
In Lord Byrons work, ‘Childe Harolds Pilgrimage’, the poet brings forth a much different sentiment about love than that of Wordsworth’s through a number of stanzas that share a great deal of similarities with a certain portion of Homer’s Odyssey. In the second canto of the work, stanzas 17 to
“If thou hast any care for me, have a care for thyself. ”
Laodamias love can be seen as a form of weakness, a burden upon her soul. The need to have her husband with her is most evident in her creation of a ‘bronze likeness’ of her husband, which she worships in his stead. Love can thus, in the eyes of the ancient Greeks, be a weakness so debilitating that it may result in one owns death were the afflication too great.
In Wordsworth’s poem, we can see that the poet seems to share this sentiment. Upon the request of Laodamia for Protesilaus to kiss her (“Give, on this well-known couch, one nuptial kiss ”), interestingly enough, “Jove frowned in heaven: ”. This seems to be the central point of the whole poem. There …show more content…
”
Yes, the distance between Laodamia and the gods is great, but not untraversable. Because of this, Wordsworth sympathises with her, understands her decisions yet is unable to comfort either her, or the reader. Through this poem, we are given a view of the peak towering far above us and how difficult the climb is. So difficult, in fact, that some perish on the journey.
In Lord Byrons work, ‘Childe Harolds Pilgrimage’, the poet brings forth a much different sentiment about love than that of Wordsworth’s through a number of stanzas that share a great deal of similarities with a certain portion of Homer’s Odyssey. In the second canto of the work, stanzas 17 to