HOLGER THOSS.com

OBSERVATIONS & NEWS  more.holgerthoss.com

Progeny
Surrender
WALK

Archive


SURRENDER 

THE MASQUE OF HYMAN

 SU.002.0005
YSIDRA P.

Can one move beyond the threshold?

Haste, tenderlady, and adventure;
The covetoushouse would have you enter,
That it might wealthy be,
And you, her mistress, see:
Haste your own good to meet;
And lift your golden feet
Above the threshold high,
With prosperous augury.

— Ben Jonson, “The Masque of Hyman” (1606)





The custom of carrying a bride into her new home stretches back more than a thousand years. In Ancient Rome and later in medieval Britain, it was believed to guard her from malevolent spirits said to linger at the threshold, ready to slip through the soles of her feet and disrupt her future within the household. Over time, the ritual softened into a lighthearted gesture of good fortune, the couple crossing the doorway as a symbol of their commitment to building a life together.
 Despite the tradition’s modern interpretation, Holger’s photograph of the threshold crossing feels more ominous than joyful. The panoramic lens unsettles the background, tilting the foreboding house and tall grasses in a way that disrupts our sense of order. Guests congregating in the front yard could be viewed as spirits guarding the bride’s entrance into the home, their obscured faces contributing to a sense of eerie anticipation.

Yet our bride and groom appear serene.

I like to imagine this couple crossing the threshold not simply as husband and wife, but as partners ready to face the uncertainties of the future. Though she is being carried, the bride drapes a gentle arm over the groom’s shoulders, a gesture of trust and care.


He guides them straight toward the home, even across the slightly unsteady backdrop. The house looms in the distance, its foreboding presence softened by the thought that it waits only for the couple to arrive—to be filled, dressed, and made a home.

Poet Ben Jonson called crossing the threshold a “prosperous augury,” a divine omen of future success. Perhaps the disquieting elements in this photograph are simply signs of prosperities yet to come.

This is why I love wedding photographs. Stripped of presumption, they reveal how joy, affection, fear, and suspense overlap to shape love itself, showing what it takes to build a partnership grounded in trust and steadiness.
© Holger Thoss, Top