Slaves to their Masters

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Slaves to their

Masters

Celia Lord


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Sl

aves to their Masters

First published in Great Britain in 2014 by Lady Lord

Press.

Salisbury Close, Gainsborough

Copyright Celia Lord 2014

The right of The Author to be identified as the author of

this work has been asserted by her in accordance with

the Copyright, Design and Patents Act of 1988

All rights reserved

ISBN 9768-5674-9948

To my Mother, Pat Greatorex, who inspired me to begin

writing again.


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Contents Page

Preface

Mariana by Sir John Everett Millais

Mariana

Beata Beatrix by Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Beata BeatrixApril Love by Arthur Hughes

April Love


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PREF CE

I have often looked at the paintings of the Pre-

Raphaelite group and wondered, 'What if these

women, so famous for their images, could talk?'

'What would they be saying?' Out of that, the idea

for this pamphlet was born. The more I pondered

on this, the more I realised that the women who

modelled for the Pre-Raphaelites or the historical or

fictional characters which inspired them have

fascinating stories of their own. To be trapped

within a canvas, unable to give voice to their stories

and feelings seemed like a gross injustice to me!

Moreover we could learn so much more about

history if we could make these characters speak.

The artists who captured the enduring beauty of

their muses were often household names, especially

in the Victorian era when the Pre-Raphaelite

Brotherhood were at their zenith. However, I have

discovered through in depth research for this

pamphlet, that the lives and loves of the women are

more captivating than those who painted them.


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I realised that they could be described as

'Slaves to their Masters'. Beautiful young womentrapped within their circumstances at a moment in

time by the Masters who portray them. They have

no choice but to be enslaved within the situation in

which they have been cast until eternity. But what

would they wish for if they could escape from that

moment in time? What would they be saying to

their Masters...their creators if they had the chance?

'Mariana' by Sir John Everett Millais is my

first 'slave'. The character of Mariana was created

by William Shakespeare in his comedy 'Measure for

Measure'. Mariana was further developed by

Alfred, Lord Tennyson. Millais captures this noble

lady in hopeless desolation, cut off from the world.

Her dowry has been lost at sea and her lover Angelo

has rejected her. Mariana is forever destined to be

heartbroken and frustrated at the loss of her truelove and her seeming inability to escape from her

ensuing isolation while nursing her broken heart.

Her love is unrequited and she is bound to that

which is not returned. Just as Millais is her master


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was so obsessed by the Florentine poet Dante

Aligheri that he adopted his forename! Thepainting captures the moment when Dante's true

love Beatrice is moving from life into death.

However, I have chosen to give voice not to Beatrice,

the eponymous subject of this work, but rather

Rossetti's wife & muse Lizzie Siddal who posed for

this painting. She was the first 'supermodel', her

looks beloved of several within the Pre-Raphaelite

movement. An artist and poet in her own right she

never achieved the recognition she felt she deserved

and this coupled with enduring ill health, drug

addiction and the ongoing infidelities of Rossetti

turned her into a truly tortured soul. The artist

painted this work as a memorial to Lizzie after her

death using his obsession with Dante as the vehicle.

I felt Lizzie craved recognition and singular love

and wanted to tell Rossetti at the point of her deathabout her true feelings. It seemed to me that she

might resent being cast as Beatrice but would rather

have been recognised in this final work carrying

her image, within her own right.


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shedding tears after heartbreak with her first love.

Hughes has trapped her forever within thismoment, with the lover with who has caused so

much pain, seated in the shadows behind her. It is a

shorter piece of narrative than the two preceding

pieces, but I hope captures the passion of first young

love & its fragility.

Whilst the circumstances of their lives are

different, there are common elements running

through the stories of Mariana, Lizzie and April

Love... themes which are often woven into the

paintings and artistic works of the Pre-Raphaelites.

They include:

Unhealthy addiction and obsession

Cruelty and its results

A moment of transfiguration and change

Passionate and enduring love Unfulfilled hopes and dreams

Suppressed sexuality

This has been a fascinating journey for me, listening


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to Mariana, Lizzie and the beautiful young lady in

April Love and letting them speak. I think I havefallen under their spell!

It is my hope that through this pamphlet, you

too will join me in wondering what might have

become of these women if only they had been

mistresses of their own fate and not the slaves of

their masters!


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M RI N

Why did you bind me forever to this piteous

existence? I am young and some would say quite

beautiful, and so I shall remain. But what use is this

when I am destined to be forever in isolation?

I am Mariana of noble birth, whose status

would have drawn many an admirer. But my love

was for Angelo and our union was celebrated

between our kin.

But cruel fate, you took my dowry and lost it

to the seabed. Then my lover spurned me, for my

beauty alone was not enough. My heart has been

broken, and my world seems at an end. Who now

will want me without riches and bearing the stigma

of rejection? I have no place in a world where

women are prized for their wealth, connections or

vitality. I grow more distant by the day as the world

moves on and I become less and less a part of it. I

am a slave to my love, for he shall remain forever in

my heart. He has put a chain around it which time

shall never break. My mind too remains a captive


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of my lost love.

All is stillness in this silent place, save for therustling of the leaves. They fall about my

needlepoint, but I have no care. Let it lie

abandoned. My eyes are strained through long

hours with the needle and they pain me from the

river of tears I have shed for Angelo.

This was a noble palace, a place of

sumptuous beauty. Rich damask graces the walls,

the patterns echoing the gardens beyond. The

beauty of the stained glass which would delight

many an eye, serves only to taunt my own. The

Blessed Virgins fulfilment, so rich a contrast with

my own frustration and longing. Fine silver graces

the table, placed as for communion.perhaps for a

time when I might slip from the bonds of this

existence and into eternity. I crave a time when

viaticum given, I might slip towards that peacewhich the world cannot give. At present the altar

lamp shines brightly, but at the appointed hour I

pray it might be snuffed out, and my life with it.

But this is no holy place. It is a gilded cage


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from which I cannot flee. In truth, I yearn to be

free, at liberty to love again and feel great passioncoursing through me from a lovers loins. Would

that my glossy velvet dress, like a sumptuous sheath

be ripped from my body, and I might feel the hot

breath of a lover as I submit to ecstasy. Oh that a

lover would caress my ripe curves and thrust into

me with a passion that would leave me gasping for

breath.

As I rise from my rich buffet, it is not the aching in

my back which penetrates my thoughts, but rather

the desire for these curves to love and be loved in

return. Like the needle thrust into the chaste white

flowers of my embroidery, I would that a lover

could pierce my pure body. Forsaken by Angelo, I

dare to dream yet that there may be another who

will break the chains around my heart and loins,

placed there by Angelo, and set me free. I wouldnot then contemplate liberty from my captive state,

through death.

Look upon this body Blessed Gabriel and see

that it too awaits an annunciation. Tell me the good


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news I yearn to hear, and break me free from the

isolation which defines my existence. I amenslaved bound to unrequited love. Free me I

beseech you, that I may live as I would wish, loved

and fulfilled. Or let me slip from this world to a

heaven where there is rest in coelo quies.

Good Gabriel, gather up the fallen leaves

which lie around and replace my Autumn with

another Spring. Like the snowdrop in the window-

pane give me a sign that for me too new life will

come and break me from this piteous existence to

which I seem forever cast.


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BE T BE TRIX

It is come! The hour of my death...blessed relief

from the torture of suffering. A time more welcome

than any before. Do not wish me to stay, for my

soul is ready to take flight and seek that peace

which the world cannot give. You would have me

cast forever in the transfiguration between life and

death, whereas I yearn for heavenly ascendance.

Look upon my face. See is it not already prepared to

enter into eternity? Who are you to bind me to this

moment forever? If you have love for me, let me

go!

And yet, whose face is it that you see when

you gaze upon me? Your obsession with another,

has cast me forever as your idol Dante's Beatrice.

Many times in life you sketched me, Lizzie, in this

pose, but now at the moment of my death it is to the

memory of that great poet Dante's true love

Beatrice, that I am forever bound. Perchance I

should have pleasure in being so greatly esteemed,

but I would have you idolize Lizzie and put me on


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the eternal pedestal whereon you have set Beatrice.

Am I not worthy in your eyes to be venerated withinmy own right? For I am surely the face that

captivated a generation, the muse of great artists.

Those who gaze upon their works may not know

my name, but they will know my face. It will haunt

them forever. For greatest of all, I am Millais's

'Ophelia', tormented lover of Hamlet. I was a slave

to Millais's art. For long hours I lay in cold water

whilst his oils captured my fragile beauty. Amongst

the many blooms scattered over me in that icy bath,

I remember the air rich with the infused fragrance

of rue, the herb of grace. How rich an irony that

this symbol of regret should mirror my own

remorse at the heavy price I paid to be so

immortalised. Wracked by the intense coldness of

the water, my health waned. Yet it was my slavish

devotion to his art that helped Millais to his creativezenith.

Greatness came to me as the muse. I will be

forever Millais's doomed Ophelia and your beatified

Beatrice. But I am Elizabeth Eleanor, esteemed artist


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and poet in my own right. The admiration and

patronage of John Ruskin, testimony to myprecocious talent. In another life, out of the shadow

of great men, I might have earned the acclamation I

desired.

I have born such deep unhappiness and a

frustration you will never understand. You have

been at once my impassioned lover and my eternal

torment. Your love for me punctuated with

infatuation for other slaves to your art. Your 'Fair

Ladies'. Jane Morris, your 'Proserpine' taken from

the arms of her husband William, and Fanny

Cornforth, plucked like me from obscurity to grace

your canvasses and your bed.

Such irony that you, the great devotee of

Dante, with his singular devotion to the elusive

Beatrice, should be so complete an antithesis. Your

life and work enriched by tangible lovers eachscarred by their own imperfections.

And yet I have loved you with a singular

passion, my devotion evident for all to see.

Conversely, your fascination for me a stepping stone


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to great art. Beata Beatrix, my eternal memorial,

and your revered masterpiece to enduring love andI would chance contrition.

Now in the moment of my death, the time is

come to put aside past cares and prepare to

embrace my heavenly life as revealed to the eyes of

my spirit. Death, I surrender to you. See I make

way for the coming of paradise. I am at that point

from which there is no return. I am in ecstasy.

The angel at my head holds in her palm the

flickering flame of life. Would that it were soon

extinguished that I might find happiness in the life

to come. Such a delicate flame, how easily it could

be snuffed out, my spirit ascending like the rising

smoke. Yet while it burns it illumines my scarlet

hair, the glorious tresses so beloved by you. My

locks shine out, in contrast to the earthy hues of my

robes. The green and grey so reminiscent of hopeand sorrow, life and

love.

My hands are

open to receive the


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messenger who summons me to my impending fate.

Heavenly dove you bring the poppies whose blessedlaudanum eased my troubled years and will unlock

my coming destiny.

It haunts me that even at the moment of my

blessed release from earthly suffering, you see me

not as Lizzie but Beatrice. You would deny me even

in death. For in the shadows I feel the all-

consuming presence of Dante Aligheri, keeping

silent vigil as his true love Beatrice prepares for

death. He watches as the sundial foretells the hour

of her passing....

'Creep shadow creep

The hour of death foretell.

I cannot halt you,

So you may as well'.

This was a perfect, idealized love, the kind of whichI do not think you could ever know. He yearns for

Beatrice, his love courtly, like knights of old. She is

a distant obsession, never sullied by the coming

together of their flesh. Dante's love is pure but total.


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So keenly does he feel the loss of this unrequited

love, he believes all Florence to be desolate.'Quomodo sedet sola civitas'...'How doth the city sit

solitary'. Would that I could be so respected and

mourned. And yet whilst your devotion is flawed, I

still have known a love which is passionate,

consummated and fulfilled.

Chance that our daughter had lived, and you

had idolised me with a singular devotion, fate might

well have dealt to me a different hand.

All I ask of you at this late hour is, be not

consumed with remorse and guilt, but rather, when

you look upon this face, smile and remember me.


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Ophelia by Millais.


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PRIL LOVE

First love, so sweet and yet so bitter. I have felt that

passion that may only come once in a lifetime. My

heart has beaten as one with yours and my eyes

have longed to gaze into your very soul and see my

love mirrored in return. Every waking hour has

been filled with a yearning to be in your arms, and

feel your lips pressed closely against mine. Your

sweet kisses the tangible sign of our great love, but

also a prelude to still greater passion.

I was blind to all but you. I moved within a

world where only you and I existed. Our earthly

paradise, unsullied by other mortals. Every moment

of that time, a cherished memory that will stay with

me forever.

How my heart would pound when you

looked upon me, and race to the feel of your touch.

My trembling body, helpless to the feel of your hot

breath upon my face. The words we spoke during

those moments of passion, are etched into my very

soul. They are the lyrical refrain to my first taste of


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love.

Blinded by such intense passion and longing,I never once thought that this would not last

forever. This, I believed was a perfect love.

Nurtured from the early days of Spring, it should

have blossomed through all the seasons of our lives.

Everlasting like the ivy.

But now, in the fullness of time, I see more

clearly. The tears I have shed have washed the

scales from my eyes. Mine was a passion far deeper

than yours, and more enduring. The season when

you felt love for me, has passed. Like the faded rose

petals strewn on the ground, a thing of fleeting

beauty.

I cannot move on. I am trapped in hopeless

self-pity, nursing my broken heart. I feel the dull

rhythm of its beat so clearly through my bosom. No

more shall it race in eager expectation of yourembraces.

Would that I might break out of the shadows

and into the light, but I am trapped, destined to be

in this moment forever. And crueller still, I feel


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your presence in the shadows at my side. What

would I give to turn and look upon that face againand see my love returned. But this is not my

destiny. I shall remain forever young with a

haunting beauty that will captivate those who

chance upon my fate.

Slaves to their Masters

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