“three most venerable sisters born…”

…Those three mysterious sisters are bees, but as such they are souls as well – whose ability or inability in divination depends on whether they are ‘plentiful’ or ‘bare’.

A.B. Cook, Journal of Hellenistic Studies, Vienna, 3, 1953

1. Usener, Milch und Hönig, Kleine Schriften, I/V, p. 400

The text accompanying the work by Marek Kijewski is a poetic statement referring to the Homeric Hymn To Hermes and to writings of prominent researchers of the ancient tradition: Hermann Usener, German religious scholar and philologist, and Arthur Bernard Cook, British religious scholar and archeologist. Both of them have dwelled on this piece a little in their essays, presenting their position also on the principal question of recognizing the identity of the “three venerable sisters”. The scholars believe that the three winged seers with hoary hair, as if sprinkled with white dust, living on honey, the food of gods, are bees.

The bee can also be seen as the key which helps reach the sense of Kijewski’s composition. Gold, the material used in the work, plays a similar role, as does the square – a figure which is the most fundamental form. The three motifs are also present in the gold and almost square plaques displaying the image of Thriae (the bees-goddesses), found on the Greek island of Rhodes (collection of The British Museum). The power of Kijewski’s work originates from the relations between the symbolic meanings assigned to the square (a figure of the absolute), gold (signifying divinity), and the bee (the prophetess and nurturer of Zeus).

The bee is the seer who bestows her gift, as she is plentiful (or, to quote the Hymn, she tells the truth once she satiates herself with honey). Honey, in the ancient thought, was seen as the elixir of life, the food of gods which made it possible to see more and deeper, an attribute of Artemis, Dionysus and Hermes – the god of witty speech. Honey was, therefore, not only a divine potion but also a poetic inspiration. The poet, being the antique figure of creator, has been compared to a bee in many literary metaphors. Kijewski’s work, using the rich references to Greek and Roman antiquity, can also be seen as a hermetic statement about nature and the essence of creativity.

Izabela Kopania