A Mouthful of Air: Poetry with Mark McGuinness
Aug 26, 2026 · 27 min · 13 segments
Mark McGuinness reads and discusses ‘The Disciple’ by Oscar Wilde. For a full episode transcript go to: https://amouthfulofair.fm/the-disciple-oscar-wilde/
The Disciple by Oscar Wilde When Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears.
And the Oriads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.
And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.
Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.
And the pool answered, But I loved Narcissus, because as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.
This poem appeared in a short sequence by Oscar Wilde called Poems in Prose, published in 1894.
The title is an echo of a collection by Charles Baudelaire called Petit Poème en Prose.
The prose poem was a form that emerged in the 19th century and was associated with French literature and the bohemian counterculture, such as that of the Latin Quarter in Paris.
where poets, artists, intellectuals, and other reprobates would drink absinthe and live a life that generally attracted the disapproval of the petite bourgeois.
So a prose poem by Oscar Wilde, published in 1894, is almost absurdly fin de siècle, the French term for the end of the 19th century.
Wilde's sequence, Poems in Prose, contains six prose poems, most of which were based on biblical stories, but with a subversive twist.
So there's one about a young man who was weeping after the crucifixion of Jesus.
And a passerby says, I do not wonder that your sorrow is so great, for surely he was a just man.
And the young man says, No, I am weeping because I did all the same miracles that Jesus did, and yet they have not crucified me.
So this one, The Disciple, is less obviously subversive because it's based on a classical myth rather than the scriptures, but hold that less obviously part because Wilde is most definitely up to mischief in this poem, and we'll come back to that in a bit.
The Disciple by Oscar Wilde When Narcissus died, the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears.
And the Oriads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.
And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.
Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.
And the pool answered, But I loved Narcissus, because as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.
This poem appeared in a short sequence by Oscar Wilde called Poems in Prose, published in 1894.
The title is an echo of a collection by Charles Baudelaire called Petit Poème en Prose.
The prose poem was a form that emerged in the 19th century and was associated with French literature and the bohemian counterculture, such as that of the Latin Quarter in Paris.
where poets, artists, intellectuals, and other reprobates would drink absinthe and live a life that generally attracted the disapproval of the petite bourgeois.
So a prose poem by Oscar Wilde, published in 1894, is almost absurdly fin de siècle, the French term for the end of the 19th century.
Wilde's sequence, Poems in Prose, contains six prose poems, most of which were based on biblical stories, but with a subversive twist.
So there's one about a young man who was weeping after the crucifixion of Jesus.
And a passerby says, I do not wonder that your sorrow is so great, for surely he was a just man.
And the young man says, No, I am weeping because I did all the same miracles that Jesus did, and yet they have not crucified me.
So this one, The Disciple, is less obviously subversive because it's based on a classical myth rather than the scriptures, but hold that less obviously part because Wilde is most definitely up to mischief in this poem, and we'll come back to that in a bit.
The rest of this transcript — segmented and speaker-labeled, so you land on the exact moment something was said
Search every transcript — by keyword, by phrase, or by meaning, across every show Radar indexes
Trends — what is surging across podcasts, measured against its own baseline
Alerts — when a name you follow appears in a newly indexed episode
No account is needed to search Radar.
