Make bullet points for the main idea
62
WILSON J. MOSES
Have you ever seen a cotton-field white with harvest, its golden fleece hovering above the black earth like a silvery cloud edged with dark green, its bold white signals waving like foam of billows from Carolina to Texas across that Black and human Sea? I have sometimes half-suspected that here the winged ram Chrysomallus left that Fleece after which Jason and his Argonauts went vaguely wandering into the shadowy East three thousand years ago, and certainly one might frame a pretty and not far-fetched analogy of witchery and dragon's teeth, and blood and armed men, between the ancient and the modern Quest of the Golden Fleece in the Black Sea.
In an earlier chapter of the same book, "Of the Wings of Atalanta," Du Bois had demonstrated his skill at updating mythology and adapting it to the needs of his times. The Quest of the Silver Fleece, in 1911, brought to maturity the ideas briefly outlined in the parent essay. In this novel he created a universe in which the ideology of progressive socialism and the traditionalism of Christian black nationalism work harmoniously within the framework of a Greek myth.
The Quest of the Silver Fleece is a story of witchcraft and voodoo magic. Zora, the heroine of the tale, makes her first appearance as an elfin child, personifying the supposedly preternatural traits of the primitive mind. "We black folks is got the spirit," she says. White folk may think they rule, but, "We'se lighter and cunninger, we fly right through them; we go and come again just as we wants to." Elspeth, the mother of Zora, is a malevolent black witch, who sows a wondrous cotton crop in a scene reminiscent of Cadmus's planting the dragon's teeth. The cotton crop is first stolen by the aristocratic Cresswell family, then woven into a wedding dress, and perhaps it is the magic of Medea (Elspeth-Zora) that begins to eat away at the vitality of Cresswell's bride. By the end of the story, Zora matures from elf-child to Ethiopian queen, who appears as a haunting "mirage of other days," ensconced in a "setting of rich, barbaric splendor."
A good clue to the meaning of any obscure poetic system may sometimes be found by examining its employment of traditional devices, and this method is useful in dealing with a poet like Du Bois. So typical was Ethiopianism of Du Bois's rhetoric that George Schuyler's satirization of his speaking style, while grotesque, was apt nonetheless. "I want to tell you that our destiny lies in the stars. Ethiopia's fate is in the balance. The Goddess of the Nile weeps bitter tears at the feet of the Sphinx. The lowering clouds gather over the Congo and the lightning flashes o'er Togoland. To your tents, O Israel! The hour is at hand." Among Du Bois's longer and more
AThe Poetics of Ethiopianism
difficult poems is "Children of the Moon," which blends the Ethiopian and Western mythological traditions. It tells the story of a despairing woman 63 who finds a "highway to the moon," at the end of which lies
a twilight land, Where, hardly-hid, the sun Sent softly-saddened rays of Red and brown to burn the iron soil And bathe the snow-white peaks In mighty splendor.
There she discovers a race of black men but no women:
Black were the men, Hard-haired and silent-slow, Moving as shadows, Bending with face of fear to earthward; And women there were none.
Under her guidance the men build a tower which she climbs to "stand beneath the burning shadow of [a] peak, Beneath the whirring of almighty wings," where she hears a voice from "near-far" saying:
"I am Freedom - Who sees my face is free- He and his."
The god reveals his name, but "who shall look and live?" Not daring, at first, to look, the goddess is persuaded in the end by "the sobbing of small voices down, down far into the night," to climb:
Up! Up! to the blazing blackness Of one veiled face. And endless folding and unfolding, Rolling and unrolling of almighty wings.
And then the poem moves to its climax:
I rose upon the Mountain of the Moon I felt the blazing glory of the Sun; I heard the Song of Children crying, "Free!"
- The Quest of the Silver Fleece is a story that combines witchcraft and voodoo magic.
- The main character, Zora, starts as an elfin child with supernatural abilities.
- Ethiopianism is a recurring theme in Du Bois's work, blending Ethiopian and Western mythological traditions.
- "Children of the Moon" is a difficult poem that explores themes of despair and freedom.
- The poem culminates with the protagonist's ascent to the Mountain of the Moon and the realization of freedom.