Tea at Trianon: The Cave of the Sibyl

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Thursday, August 26, 2021

The Cave of the Sibyl

From Heritage Daily:

The cave has been associated with the Cumaean Sibyl, a priestess presiding over the Apollonian oracle, who according to legend, prophesied from the depths of the earth beneath the temple to Apollo, where she wrote her prophecies on leaves that were then displayed at the cave’s entrance.

In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the Sibyl is described as a mortal who attained longevity when Apollo offered to grant her a wish in exchange for her virginity. She took a handful of sand and asked for as many years as the grains lasted, but later refused the god’s love and withered away.

The Cumaen Sibyl is also mentioned in Virgil’s Aeneid, where Aeneas, the Tojan hero from Greco-Roman mythology visits the Sibyl for guidance in reaching the underworld, as Cumae is situated near Lake Avernus, a volcanic crater lake where an entrance to the underworld was located.

The Cave of the Sibyl was discovered in 1932 by the Italian archaeologist, Amedeo Maiuri (famous for his archaeological investigations of the Roman city of Pompeii), who drew upon parallels with the description by Virgil in the 6th book of the Aeneid to suggest the Cumaean Sibyl association. (Read more.)