Chapter IV: Epiphany
The difference enacted
Angells affect us oft, and worshipped bee
Gentili clearly considers that “precise ceremonial” the entire motivation of the poem. His use of the word “precise” finally tells everything about his reading. A precise ceremonial admits of no difference, just as traditional ritual thinks of itself as without difference. My treatment of the first strophe has already illustrated the presence of both sides and the necessity of difference between them. In light of Chapter II, both sides of the dispute seem inadequate, even taken together. [5]
I acknowledge here the debate over the smile in relation to the “everlasting sequence”; [18] I offer a solution in Chapter V when I discuss the tenor of the poem’s final words. I submit, though, that the amusement Page attributes to Aphrodite takes on a new reason and force in the context of the descriptive, different nature of the smile’s setting. In examining the “everlasting sequence” she is about to elaborate upon, the goddess sees the same play of the persuasive to which she becomes party the instant she opens her mouth. Her only response to such a web must be in the persuasive, non-ritual realm—she must come down from heaven and enter the complex. Her gesture leads away from the ritual into the different and takes her from an undifferentiated, unchanging position of ritual into the ever-receding dance of lovers and poetry.