Date: Mon, 2 Feb 1998 22:37:05 -0800
From: goya-AT-uvic.ca (Michael Chase)
Subject: Re: PLC: Enameled In Fire


>At 06:50 PM 2/2/98 EST, you wrote:
>>I have been unsuccessful in locating the work of Plutarch that is the source
>>of the following reference in Emerson's "Essay on Love."
>>
>>            Love makes the face of nature radiant with purple
>>               light, the morning and the night are varied enchantments,
>>               and in love the single tone of a voice makes our heart
>>               beat...and all these forms are placed in the amber of
>>               memory...for the figures, the motions, the words of the
>>               beloved are not like other images written in water, but,
>>               as Plutarch said, "enameled in fire."

        M.C.: I'm just guessing here, but how about "The Lover"
(*ErOtikos*), ch. 18, 762F? There P. is talking about Sappho: "And I think
that Sappho too is worthy of being mntioned by the Muses, for the Romans
say that Hephaistos' son Caccus breathed out fire and flame through his
mouth; but she speaks things which are truly mixed with fire (*alEthOs
memigmena puri*), and it is through her songs that she sends forth the heat
from her heart".



Michael Chase
(goya-AT-uvic.ca)
Dept. of Greek and Roman Studies
U. of Victoria,
Victoria, B.C.
Canada




     --- from list phillitcrit-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---