The Monster by Jovan Jovanović Zmaj
I heard this poem and was developing it as a monster. I was preparing a sort of Frankenstein’s monster figure, a revener that, when you killed it, turned out to just be a vessel for a demon that was sitting in its chest cavity. Then I realized I’d seen something directly similar: this is the Blindworm of Gibbet Hill from episode 509. I think its interesting that the author of the poem has a surname which is smallish Balkan dragon.
Before I hand you over to Newgate Novelist (thanks to her and her Librivox production team). I’ll also mention another callback. in episode 479 we considered “The Fairies” by William Allingham. Recently I heard a lovely retelling by a Russian band called Caprice, who refocus it on their victim. https://youtu.be/0N837i5PUVA?si=g-a7QNIfuqbn-ZLh
” IN place of the heart, a serpent ;
Rage for the mind’s command ;
An eye aflame with wildness ;
A weapon in the hand ;
” A brow with midnight clouded ;
On the lips a cynic smile
That tells of a curse unmatchable
Born of a sin most vile.
” Of longing, or hope, or virtue,
No vestige may there be ;
You, even in vice inhuman
What can you want of me ?
” You in its maddest moment
The Deepest Pit designed,
Let loose to sow confusion
In the order of mankind ;
” Here Hatred found you crawling
Like vermin, groveling, prone,
Filled you with blood of others
And poisoned all your own.
” Your very thoughts are fiendish
Smoke of the fires of Hell.
Weird as you are, how is it
I seem to know you well ?
” Why with your wild delirium
Do you infect my sleep ?
Why with my daily footstep
An equal measure keep ? ”
The monster mutely beckons me
Back with his ghostly hand,
And dreading his fearful answer
I heed the grim command.
” Nay, softly,” he says ; ” I pray thee,
Silence thy frightened moan,
And wipe the sweat from thy forehead
My kinsman thou, my own!
” Look at me well, good cousin ;
Such wert thou fashioned of !
Thou, too, wouldst me resemble
Without that magic Love!”
