Oenone or Œnone is a poem written by Alfred Lord Tennyson in 1829. The poem describes the Greek mythological character Oenone

Oenone

In Greek mythology, Oenone was the first wife of Paris of Troy, whom he abandoned for the queen Helen of Sparta.Oenone was a mountain nymph on Mount Ida in Phrygia, a mountain associated with the Mother Goddess Cybele, alternatively Rhea. Her father was Cebren, a river-god...

 and her witnessing of the events in the life of her lover, Paris

Paris (mythology)

Paris , the son of Priam, king of Troy, appears in a number of Greek legends. Probably the best-known was his elopement with Helen, queen of Sparta, this being one of the immediate causes of the Trojan War...

, as he is involved in the events of the Trojan War

Trojan War

In Greek mythology, the Trojan War was waged against the city of Troy by the Achaeans after Paris of Troy took Helen from her husband Menelaus, the king of Sparta. The war is among the most important events in Greek mythology and was narrated in many works of Greek literature, including the Iliad...

. Oenone was inspired by Tennyson's trip to Spain

Spain

Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...

, where he visited the Pyrenees

Pyrenees

The Pyrenees is a range of mountains in southwest Europe that forms a natural border between France and Spain...

mountains. It is considered the simplest of Tennyson's dramatic monologues

Background

Tennyson became friends with Arthur Hallam while at Cambridge. During summer 1829, the two traveled to Spain in order to help a group of Spanish rebels in northern Spain. While there, Tennyson was able to experience the Pyrenees mountains, which influenced a few of his poems, including Oenone, "The Lotus-Eaters" and "Mariana in the South". After meeting with the rebels, they traveled to Bordeaux and left for home on 8 September 1829. On that day, Tennyson read to a group of travellers on the boat his newly composed Oenone. Later in 1861, a return to the Spanish mountains and travelling the earlier path would inspire the poem "In the Valley of Cauteretz".

The poem was included in Tennyson's 1832 collection of poems. It was later revised for his 1842 collection of poems. As with other revised poems, Tennyson removed blends of words that he added to his early poems, with "goldensandalled" and "rosehued" as two examples from Oenon.

Poem

The poem begins with a lament by Oenone. Although she describes her feelings, there is no one to hear her because her lover, Paris, is off to be with Helen:

Of Paris, once her playmate on the hills.

Her cheek had lost the rose, and round her neck

Floated her hair or seem'd to float in rest.

She, leaning on a fragment twined with vine, 20

Sang to the stillness, till the mountain-shade

Sloped downward to her seat from the upper cliff.

"O mother Ida, many-fountain'd Ida,

Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die.

For now the noonday quiet holds the hill:

The grasshopper is silent in the grass:

The lizard, with his shadow on the stone,

Rests like a shadow, and the winds are dead.

The purple flower droops: the golden bee

Is lily-cradled: I alone awake.

My eyes are full of tears, my heart of love,

My heart is breaking, and my eyes are dim,

And I am all aweary of my life." (lines 17–33)

Oenone is deeply in love with Paris, and she admits that when he is speaking she is unable to act. This is especially true when he reveals to her the Hsperian apple and when he becomes the judge of which goddess is allowed to have the apple as a gift:

He smiled, and opening out his milk-white palm

Disclosed a fruit of pure Hesperian gold,

That smelt ambrosially, and while I look'd

And listen'd, the full-flowing river of speech

Came down upon my heart.

"My own Œnone,

Beautiful-brow'd Œnone, my own soul,

Behold this fruit, whose gleaming rind ingrav'n

"For the most fair," would seem to award it thine,

As lovelier than whatever Oread haunt

The knolls of Ida, loveliest in all grace

Of movement, and the charm of married brows." (lines 64–75)

When Pallas offers her gifts to Paris, he refuses no matter how much Oenone wishes that he would have accepted:

but Pallas where she stood

Somewhat apart, her clear and bared limbs

O'erthwarted with the brazen-headed spear

Upon her pearly shoulder leaning cold,

The while, above, her full and earnest eye

Over her snow-cold breast and angry cheek

Kept watch, waiting decision, made reply.

"Self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control,

These three alone lead life to sovereign power.

Yet not for power (power of herself

Would come uncall'd for) but to live by law,

Acting the law we live by without fear;

And, because right is right, to follow right

Were wisdom in the scorn of consequence.'

* * * * *

Here she ceas'd

And Paris ponder'd, and I cried, "O Paris,

Give it to Pallas!' but he heard me not,

Or hearing would not hear me, woe is me! (lines 136–149, 165–168)

Aphrodite, the love goddess, follows Pallas and offers a gift that competes against Oenone's role as Paris's wife. This causes Oenone to resort to emotionally appealing Paris:

Italian Aphroditè beautiful,

Fresh as the foam, new-bathed in Paphian wells,

With rosy slender fingers backward drew

From her warm brows and bosom her deep hair

Ambrosial, golden round her lucid throat

And shoulder:

* * * * *

She with a subtle smile in her mild eyes,

The herald of her triumph, drawing nigh

Half-whisper'd in his ear, "I promise thee

The fairest and most loving wife in Greece."

She spoke and laugh'd: I shut my sight for fear:

* * * * *

Fairest—why fairest wife? am I not fair?

My love hath told me so a thousand times.

Methinks I must be fair, for yesterday,

When I past by, a wild and wanton pard,

Eyed like the evening star, with playful tail

Crouch'd fawning in the weed. Most loving is she?

Ah me, my mountain shepherd, that my arms

Were wound about thee, and my hot lips prest

Close, close to thine in that quick-falling dew

Of fruitful kisses, thick as Autumn rains

Flash in the pools of whirling Simois! (lines 171–176, 181–185, 193–203)

The poem concludes with Oenone describing contemporaneous events:

I will rise and go

Down into Troy, and ere the stars come forth

Talk with the wild Cassandra, for she says

A fire dances before her, and a sound

Rings ever in her ears of armed men.

What this may be I know not, but I know

That, wheresoe'er I am by night and day,

All earth and air seem only burning fire." (lines 258–266)

Themes

Oenone is the simplest of Tennyson's dramatic monologues. All of the monologues incorporate an ironic use of rhetoric by the manner in which perspective is revealed within the poems. The character Oenone laments her fate and is portrayed as a victim to outside circumstances. However, her actions in letting her emotions control her is similar to the actions that Paris, her betrayer, committed; she, like him, is a victimizer to herself. Oenone is similar to other females in Tennyson's poems. In particular, she is a combination of the character Mariana, a quiet woman who suffers like a prisoner as she waits for her lover to return, and Fatima, who loses her mind and submits to her intense passions while and loses herself in the material world.

The refrain, "Dear mother Ida, harken ere I die", reveals Oenone's imprisonment to both the situation she finds herself in and to her emotions. When Paris is offered "self-reverence, self-knowledge, self-control" by Pallas, Oenone cries out for him to accept the gifts above the others. When he refuses, she is dominated by her emotions in the same way Paris is dominated by his own. Instead, her actions are closer to those of Aphrodite, the goddess that Oenone competes against for Paris's affection. The jealousy and possessiveness of Oenone is similar to Tennyson's feelings at the time for Hallam's company, as Tennyson believed that he would be separated by his friend by a woman.

Oenone's song is similar to the events described in the poem. The city of Troy was created in song and ends with its eminent destruction. In a similar manner, Oenone's song comes from the destruction left by Paris. She also shifts from the Mariana-like prisoner type of character to the Fatima-like self-destructive character as the poem progresses. In the changes between the 1832 and 1842 edition of the poems, Tennyson's role as the poet creating a song and, thus, his similarity to Oenone as a character.

Critical response

Tennyson's 1832 collection of poems was destroyed in an April 1833 Quarterly Review article by John Croker. The review was based on a close reading of the various poems followed by attacks on the content. Of the various poems attacked, Oenone was the truest hit as Coker focused on how the poem was filled with unclear descriptions.