Sylvia Seltoun Breaks Her Silence by LindaAnn LoSchiavo

"To have married Mortimer Seltoun, 'Dead Mortimer' as his more intimate enemies called him,
in the teeth of the cold hostility of his family, and in spite of his unaffected indifference to
women, was indeed an achievement that had needed some determination and adroitness to carry
through…"
—from "The Music on the Hill" by Saki, 1911

My husband, nicknamed Dead Mortimer, lied,

As I expected, telling friends, I’m dead,

My woodland sacrifice arranged by Pan.

Preposterous. Vast Yessney wasn’t bad,

Its somber, savage wildness rather odd

To town-bred tastes—but servants pampered me,

The coachman understood that fillies liked

Gentle caressing, and the gameskeeper,

Well-hung, had mastered all the manly arts.

Mort’s unrelenting cold indifference

Never reduced me to unsanctioned sobs.

Those luscious grapes, Mort’s votive offering

To Pan—yes, I devoured each purplish globe,

Observed not by a brown-faced boy with eyes

Unutterably evil—but instead

A handsome, horny gent, seductive, skilled.

I left my apathetic husband straight

Away, eloped with a woodland deity.

A lustful satyr, fond of love’s excess,

Wed me, his nymph, divorced from Mort his son.

Bio

Native New Yorker and award-winner, LindaAnn LoSchiavo is a member of British Fantasy Society, HWA, SFPA, and The Dramatists Guild. Books in 2024: Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems [Wild Ink], Apprenticed to the Night [UniVerse Press], and Felones de Se: Poems about Suicide [Ukiyoto]. Accolades: Elgin Award for A Route Obscure and Lonely and Chrysalis BREW Project’s Award for Excellence for Always Haunted: Hallowe’en Poems.

Author's note

"The worship of Pan never has died out," said Mortimer. "Other newer gods have drawn aside his votaries from time to time, but he is the Nature-God to whom all must come back at last. He has been called the Father of all the Gods, but most of his children have been stillborn." —"The Music on the Hill"

"I’ve been a fool in most things," said Mortimer quietly, "but I’m not such a fool as not to believe in Pan when I’m down here. And if you’re wise you won’t disbelieve in him too boastfully while you’re in his country."—"The Music on the Hill"

Saki's literary oeuvre serves as a poignant critique of Edwardian England's conventions, deceit, and hypocrisy, set against the unforgiving backdrop of nature's raw authenticity. While renowned for his misogyny, his portrayal of female characters becomes a sharp lens through which societal absurdities are exposed. Consider Sylvia: her name evokes the outdoors, yet her urban upbringing renders her as ignorant of nature's realities as any town-bred denizen of "leafy Kensington."

Saki seems to be particularly scolding Sylvia for her flippant intolerance towards pagan deities. The macabre brutality of the climax suggests that Sylvia's misstep wasn't solely her disbelief in Pan, but rather her lack of reverence. Had she refrained from disrupting Mortimer's solemn offering of grapes, Pan might not have been provoked to wrath.

That is my brief analysis of Saki and his speculative 1911 short story.

In contrast, my fantasy poem, a dramatic monologue in blank verse, takes Sylvia’s side, giving her a voice and a great deal of sexual satisfaction. Take that, H. H. Munro.