A Vision
A Vision - meaning Summary
Mourning Classical Tragic Poets
Wilde presents a brief visionary encounter in which the speaker sees three crowned figures. Two are established kings; the third stands solitary, sorrowful and garbed in black and red, beside a broken stone sprouting lilies. The speaker asks Beatricé and she names the three as the great Greek tragedians Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides. The poem frames classical tragedy as mournful, authoritative, and intimately bound to human suffering that ritual cannot atone for.
Read Complete AnalysesTwo crowned Kings, and One that stood alone With no green weight of laurels round his head, But with sad eyes as one uncomforted, And wearied with man's never-ceasing moan For sins no bleating victim can atone, And sweet long lips with tears and kisses fed. Girt was he in a garment black and red, And at his feet I marked a broken stone Which sent up lilies, dove-like, to his knees. Now at their sight, my heart being lit with flame I cried to Beatricé, "Who are these?" And she made answer, knowing well each name, "Aeschylos first, the second Sophokles, And last (wide stream of tears!) Euripides."
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