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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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by Robert Browning
SHORTLY AFTER THE REVIVAL OF LEARNING IN EUROPE.
Let us begin and carry up this corpse,
Singing together.
Leave we the common crofts, the vulgar thorpes
Each in its tether
Sleeping safe on the bosom of the plain,
Cared-for till cock-crow:
Look out if yonder be not day again
Rimming the rock-row!
That's the appropriate country; there, man's thought,
Rarer, intenser,
Self-gathered for an outbreak, as it ought,
Chafes in the censer.
Leave we the unlettered plain its herd and crop;
Seek we sepulture
On a tall mountain, citied to the top,
Crowded with culture!
All the peaks soar, but one the rest excels;
Clouds overcome it;
No! yonder sparkle is the citadel's
Circling its summit.
Thither our path lies; wind we up the heights:
Wait ye the warning?
Our low life was the level's and the night's;
He's for the morning.
Step to a tune, square chests, erect each head,
'Ware the beholders!
This is our master, famous calm and dead,
Borne on our shoulders.
Sleep, crop and herd! sleep, darkling thorpe and croft,
Safe from the weather!
He, whom we convoy to his grave aloft,
Singing together,
He was a man born with thy face and throat,
Lyric Apollo!
Long he lived nameless: how should spring take note
Winter would follow?
Till lo, the little touch, and youth was gone!
Cramped and diminished,
Moaned he, ``New measures, other feet anon!
``My dance is finished?''
No, that's the world's way: (keep the mountain-side,
Make for the city!)
He knew the signal, and stepped on with pride
Over men's pity;
Left play for work, and grappled with the world
Bent on escaping:
``What's in the scroll,'' quoth he, ``thou keepest furled?
``Show me their shaping,
``Theirs who most studied man, the bard and sage,---
``Give!''---So, he gowned him,
Straight got by heart that hook to its last page:
Learned, we found him.
Yea, but we found him bald too, eyes like lead,
Accents uncertain:
``Time to taste life,'' another would have said,
``Up with the curtain!''
This man said rather, ``Actual life comes next?
``Patience a moment!
``Grant I have mastered learning's crabbed text,
``Still there's the comment.
``Let me know all! Prate not of most or least,
``Painful or easy!
``Even to the crumbs I'd fain eat up the feast,
``Ay, nor feel queasy.''
Oh, such a life as he resolved to live,
When he had learned it,
When he had gathered all books had to give!
Sooner, he spurned it.
Image the whole, then execute the parts---
Fancy the fabric
Quite, ere you build, ere steel strike fire from quartz,
Ere mortar dab brick!
(Here's the town-gate reached: there's the market-place
Gaping before us.)
Yea, this in him was the peculiar grace
(Hearten our chorus!)
That before living he'd learn how to live---
No end to learning:
Earn the means first---God surely will contrive
Use for our earning.
Others mistrust and say, ``But time escapes:
``Live now or never!''
He said, ``What's time? Leave Now for dogs and apes!
``Man has Forever.''
Back to his book then: deeper drooped his head
_Calculus_ racked him:
Leaden before, his eyes grew dross of lead:
_Tussis_ attacked him.
``Now, master, take a little rest!''---not he!
(Caution redoubled,
Step two abreast, the way winds narrowly!)
Not a whit troubled
Back to his studies, fresher than at first,
Fierce as a dragon
He (soul-hydroptic with a sacred thirst)
Sucked at the flagon.
Oh, if we draw a circle premature,
Heedless of far gain,
Greedy for quick returns of profit, sure
Bad is our bargain!
Was it not great? did not he throw on God,
(He loves the burthen)---
God's task to make the heavenly period
Perfect the earthen?
Did not he magnify the mind, show clear
Just what it all meant?
He would not discount life, as fools do here,
Paid by instalment.
He ventured neck or nothing---heaven's success
Found, or earth's failure:
``Wilt thou trust death or not?'' He answered ``Yes:
``Hence with life's pale lure!''
That low man seeks a little thing to do,
Sees it and does it:
This high man, with a great thing to pursue,
Dies ere he knows it.
That low man goes on adding nine to one,
His hundred's soon hit:
This high man, aiming at a million,
Misses an unit.
That, has the world here---should he need the next,
Let the world mind him!
This, throws himself on God, and unperplexed
Seeking shall find him.
So, with the throttling hands of death at strife,
Ground he at grammar;
Still, thro' the rattle, parts of speech were rife:
While he could stammer
He settled _Hoti's_ business---let it be!---
Properly based _Oun_---
Gave us the doctrine of the enclitic _De_,
Dead from the waist down.
Well, here's the platform, here's the proper place:
Hail to your purlieus,
All ye highfliers of the feathered race,
Swallows and curlews!
Here's the top-peak; the multitude below
Live, for they can, there:
This man decided not to Live but Know---
Bury this man there?
Here---here's his place, where meteors shoot, clouds form,
Lightnings are loosened,
Stars come and go! Let joy break with the storm,
Peace let the dew send!
Lofty designs must close in like effects
Loftily lying,
Leave him---still loftier than the world suspects,
Living and dying.
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Rev. Alimae
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I thought we could do with a new topic of discussion. I happened across this poem and thought it might fill the bill. It has some words that are new to me, such as enclitic. And, who is Hoti, if anyone knows? I would hazard a guess that the grammarian written about was a prescriptivist.
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veteran
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The deceased is probably what would be called today a classicist (the classical philologist of yesteryear). Here's a list of words (the first two of which are Latin, the others Greek):
calculus -- pebble
tussis -- cough
hoti -- for what, wherefore; that; for that, because
oun -- certainly, in fact; so then; therefore
de -- but
The poet also mentions enclitics which are small particles that attach themselves to words. (The meaning in Greek is leaning on, like Latin incline.) Sort of like English "n't" in can't. An example from Latin is -ne which marks a yes/no quesstion.
Greek has a bunch of particles, which are small words that change the meaning of a sentence or clause subtly. I have a book devoted entirely to them which is about 600 pages long.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I don't know if it's the same Hoti, but there's a Buddha figure known as a Hoti, pronounced Hoe-tie, with stress on the first syllable.
This particular figure shows the very pot-bellied Buddha raising his arms into the air in a position akin to holding up a cloud, if memory serves me correctly. It's considered a good luck figure, and most of those I have seen have been of bronze with the tummy well polished from rubbing it for luck.
Edit: I knew I should have looked it up. Most google sites have it Hotei, not Hoti, though I am sure I'd seen it Hoti before. Mayhaps it's not the same.
TEd
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Thanks, jheem--you settled the words I was wondering about. Oh, except for soul-hydroptic. As to thorpe--didn't we decide here some time ago that that meant hill? If "thro' the rattle" means he was talking grammar even through his death rattle--yikes. Here lies a person far more dedicated than I would be. I didn't notice all the l's in the last 4 lines until just now; I like them, I think.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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I didn't notice all the l's in the last 4 lines
There's alliteration all through the poem.
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soul-hydroptic
Well, I guessed that hydroptic was high-falutin' fifty cent word for 'looking for water'. And if you google it, you get a bunch of pages going on 'bout jig borers.
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Carpal Tunnel
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I suspect "hydroptic" has nothing to do with eyes.
"Dropsy" is an antique word for oedema. It is a short
form of "hydropsy". So somebody had edema of the soul.
They were internally "all wet".
And "thorpe" means "village" Also "-throp". Cf. German "dorf"
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Carpal Tunnel
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Dankeschoen (sp?), Dr. Bill!
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