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| Waller Hugh Paton Railway Bridge over River Cart, Paisley 1857 oil on canvas Yale Center for British Art |
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| James Tissot The Circle of the Rue Royale 1868 oil on canvas Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Alexander Schramm The Gilbert Family 1864 oil on canvas, mounted on panel Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide |
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| Armand Guillaumin View of the Seine, Paris 1871 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
Chorus:
If only our fate were ours to choose you would see me on
quiet waters where the airs are gentle a full sail but a
light wind no more than a breath easy voyage that is
best no blast no smashed rigging no flogging downwind into
cliffs under surge nothing recovered no vanishing in
mid ocean
give me a quiet voyage neither under cliffs nor too far out
on the black water where the depth opens the middle course
is the safe one the only life easily on to a calm end
surrounded by gains
– from Seneca's Oedipus, translated by Ted Hughes (1969)
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| Eugène Boudin Beach at Trouville 1865 oil on cardboard Musée d'Orsay, Paris |
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| Eugène Boudin Beach at Trouville 1867 oil on canvas National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo |
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| Eugène Boudin Lady in White on the Beach at Trouville 1869 oil on panel Musée d'art moderne André Malraux, Le Havre |
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| Alfred Sisley Snow at Louveciennes 1874 oil on canvas Phillips Collection, Washington DC |
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| Winslow Homer In the Mountains ca. 1877 oil on canvas Brooklyn Museum |
Chorus:
foolish Icarus he thought he could fly
it was a dream
tried to crawl across the stars
loaded with his crazy dream his crazy paraphernalia
the wings the wax and the feathers
up and up and up
saw eagles beneath him saw his enormous shadow on the clouds beneath him
met the sun face to face
fell
his father Daedalus was wiser he flew lower
he kept under clouds in the shadow of the clouds
the same crazy equipment but the dream different
till Icarus dropped past him out of the belly of a cloud
past him
down
through emptiness
a cry dwindling
a splash
tiny in the middle of the vast sea
– from Seneca's Oedipus, translated by Ted Hughes (1969)
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| Jean-François Millet Cliffs of Gréville 1871 pastel Ohara Museum of Art, Kurashiki, Japan |
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| Gustave Caillebotte The Orange Trees 1878 oil on canvas Museum of Fine Arts, Houston |
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| Wilhelm Trübner On the Sofa 1878 oil on canvas Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin |
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| Antonio Mancini Il Saltimbanco 1879 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
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| Arnold Böcklin Spring Evening 1879 oil on panel Museum of Fine Arts, Budapest |
It is true that men are clever.
But the least of gods is cleverer than their best.
And it was here, before God's hands
(Moons poised either side of the world's agate)
You overreached yourself, Patroclus.
Yes, my darling,
Not only God was out that day but Lord Apollo.
'You know how he loves the Trojans, so,
No Matter how, how much, how often, or how easily you win,
Once you have forced them back, you stop.'
Remember it Patroclus? Or was it years ago
Achilles cautioned you outside the tent?
Remembering or not you stripped Sarpedon's gear
That glittered like the sea's far edge at dawn,
Ordered your borrowed Myrmidons to drag him off
And went for Troy alone.
And God turned to Apollo, saying:
'Mousegod, take my Sarpedon out of range
And clarify his wounds with mountain water,
Moisten his body with tinctures of white myrrh
And the sleeping iodine, and when the chrysms dry,
Fold him in minivers that never wear
And lints that never fade,
And call my two blind footmen, Sleep and Death,
And let them carry him to Lycia by Taurus,
Where his tribe, playing stone chimes and tambourines,
Will consecrate his royal death as fits a man
Before whose memory even the stones shall fade.'
And Apollo took Sarpedon out of range,
And clarified his wounds with mountain water.
Moistened his body with tinctures of white myrrh
And the sleeping iodine, and when the chrysms dried
The Mousegod folded him in minivers that never wear
And lint that never fades,
And fetched the two blind footmen, Sleep and Death,
And saw they carried him, as fits a man
Before whose memory even the stones shall fade,
To Lycia by Taurus.
– from the Iliad of Homer, book 16, translated by Christopher Logue (1963)