Dante Gabriel Rossetti

Astarte Syriaca

ASTARTE SYRIACA
MYSTERY: lo! betwixt the sun and moon
Astarte of the Syrians: Venus Queen

Astarte before Aphrodite

Rossetti claims the Syrian goddess predates the Greek one—historically accurate. Astarte worship (circa 1200 BCE) did precede classical Aphrodite cults by centuries.

Ere Aphrodite was. In silver sheen
Her twofold girdle clasps the infinite boon

Twofold girdle

The **cestus**—Aphrodite's magical belt in Greek myth that made the wearer irresistible. "Twofold" suggests both heaven and earth, divine and mortal desire.

Of bliss whereof the heaven and earth commune:
And from her neck's inclining flower-stem lean
Love-freighted lips and absolute eyes that wean

Spheres' dominant tune

The **music of the spheres**—Pythagorean idea that planets create harmonic sounds. Hearts pulse in rhythm with cosmic order, love as universal law.

The pulse of hearts to the spheres' dominant tune.
Torch-bearing, her sweet ministers compel
All thrones of light beyond the sky and sea
The witnesses of Beauty's face to be:
That face, of Love's all-penetrative spell
Amulet, talisman, and oracle,—

Amulet, talisman, oracle

Three types of magical objects: protective charm, power object, prophetic tool. Her face functions as all three—love as magic, not metaphor.

Betwixt the sun and moon a mystery.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

The Painting Behind the Poem

Rossetti wrote this as a sonnet for his own painting of the same title (1877), featuring Jane Morris as the goddess. He'd been obsessed with Morris, his friend William's wife, for years—their affair was the worst-kept secret in Pre-Raphaelite circles. The painting shows her nearly life-sized, frontal, hypnotic, flanked by torch-bearing attendants. Rossetti hung the poem in a frame below the canvas.

CONTEXT Astarte was the Phoenician/Syrian fertility goddess, associated with Venus/Aphrodite but older and more primal. Victorian occultists were fascinated by her—she represented ancient, pre-Christian female power. Rossetti positions her "betwixt the sun and moon," the cosmic mediator, neither fully celestial nor earthly.

The sonnet form here is unusual: 14 lines plus an opening line ("MYSTERY: lo!") that functions almost as a title-within-the-poem. He's using an Italian/Petrarchan rhyme scheme (ABBAABBA CDCDCD) but stretching it, just as the goddess stretches between realms. The repeated phrase "Betwixt the sun and moon" frames the entire poem—first as revelation, finally as unresolved "mystery."

Love as Cosmic Force

Notice the scale Rossetti assigns to desire. This isn't personal attraction—it's the force that makes "heaven and earth commune," that compels "all thrones of light." The verb "compel" is crucial: the ministers don't invite or suggest, they force cosmic powers to witness Beauty. Love here has agency and dominion.

The physical description focuses on neck, lips, eyes—the same features Rossetti obsessively painted in Jane Morris's portraits. "Love-freighted lips" makes desire into cargo, something heavy and transported. "Absolute eyes that wean / The pulse of hearts" is stranger: "wean" means to detach from dependency, but here it's paradoxical—her eyes wean hearts *to* the cosmic tune, making them dependent on a higher rhythm.

"All-penetrative spell" in line 12 is the poem's erotic peak, immediately sublimated into magical objects (amulet, talisman, oracle). Rossetti can't quite decide if he's writing theology, magic, or pornography—the poem exists in all three registers at once, which is precisely the point. Victorian readers would have caught the blasphemy: he's written a Marian hymn to sexual desire, using the syntax of religious mystery ("lo!", "mystery", "oracle") for a pagan love goddess modeled on his friend's wife.