Death and Agricultural Decay in "The Garden of Proserpine

Title: Death and Agricultural Decay in “The Garden of Proserpine”

Algernon Swinburne pens the desolate poem, “The Garden of Proserpine” evoking the gloom of life in the Underworld. He however poeticizes death by personifying and deifying it as Proserpine, Goddess of the Underworld, while using nature/garden to stress the blight of death as a disorder in nature. “Most obviously, the queen of the Underworld, the maiden who goes down to Hades and rises again, evokes the issues of death and immortality which are so prominently discussed throughout the Victorian age” (Louis 313). By delving into the myth behind Proserpine we gain greater understanding of the poem, themes, imagery and concerns. As a child of the Victorian era, Swinburne rejects religion in favour of atheism, skepticism and Greek mythology. It must be noted that Proserpine is the wife of Pluto, god of the Underworld while her mother is Ceres, mother earth, hence one can observe the merger of both death and agriculture themes.

“The Garden of Proserpine” employs agricultural imagery to reinforce the reversal of Nature and the absence of her life-giving force. The Garden of Eden is a paradisiacal setting where rivers of life flow, the rivers sustain lush vegetation and abundant fruit. The antithesis of the Garden of Eden is the Garden of Proserpine. Proserpine’s blighted garden is ravaged by death, infertility, and famine. Death is personified and feminised as Proserpine, the Grimm Reaper. She is the daughter of Ceres who is mother earth, the garden and fertility. According to the Encyclopedia Mythica, the root of her name comes from the Greek proserpere which means to emerge, and in this agricultural context means to creep forth, or germinate. This term conveys the plant growth. The irony is that in Proserpine’s garden, the crop and harvest beget death. The poem is redolent with references to a dead garden: “barren flowers” (l. 14), “bloomless buds” (l. 27), “pale beds” (l. 29), “fruitless fields” (l. 34), “loves that wither” (l. 65) and “ruined springs” (l. 72) point to the perversity of Nature. Because of Proserpine’s morbid and deathly influence, Nature refuses to yield her fruit.

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“The Garden of Proserpine” includes “poppies” (l.27) and a winepress which emphasize both the sleep and the death themes. Proserpine “is a compact of sleep and death, and flowers, but of narcotic flowers especially – a revenant who […] bears always the secret of decay in her, of return to the grave” (Louis 319). According to A Modern Herbal, in Greco-Roman mythology, poppies were traditionally offered to the dead, signifying eternal sleep. The poppy is a wild flower which historically symbolizes sleep and death: sleep, because of its opium content and soporific effect; and death, because of its commonly blood-red colour (Grieve). In the Pagan and Christian tradition, death is likened to a sleep. Indeed, in tandem with this comparison, Proserpine’s garden becomes “the sleepy world of streams / … (and) dead dreams” (l.8) while the fallen “bow themselves and slumber” (l. 35). At the end of the poem, deathly dreams end in a “sleep eternal in an eternal night” (l. 95-96). Death is portrayed as a sleep because of the state of unconsciousness experienced and prevailing darkness. In Proserpine’s garden lies a vinery and winepress. Grapes and wine have many meanings: they are “a sacrificial symbol” (Unwin 66), symbolize “death” (Unwin 60), “rebirth” (Unwin 60) and “contact with the gods” (Unwin 60). Therefore one can link these symbols of wine as they pertain to the myth of Proserpine for Proserpine’s winepress represents an instrument of human sacrifice from which men’s blood is squeezed. Wine symbolizes death since it has a blood red-purple colour. Likewise just as there is blood in death, no one is born into this world without blood, therefore, there is the connotation of birth and rebirth. Finally, wine is imbibed by the Greco-roman gods at banquets, orgies and by Christ himself signifying the human-god communion. Hence one can say that grapes and wine are emblems of richness, life, sacrifice, revelry and celebration, however, in this poem, at Proserpine’s winery, dead men are likened to “green grapes of Proserpine, (whom) […] she crushes/ For dead men deadly wine” (l. 28-32).

In Proserpine’s garden, time is man’s mortal enemy as it works to his destruction. Proserpine, the Grimm Reaper “gathers all things mortal/ With cold immortal hands” (l.51-52). Time and seasons go awry for “the summer song rings hollow” (l. 64) and “today will die to-morrow” (l. 75). However, in the Underworld, time ceases to exist. Man is not in control of time and since he has no dominion over time, he has no power over his fate. “Time stoops to no man’s lure” (l. 96). Sooner or later mankind must fall into Proserpine’s hands and garden. Swinburne highlights inevitability of death and man’s innate mortal nature for “no life lives forever” (l. 17), hence, time becomes the oppressor and man only bides his hours on earth until death approaches. Proserpine “waits for all men born” (l. 58) for death is imminent, and inescapable.

Swinburne has a fascination with death and most of his poems fixate on death themes and imagery. In the Underworld beauty is non-existent. The bleak, cheerless aspect and palling darkness pervade the atmosphere. In this accursed garden, there is “no growth of moor or coppice/ No heather-flower or vine” (l. 25) and “flowers are put to scorn” (l. 64). Swinburne reinforces the point that there is no beauty in death. The recurrent pallid colour in the poem refers to deathly sickness. According to Encyclopedia Mythica, the sickly body of water which flows through Proserpine’s garden is the mythological River Styx which means the river of hate. The River Styx separates the living from the dead and conveys the living souls to the other side (Dawson). Allusions to the Styx lie in the verse, “wan waves and wet winds labour/ weak ships and spirits steer” (l. 19-20).

In sum, “The Garden of Proserpine” tells of a poisoned, disordered Nature where there is no life, health, nor beauty. The ground does not give her good yield, the ambience of heavy with sleep, the yearly seasons do not follow their natural order and the prevailing colours are pallor and redness. The poem underscores man’s futility to control his fate, and existence. Since time marches on, gradual decay and desolation result.

Works Cited:

Dawson, Michael. Styx River. Encyclopedia Mythica

<http://www.pantheon.org/articles/s/styx_river.html>

Louis, Margot K. Proserpine and Pessimism: Goddess of Death, Life and Language from

Swinburne to Wharton. Modern Philology. 96.3 (Feb. 1999): 312-46.

Mythology Guide. Pluto and Proserpine.

<http://www.online-mythology.com/pluto_prosperine/>

Swinburne, Algernon. “The Garden of Proserpine” The Broadview Anthology of Victorian

Poetry and Poetic Theory. Broadview Anthologies of English Literature. Ontario,

Broadview Press, 2005. 996-97.

Unwin, P.T.H. Wine and the Vine: An Historical Geography of Viticulture and the Wine Trade.

Routledge 1991, 60-66.