You may know that one of the hymnwriters I fell in love with as a very small child was Christina Georgina Rossetti. I loved her exotic name, which I could see printed at the bottom of the page on which one of my favourite hymns, ‘In the bleak midwinter’, was printed. I know that it is historically inaccurate, but the language of the hymn, rich and gorgeous, spoke right into my imagination and experience. The winters of my 1950s childhood were bleak. My frozen feet and fingers were painfully aware that:
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone.
And I loved the way Rossetti brought the close intimacy of the manger into the vast company of angels and archangels, eventually focusing on the singer, at the point of commitment: ‘give my heart’.
But it was only years later, in researching my book on women hymnwriters, that I discovered how rich and complex a character Rossetti was. I was dumbstruck when I came across her poem ‘Goblin Market’. On the evening of the day when this item appears in the Secluded Place series, I and my brother and sister-in-law have booked in to a reading of it at the British Library in London.
It has to do with lust, corruption, and addiction: the sickly sweet lure of human sin, overcome only by the depth of human love, especially (in this case) between sisters. Above all, it celebrates salvation, won by one person confronting sin to save another, in this case, sister to save sister. We are used to thinking of Christ as our brother, entering our humanity to save us from sin and death. But if Christ takes on the fullness of humanity, what if this includes a sister’s love, as well as a brother’s?
The language of the poem is incredibly powerful. Temptation is portrayed as rich, luscious fruit peddled by grotesque ‘goblin men’, who cry,
‘Come buy, come buy:
Our grapes fresh from the vine,
Pomegranates full and fine,
. . .
Taste them and try:
Currants and gooseberries,
Bright-fire-like barberries,
Figs to fill your mouth,
Citrons from the South,
Sweet to tongue and sound to eye;
Come buy, come buy.’
The younger sister falls to temptation, but once she has tasted, it is never enough. She lusts for more, until she is consumed by her sin, and sickens almost to death. The elder sister tries desperately to help, and is eventually driven to visit the goblin market for herself, to the ghastly delight of the traders. She faces their onslaught as they crush the fruit against her lips and face, till eventually she returns, stained and bruised, but not corrupted, to her dying sister:
‘Did you miss me?
Come and kiss me.
Never mind my bruises,
Hug me, kiss me, suck my juices
Squeezed from goblin fruits for you,
Goblin pulp and goblin dew.
Eat me, drink me, love me’.
Christina Rossetti was a devout Christian, as well as a deep thinker with a rich imagination. She is not mocking her faith when she writes such a shocking poem, but re-imagining it – as shocking as Christ’s words at the last supper: ‘This is my body . . . this is my blood’ (Mark 14:22, 24); ‘Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life.’ (John 6:54) ‘Does this offend you?’, Jesus asks the disciples’ (John 6:61). Well, does this offend?
The text of the poem is available online, and there are several recording to listen to, if you dare! If you would like to hear it dramatized in a modern context, it is available at BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, Goblin Market. It is not an easy read.
Janet Wootton
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