Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow
| Written by: | Thomas de Quincey |
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| First published: | 1845, in Suspiria de Profundis |
| More Information | |
| Source: | Read Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow here |
A prose poem by writer (and opium addict) Thomas De Quincey (1785-1859). Included in the collection Suspiria De Profundis (itself a sequel to the more widely known Confessions of an English Opium Eater), this essay is considered the supreme example of what De Quincey called "impassioned prose".
De Quincey begins by describing the role of Levana, goddess of newborn infants, in the Roman religion, followed by conjectures on grief and the development of children. He then envisions a triumvirate of women, the Sorrows, who curse humanity with insanity, grief and despair.
The "Three Mothers", as the Sorrows are known, have become popular enough to appear in various works:
- The most trumphant example would be Dario Argento's "Three Mothers" trilogy of films, which recast the Sorrows as wicked witches. The trilogy is comprised of Suspiria, Inferno and Mother of Tears.
- Il Gato Nero (The Black Cat), an inferior attempt by Luigi Cozzi to make the third film in Argento's trilogy, which falsely casts Levana as the antagonist witch.
- Mother of Darkness, a 1977 novel by Fritz Leiber, which features quotes from De Quincey's poem and not-so-subtley implies that Mater Tenebrarum is the antagonist.
- The third entry in Kim Newman's Anno Dracula series of novels, Dracula Cha-Cha-Cha (aka Judgement of Tears) features Mater Lachrymarum aka Mama Roma as the antagonist.
- The fifth movement of Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, Songe d’une Nuit du Sabbat (Dreams of a Witches Sabbath) was reportedly based on De Quincey's poem.
- Our Ladies of Sorrow, an RPG by Miskatonic University Press, in which you play as an investigator working to solve the mystery of a haunted building. The game book even includes an abriged version of De Quincey's poem.
- Lachrymae: On the Trail of the Three Mothers, an online account by film director Richard Stanley, chronicling a series of strange events loosely related to De Quincey's poem [1].
Tropes used in Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow include:
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The Three Mothers, who personify grief ("She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod’s sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened for ever"), despair ("She is humble to abjectness. Hers is the meekness that belongs to the hopeless") and insanity ("She is the defier of God. She is also the mother of lunacies, and the suggestress of suicides").
- Bilingual Bonus: In Latin, Mater Lachrymarum (The Mother of Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (The Mother of Sighs), Mater Tenebrarum (The Mother of Darkness).
- Conspiracy Theory: Richard Stanley somehow manages to relate the Three Mothers to a real life occult conspiracy involving the holy grail, a tarantula cult and the Black Madonna (it makes more sense in context).
- Erudite Stoner: Thomas De Quincey
- The Hecate Sisters: The Three Mothers
- Infant Immortality: Averted by the Mother of Tears (or, rather, the Mother of Tears, in the form of grief, accompanies an aversion).
- Reality Subtext: Each of the sorrows roughly corresponds to an aspect of De Quincey's life (the death of his children, poverty, drug addiction, etc.).