Invoking Hecate_a

From "Orpheus;  Liber Tertius vel Laboris"
"Collected Works" iii p. 177

O triple form of darkness! Sombre splendour!
    Thou moon unseen of Men! _b Thou huntress dread!  
    Thou crownèd demon of the crownless dead!  
O breasts of blood, too bitter and too tender!  
    Unseen of gentle spring,  
    Let me the offering  
    Bring to thy shrine's sepulchral c glittering!  
I slay the swart beast! I bestow the bloom  
Sown in the dusk, and gathered in the gloom  
    Under the waning moon,  
        At midnight hardly lightening the East;  
And the black lamb from the black ewe's dead womb d  
    I bring, and stir the slow infernal tune  
        Fit for thy chosen priest.

Here where the band of Ocean breaks the road  
    Black-trodden, deeply-stooping, to the abyss,  
    I shall salute thee with the nameless kiss a  
Pronounced toward the uttermost abode  
    Of thy supreme desire.  
    I shall illume the fire  
    Whence thy wild stryges_b shall obey the lyre,  
Whence thy Lemurs c shall gather and spring round,  
Girdling me in the sad funeral ground  
    With faces turnèd back,  
        My face averted! d I shall consummate  
The awful act of worship, O renowned
    Fear upon earth, and fear in hell, and black  
        Fear in the sky beyond Fate!

I hear the whining of thy wolves! I hear  
    The howling of the hounds about thy form,  
    Who comest in the terror of thy storm,  
And night falls faster ere thine eyes appear  
    Glittering through the mist.  
    O face of woman unkissed  
    Save by the dead whose love is taken ere they wist! e  
Thee, thee I call! O dire one! O divine!  
I, the sole mortal, seek thy deadly shrine,  
    Pour the dark stream of blood,  
    A sleepy and reluctant river  
Even as thou drawest, with thine eyes on mine,  
    To me across the sense-bewildering flood  
        That holds my soul for ever!

[OP]

     a Hecate: A triple goddess, as the moon called Luna, as the earth called Diana, as the underworld called Hecate or Persephone. As Hecate she represents darkness and terror of the night; found at cross-roads, where three roads meet, and in graveyards too. A goddess of dark female sorcery and witchcraft. Perceived by barking dogs whilst still invisible to humans.

     b moon unseen of men: This dark goddess in her aspect of the moon when  not visible from Earth. The dark moon.

     c sepulchral: something pertaining to a sepulchre, a grave, a tomb.

     d the black lamb from the black ewe's dead womb: the ghastly sacrifice then: slaying a pregnant black lamb (ewe) and bringing the unborn beast before the goddess on her bloody altar. Se Frazer and other sources of classical priest-craft.

     a the nameless kiss: quite a legend in magical tradition especially in witchcraft, goes from buttock-kissing and so called "rimming" to air-kissing.

     b stryges: also spelled "striges," descendants of the Harpies, vampires that attack especially the young, and especially to rob their virginity of body and soul, and lead them through the portals of Hell.

     c Lemurs: the spirits of the dead, a Roman concept, a festival, the Lemuria, on 9^th, 11^th, and 13^th May held for these "ghosts."

     d Hinting at the very old idea of the dead being able to turn their heads backwards, and seeing thus in another direction, found again and again in the tradition, also in modern times where the Doctor Faustus in German folk-tradition died with his head thus turned, see also in the film, "The Exorcist".

     e wist: an archaic, poetic form for "thinking so", "wishing," still used in the word "wistful", "thoughtful," "attentive," "pensive," and "longing."

[OP]