written and posted by members of Lancashire Dead Good Poets' Society

Saturday 14 January 2023

Tapestry

Is it a stitch up? Surely a question Penelope's many suitors may have felt inclined to ask as they woo'd her in Odysseus's prolonged absence. More on this later.

Imagine my somewhat qualified delight, gentle readers, when I realised my first Saturday blog of the new year was going to be all about  tapestry ! Fortunately, I have an angle on it in the person of my favourite artisan (writer, designer and social activist) from the late 19th century Arts and Crafts movement, William Morris (1834-1896).

Influenced by the writings of John Ruskin and through close association with the artists of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Morris championed the craftsmanship of the artisan in the face of the modern factory system (which he regarded as a form of slavery). With a group of friends and fellow artists he founded Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co in 1861, designing and making furniture, textiles and wallpapers by hand, in the spirit of the best medieval Gothic tradition, as opposed to using a factory's automated production methods. It was only a matter of time before he wanted to incorporate tapestry into the company's offerings.

Perceiving there was no contemporary who could instruct him how to do it in the way he envisaged, Morris basically taught himself the art of weaving on a loom he set up in his bedroom and using an old French technical manual as his guide. He designed and wove his first tapestry, Acanthus and Vine (illustrated below) on that bedroom loom in 1879. I think you'll agree it's pretty cool.  

Acanthus and Vine (William Morris, 1879)
When Morris, Marshall, Faulkner & Co relocated to larger premises at Merton Abbey in south London in 1881, there was space enough to rig up four tapestry looms and to train apprentice weavers. Many other beautiful designs followed, in the spirit of the best historic medieval precedents of 14th and 15th century tapestry-making. Morris's tapestries met with considerable commercial and critical success and were bought by patrons not only among England's nouveau riche but also the rising entrepreneurial classes in North America, South Africa and Australia for the walls of their new palaces, an irony that would not have been lost on Morris himself. He could at least content himself with the knowledge that to an extent they had bought into his radical anti-mechanised ethic.

I thought I'd include two poems this week. The first has to be one of William Morris's own, written in praise of his bed (again illustrated below). Morris took joint tenancy (with Dante Gabriel Rossetti) of Kelmscott Manor, a large Elizabethan house in Oxfordshire, in 1871 and spent much of his time there in his later years. The bed, partly Elizabethan, partly Jacobean, was decorated with embroidered pelmet, curtains and bedspread made by his wife Jane and daughter May, with assistance from W.B. Yeats' sister Lily.

William Morris's bed at Kelmscott
The poem has an almost fin-de-siecle aesthetic to it, possibly not surprising given that it was composed in the last decade of the 19th century and within five years of the end of Morris's life (though for all his protestation that he was old he was still in his fifties when he wrote it). I think it fits the mood of this cold, dark, windy January.

For The Bed At Kelmscott
The wind's on the wold
And night is a-cold,
And Thames runs chill
'Twixt mead and hill.
But kind and dear
Is the old house here
And my heart is warm
'Midst winter's harm.
Rest then and rest,
And think of the best
'Twixt summer and spring,
When all birds sing
In the town of the tree,
And ye in me
And scarce dare move,
Lest earth and its love
Should fade away
Ere the full of the day.
I am old and have seen
Many things that have been;
Both grief and peace
And wane and increase
No tale I tell
Of ill or well,
But this I say:
Night treadeth on day,
And for worst or best
Right good is rest.

                      William Morris, 1891

I'm not going to leave it there. Let's turn to warmer climes and farther times and the story of Penelope (as mentioned at the beginning). For those of you not familiar with the Odyssey, Penelope was the wife of Odysseus, King of Ithaca. Prior to marrying Penelope, Odysseus had been one of the suitors of Helen, "the most beautiful woman in the world". She finally chose Menelaus as her husband and, at Odysseus's suggestion, all the unsuccessful suitors took an oath (known as the Oath of Tyndareus) that they would come to the aid of Menelaus if ever anyone tried to steal Helen from him. 

When (inevitably) Helen was abducted/seduced by Prince Paris and taken to Troy, Menelaus invoked the Oath and so began the Trojan War. Initially Odysseus was away from Ithaca for ten years, fighting until Troy was defeated and Menelaus was able to reclaim Helen (as told in the Iliad). It then took Odysseus another ten years through various trials and tribulations (as recounted in the Odyssey) to make his way back home to Ithaca to be reunited with his Queen, probably the second most beautiful woman in the world (if Carlsberg wrote epic poems).

Penelope was possibly only in her early twenties when Odysseus went off to war. He left her with a young son to bring up and a kingdom to manage - effectively a queendom for two decades. Of course she had suitors (none of whom expected that Odysseus would return), one hundred and eight of them apparently - that's two full packs of cards including jokers! But Penelope kept believing. She was also an expert weaver and used a clever ploy to hold her many admirers at a suitable distance by promising she would make her choice once she completed the tapestry she was working on. Every day she would spend time weaving away industriously at her loom in the royal palace, every evening she would entertain those seeking her hand, and every night she would secretly unpick part of what she had woven during the day, so the tapestry never neared completion.

Eventually Odysseus arrived back in Ithaca, dispatched the suitors and reclaimed his kingdom and his wife - but was it as simple as all that? Twenty years is a long time. Sarah Gillespie (musician and poet) wrote a collection evocatively titled Queen Ithaca Blues and I don't know if that's a familial reference to Ithaca NY or to the Greek fable, but it got me pondering how Penelope might have felt when her absent husband finally re-entered her life.

Odysseus and Penelope (Francesco Primaticcio, 1563)
I've gone for an ekphrastic approach (a poem inspired by a painting) for this latest composition. I've studied Primaticcio's rendition for some while and used it to prompt an internal monologue, taking a bit of a flier in imagining what Queen Ithaca might be thinking in the immediate aftermath of their reunion.

Fates Loom
You hold my gaze between finger and thumb
asking how was it for me and I wonder
do you mean the last twenty minutes
or the last twenty years but no words come.
I'm dumbstruck to realise in the half-dark
of our private room in our freshly unmade 
marriage bed that the fond decades dream
I'd been weaving of having you back again
might need some unpicking and instinctively
my hands work as they have in shadows
across so many nights only this time the thread
is invisible the unravelling all in my head.

I've been faithful to you in body and soul
which is likely more than you could swear
but I have also ruled in lieu for so long
that I don't believe we can be as we were.
I would not have acted other than I did though
if you think you come back to an easy life
with a pliant decorous wife at your command...
...except I can't express such thoughts right now
when all you want to hear is how I missed you
so I just say welcome home wandering man
resolving in the moment that at a later date 
I must prove mistress of this loom of fate.





Thanks for reading, S ;-)

40 comments:

Nicci Haralambous said...

I loved it!

Poppy Deveraux said...

I love William Morris designs, so this was a great read. I'm not so sure about his poem, a bit of a period piece. I really enjoyed yours though. Neatly done.

Miriam Fife said...

I like your warp and your weft ;) Well done with the ekphrastic poem, it's an intriguing speculation. 👏

Debbie Laing said...

That's an amazing bed. No wonder Morris loved it so. I imagine it got heated with a warming pan each evening in winter (or maybe hot-water bottles had been invented by then). I enjoyed your precis of the Penelope story and the 'Fates Loom' poetry.

Rod Downey said...

I remember reading Morris's utopian novel News From Nowhere back in the late 1970s (part of a Marxist reading course) and not being overly impressed. However there's no doubting his artistic ability, his integrity and his sheer drive and breadth of achievement.

Jambo said...

Your poem reads like a rap! I love it!

Lizzie Fentiman said...

Great value blogging Steve, like 2-for-1. The bed poem a little too quaint/Victorian for my taste though I get the sentiment. I like what you've done in recounting the Penelope story and your poem is fabulous. Nice job.

Ross Madden said...

Great blog Steve. William Morris, a sort of renaissance man (except he clearly loved the Gothic). Well done with the Penelope monologue. 👏

Emily Blythe said...

I'm a real fan of the Arts & Crafts movement, so hugely enjoyed reading this. I knew very little about Odysseus and Penelope but that is fascinating.

Amber Molloy said...

A really enjoyable blog and I actually like both poems, so different though they are.

Binty said...

That's given me bed envy! I loved your Penelope poem.

Zoe Nikolopoulou said...

Fates Loom - that's a wonderful poem. 💙

Martin Brewster said...

Great writing and a fascinating read.

Ben Templeton said...

A two'fer. Excellent, esp. your ekphrastic Penelope poem. 👍

Unknown said...

I love tapestries - the work involved and the stories that they tell. I recall taking me kids to see the Bayeex tapestry - a story of the Norman Conquest told very much from the victors' view point. So as we walked along its entire length, I used the scenes to describe to me children an entirely different story - of how Harold was defeated by a bastard second son, intent on glory and using foul means to do so, including abandoning all previous battle etiquette to gain an unfair advantage on the tired and weary Anglo Saxons who had secured Britain from the marauding Vikings. My subversive alternative did not go down well with the French visitors...
As a lover of classics, I also enjoyed your subversive poem, this story rarely told from a woman's point of view, because after all, women generally have no part in history, other than handmaids and enablers to allow men to strut their stuff. It reminds me of U.A. Fanthorpe's poem, "Odysseus's Cat".

terry quinn said...

How on earth did he teach himself and from an old French tech manual. Total respect.

Given all the work done by his wife shouldn't it be her bed?

Enjoyed the tale of Penelope. Someone should have had a word about her hairstyle though.

The poem is one of the best you've done. Superb.

Noragh Montgomerie said...

Thoroughly engaging, a delight to read.

Boz said...

Genius poetry, la!

Lois Hayburn said...

What a well woven post.😃 I love William Morris designs and never realised he was self-taught as a weaver. Your "Fates Loom" poem is terrific.👏

Gemma Gray said...

I always enjoy reading these blogs, intelligent, informative, witty and thoughtful writing. I love the Arts and Crafts ethic. Have you been to the William Morris Museum in London? Well worth a visit. And your 'Fates Loom' poem, just wonderful.

Dom Patterson said...

That's a great, succinct retelling of the Odysseus/Penelope story and a finely worked poem.

Harry Lennon said...

I do like ekphrastic poems. That's tremendous Steve. I wasn't familiar with the painting and didn't really know much about Penelope apart from the unpicking 'myth'. Your take on her predicament is a kind of revelation.

Lindi Schnaubell said...

My mother used to make rag rugs, the nearest anyone in our family ever came to weaving anything. It takes such great patience. We still have a couple of them to remind us of her handiwork. I enjoyed both of the poems. Happy New Year and thank you for the share.

Louise B said...

Enjoyed this Steve. Thank you!

Tim Collins said...

A great read and your Fates Loom poem is really very good.

Demelza Hoyle said...

Nice one. It would be great to think that Penelope made sure things were different after hubby came rolling home.

Saskia Parker said...

Fates Loom, what a brilliant poem Steve. Wonderfully done. ❤️

Writer21 said...

Heartwarming! thanks Steve

Deke Hughes said...

It's a thumbs up for William Morris from me. I always liked his wallpapers. And I'm sufficiently intrigued by your section on Penelope (great poem) to dig out my copy of The Odyssey and re-read the final chapters. My memory is that no sooner had Odysseus and Penelope been reunited than he was off again...

Lexi Warrender said...

Thanks for the link. I really enjoyed this, fascinating about William Morris and tapestry-making and I loved the Penelope poem. Very well done.

Dan Ewers said...

That William Morris bedroom looks amazing, but where would you position the tv? Great take on Penelope's dilemma.

Ailsa Cox said...

I loved this Steve. What a brilliant blog.

Stu Hodges said...

Really good Steve, Fates Loom in particular. 👍

Brizette Lempro said...

I love tapestries. Are you familiar with the Aubusson? Your poem is wonderful.

Kate Eggleston-Wirtz said...

What a multi-talented individual Morris was!
Clever poem Steve :)

Jenny Grant said...

Such a delightful read of a Sunday morning. I love William Morris designs. What a clever man he was (and a good socialist). I'd say good luck to your Penelope (much as I admire the poem) because I'm sure ancient Greeks' fates were in the hands of the gods and goddesses.

Caroline Asher said...

A fascinating read. Thank you.

Jen McDonagh said...

A really lovely piece on William Morris, thank you. Your ekphrastic poem is very cleverly worked.

Steve Rowland said...

Thanks everyone for all the positive feedback on this blog. I didn't think it would go over as well as it did. As to Odysseus and Penelope, of course I was subverting the official record which reads: "Glad they were to lie once more together in the bed that had known them long ago. Odysseus and Penelope, after their love had taken its sweet course, turned to the fresh delights of talk, and interchanged their news." And the next day Odysseus was off again. All ordained by Goddess Athene of course.

Alistair Bradfield said...

All round excellent writing.