Nijinsky’s “Lamento di Narciso”
I don't like everything but Debussy's L'après-midi d'un faune ("The Afternoon of a Faun") is spinning away on the stereo. It is a ballet and seems interesting enough. The Encyclopedia Mythica says this about satyrs and fauns:
[Satyrs are] deities of the woods and mountains. They are half human and half beast; they usually have a goat's tail, flanks and hooves. While the upper part of the body is that of a human, they also have the horns of a goat. They are the companions of Dionysus, the god of wine, and they spent their time drinking, dancing, and chasing nymphs. The Italian version of the satyr is the faun, while the Slavic version is the Ljeschi.
There are paintings of different artist's ideas of what they might have looked like. The famous Russian ballet dancer Vaslav Nijinsky made L’Après-midi d’un Faune famous in Paris (1911) by dancing as satyr.
Here is some art I find interesting, the first is a painting by the Art Deco painter Leon Bakst. The ballet was a great scandal, the people of the time thought it terribly pornographic and rude. One critic wrote, "We have had a faun … with vile movements of erotic bestiality and gestures of heavy shamelessness." Yes, I want to be bestial and shameless, too. Instead I became self-indulgence and reflective. That is how Narcissus' Lament came about. Still, I found an actual photo of Nijinsky taken years and years ago, my! What fun!
I never told you, but when I was much younger I wanted to be a ballet dancer. Of course I never did, I ended up working with words instead of muscles. My friend Marco De Ambrogi translated my little poem into Italian for me. Now if I could only get Nijinsky to dance it:
"Lamento di Narciso"
Tu non puoi
Guardarti in queste
Onde, tutto
Si muove così veloce. La mia
Faccia, sciupata
Da galleggianti
Fiori marini.