The hardest moment in the underworld, and one of the cleanest images in the poem. Anticleia drinks. She knows him. She tells him she died waiting, that the not knowing wore through her. He sobs and forgets where he is and reaches for her, and his arms pass through her and close on nothing. He tries again. Same. He howls and grabs for her shoulders, her face, her hands, and there is no one there to hold, only dank mist. This is what we are, she says. No flesh. No bone. The fire takes that. The grief is not that she’s dead. He already knew she was dead. The grief is that even reunion gives you nothing to hold. The body that carried you, the hands that washed your face, are smoke now. You can speak and be spoken to. You cannot embrace.
Intangibility of the Shades
He reaches for his mother. His arms close on nothing. No flesh, no bone. The fire takes that. What is left cannot be held.