Suspiria de Profundis · Chapter
Levana and Our Ladies of Sorrow explained
The narrator describes his dreams of Levana, the Roman goddess who lifts newborns upright, symbolizing human grandeur and education through life's central forces.
What happens
The narrator describes his dreams of Levana, the Roman goddess who lifts newborns upright, symbolizing human grandeur and education through life's central forces. He introduces the three Sorrows—Mater Lachrymarum (Our Lady of Tears), Mater Suspiriorum (Our Lady of Sighs), and Mater Tenebrarum (Our Lady of Darkness)—who commune with Levana and represent mighty abstractions of human suffering. The chapter culminates in a speech by Madonna, who dedicates the narrator to the Sorrows for spiritual seasoning and revelation.
Themes in this chapter
Suffering and Grief
The chapter personifies grief through the three Sorrows, exploring how grief shapes human development and spiritual growth.
Dreams and the Subconscious
The narrator encounters Levana and the Sorrows in dreams, where symbolic visions reveal deep truths about human experience.
The Sublime and the Dreadful
The Sorrows are described as Sublime Goddesses, embodying both awe-inspiring grandeur and terrifying darkness.
Characters to notice
- The Narrator
Describes his dreams of Levana and his intimate knowledge of the three Sorrows, having walked in all their kingdoms.
- Levana
Roman goddess who lifts newborns upright, symbolizing ennobling kindness and education through life's central forces; communes with the Sorrows.
- Madonna
Speaks through mysterious hand, dedicating the narrator to the Sorrows and commanding their seasoning of his spirit.
Key passages
“Levana was the Roman goddess that performed for the newborn infant the earliest office of ennobling kindness—typical, by its mode, of that grandeur which belongs to man everywhere, and of that benignity in powers invisible which even in Pagan worlds sometimes descends to sustain it.”
Levana, a Roman goddess, performed the first act of dignity for a newborn, symbolizing the inherent grandeur of humanity and the kindness of unseen powers that sometimes support it, even in pagan traditions.
Introduces Levana's role and symbolic meaning.
“By the education of Levana, therefore, is meant—not the poor machinery that moves by spelling-books and grammars, but by that mighty system of central forces hidden in the deep bosom of human life, which by passion, by strife, by temptation, by the energies of resistance, works forever upon children—resting not day or night, any more than the mighty wheel of day and night themselves, whose moments, like restless spokes, are glimmering forever as they revolve.”
Levana's education is not about textbooks and grammar, but about the powerful hidden forces of life—passion, struggle, temptation, and resistance—that constantly shape children, like the ceaseless turning of day and night.
Defines the deeper meaning of education through life's central forces.
“These are the Sorrows; all three of whom I know. The last words I say now; but in Oxford I said, 'one of whom I know, and the others too surely I shall know.'”
I now know all three Sorrows, but in my Oxford days I knew only one and anticipated knowing the others.
Highlights the narrator's evolving acquaintance with the Sorrows.
“So shall he rise again before he dies. And so shall our commission be accomplished which from God we had—to plague his heart until we had unfolded the capacities of his spirit.”
He will be reborn in spirit before his physical death, and our God-given mission to torment his heart will be fulfilled by expanding his spiritual capacities.
Madonna's final command to the Sorrows, outlining the purpose of suffering.