Karen Blixen - Isak Dinesen home

Question 48: Gray moth of dusk in "Babette's Feast"?

Q. There is a line in "Babette's Feast" that reads as follows:

"The elderly Lorens Loewenhielm found himself wishing that one little dream would come his way and a gray moth of dusk look him up before nightfall."

I am working on translating this story. And I find this part about "a gray moth of dusk..." appears to require a footnote for explanation for readers.

A. This is a matter of interpretation, but "night" would appear to symbolize death and "dusk" its prelude. "Moth" would be an adventure, probably an erotic adventure.

A common antiquarian artistic theme displays Cupid attempting to singe the wings of the butterfly goddess, Pysche, with his phallic torch. The Romantic poet, John Keats (1795-1821), a favorite of Karen Blixen, celebrates this myth in his "Ode to Pysche." The word psyche may be translated from the Greek as "soul," "butterfly" or "moth." In this case, Isak Dinesen seems to imply that Lorens would be satisfied with a less beautiful, "gray" moth rather than a gorgeous butterfly.

Karen Blixen, who was versed in the works of Goethe, was probably also aware of the ancient Persian version of the butterfly myth. Dr. Gisela Burger, in an essay on Eastern influences in the poetry of Goethe, writes:

"Another Persian metaphor, the candle and the butterfly, which symbolizes the total submission to love as a reflection of "divine love", is applied in "Selige Sehnsucht". Death - the butterfly burnt in the candle - is the precondition of the transformation of material life into higher spheres. This idea culminates in the imperative of the last verse: "Die and live!” Schimmel explains the metaphor of the candle and the butterfly by the mystical idea that divine love is a flame, the effect of which is deadly and invigorating (Schimmel 1985, 416)."
 

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