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| Roman Empire Head of Demosthenes 2nd century AD marble Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Roman Empire Head of Menander 1st-2nd century AD marble Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Roman Empire Head of Philoctetes 2nd century AD marble Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Roman Empire Head of Plato 3rd century AD marble Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Roman Republic Didrachma with Janus-shaped Head of the Dioscuri 225-212 BC silver Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Roman Empire Head of Aristaeus 2nd century AD marble (colossal) Detroit Institute of Arts |
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| Roman Empire Head of Eros 1st century AD marble Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Athena 350 BC gold votive plaque Hermitage, Saint Petersburg |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Alexander the Great 3rd century BC marble Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Alexander the Great 3rd century BC marble Princeton University Art Museum |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Arsinoe III (Ptolomaic Queen) 225-200 BC marble Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Arsinoe III (Ptolomaic Queen) 225-200 BC marble Yale University Art Gallery |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of Ptolemaic Queen 270-250 BC marble Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Tetradrachma of Athens Head of Athena and Owl 449-440 BC silver Cleveland Museum of Art |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Tetradrachma of Macedonia Head of Perseus (Hellenistic Monarch) 179-168 BC silver Saint Louis Art Museum |
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| Ancient Greek Culture Head of a Goddess 4th century BC marble Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri |
Hopkins Under Ether
Between 18 March and 31 May 1870 he visited the dentist no less than eight times.
Alfred Thomas, S.J., Hopkins the Jesuit
Ether, when sufficiently diluted with air, stimulates the mystical consciousness in an extraordinary degree. William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience
I
Yes, Doctor, yes. Breathe deeply. Breath my memento mori.
Inhale, exhale, in . . . Hail, He comes (see there!) on a lit
Skyway, no, streak of lightning, with bright foot rides it
Down, balancing, as on a wire, but wider, and in full glory
Because – can it be? – the lightning is each step a spirit
Leaps to life, look, to bear (give walkroom to) Him, its whole history
Not long, mere touchtime, such honor. (O but how He bore, he-
el and toe, down that last soul!) What? Now I? Must I submit?
I must. I see now I too am part of that bolt, streak,
Stroke, my turn now come, to be the means he travels by,
Who grinds His being, up, from my pain, Whose foot tells Love and Law.
But now – no! – He would turn, sharply, strains to, till I go weak
To think of, feel, that weight willing a new course, then die
Into no God. Only the doctor, smiling, and, athrob, this jaw.
II
To The Reverend John Henry Newman
Your kind query as to my welfare,
Personal, Jesuitical, poetic,
Arrived Monday. Many heartfelt thanks for it.
Somehow I feel I could not answer
You any better than to tell you
Of a recent visit to the dentist. Yes,
The dentist. The toothache was incidental
But not so the wonder I saw, felt,
Thanks to the ether. I went under
And immediately there was a great Presence
Travelling through the sky, his foot on a bolt
Of lightning as a wheel rides a rail,
It was his pathway. The bolt itself
Was made wholly of spirits, in countless numbers,
And I was one of them. Each came to conscious
Life but briefly, for the time his foot
Fell to it, and only that the Being
Might proceed on his way. Now he was above
Me, I had the privilege of his burden:
It seemed he was grinding his life up
Out of my pain and then I saw how
He wanted to change course, bend us who were the
Lightning in the direction he was willing.
I saw, too, my helplessness, foresaw
His success. Flexible, we bent, ah
With such hurt, the most in my life, and thereby
Understood things – eternal things crossed by time –
I am glad to have forgotten, could not bear
To retain, would go insane. Can remember
This, though: the angle of his turn was obtuse;
I knew had it been right or acute I would
Have suffered more, understood more, died.
Did wake, though. And my first thought was, with
A press of tears behind the eyes, "Domine
Non sum dignus." He, that God, thought no more of
Hurting me than a man does of a
Cork when he is opening wine or
Of a cartridge when he is firing. Yet still
I had that thought, knew I had been given a
Role to play for which I was too small.
There was a residue from the dream,
Ideas, colorings of feelings: Divine love
Is nothing but the relentlessness with which
God bears down to travel where he would;
Great discoveries, great prices; and
The sufferer, the fortunate victim who
Acts as "seer" on behalf of others, pays in
Excess of what he gains for them – like
One who sweats his life away to save
A district from famine, with a sack of gold-
Pieces for buying grain meets God, who takes all
But one piece: "That you may give them,
You earned for them; the rest is for ME."
So. Does that answer all your questions? No doubt
Not. Upon opening my eyes I saw out
The doctor's window, a dull street scene.
(This was in Portman Square, Doctor Sass.)
The common light shrivelled the sense of what I
Had witnessed, borne. I was a mere aching jaw
Once more. So I traffic, or wish to,
Between the two lights. Reverend Sir,
Are they one? I think daily of your role in my
Choosing this life and give thanks. Believe me your
Affectionate son in Christ, Gerard.
– Philip Dacey (1978)