the temple of glass

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But up I clomb with alle paine,/ And though to climbe hit greved me,/ Yit I ententif was to see,/ And for to pouren wonder lowe,/ If I coude any weyes knowe

What maner stoon this roche was; For hit was lyk a thing of glas,/ But that hit shoon ful more clere;/ But of what congeled matere/ Hit was, I niste redely...

The Temple of Glass is about memory.  It is a monument to the classical, immutable, unchanging power of love.  In the Temple of Glass, everyone is frozen - often frozen in frustrated inability, endlessly locked in cycles of disappointment and grief.  They are being and not doing, neither resolving these things in any kind of release.  They are frozen in love-longing; the servants of Venus suffer because they have never quite been able to engage in reconciled happiness and fulfillment.  It is a temple of frustration.

(V. Gillespie, 2.11.10)

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