I need someone to interpret a few lines of a poem for me.

[Maraya1969]

I don't know if anyone has ever used this site but it is for divination. http://www.facade.com/

I use the I Ching which I have studied for about 25 years and Stichomancy which is defined as:

Stich´o`man`cy
n. 1. Divination by lines, or passages of books, taken at hazard.
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, published 1913 by C. & G. Merriam Co.

I don't suggest anyone get involved in it if you have an addictive personality!

Anyway I received an answer at the Stichomancy part and I do not understand how to interpret this poem, or part of a poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson. If someone is good at figuring out poems I would appreciate if they could tell me what these few lines mean.

The Man against the Sky by Edwin Arlington Robinson:

"And like to none that she has known Of other women's other sons, -- The firm fruition of her need, He shines anointed; and he blurs Her vision, till it seems indeed A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much Of what is best, and hardly dares To think of him as one to touch With aches, indignities, and cares; She sees him rather at the goal,"

[cliffordu]

1. I think it becomes clearer if you break it up:

"And like to none that she has known

Of other women's other sons, --

The firm fruition of her need,

He shines anointed; and he blurs Her vision, till it seems indeed

A sacrilege to call him hers.

She fears a little for so much

Of what is best, and hardly dares

To think of him as one to touch

With aches, indignities, and cares;

She sees him rather at the goal,"

**********

I have some ideas about what the poet is saying,.......

[Maraya1969]

2. Share your ideas!!! Please!

[Maraya1969]

3. OK an attempt

"And like to none that she has known

Of other women's other sons, --

The firm fruition of her need,

He shines anointed; and he blurs Her vision, till it seems indeed

A sacrilege to call him hers.


(OK so she feels fulfilled, (sexually and other ways?) by him but he "blurs Her vision........(I notice the Her is capitalized). He shines anointed:

(Definition of ANOINT
1
: to smear or rub with oil or an oily substance
2
a : to apply oil to as a sacred rite especially for consecration
b : to choose by or as if by divine election; also : to designate as if by a ritual anointment <critics anointed the author as the bright new talent> )

(She feels like he is so special, almost divine that she feels unworthy of such a God like creature.)

She fears a little for so much

Of what is best, and hardly dares

To think of him as one to touch

With aches, indignities, and cares;

(She feels as if he is too Godly or special that she doesn't want to burden him with her problems)

She sees him rather at the goal,"

(This I do not understand - it is not "as the goal" but "at the goal".) What is the goal?

[In_The_Wind]

29. What is the goal?

Satisfaction, perhaps even submission to him through self enlightenment.
She seems to want to be dominated by him, by his love.

[Maraya1969]

31. Or could it be death? And acceptance into Heaven?

[In_The_Wind]

32. I don't get death out of it.

Maybe it's because Spring means a rebirth of my own will to live.
I have made my peace with acceptance into Heaven.

Interpreting the written word is always subject to emotional and intellectual influences.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

4. it is about a mother's love for her son

and what she hopes he will accomplish in life and worries will he make it.

[Maraya1969]

5. You might be right. I suck at poetry. It was just a response to a question about a male

female relationship so that is why I thought it meant a male female relationship.

So this line: "She sees him rather at the goal,"

is about her interest only in raising him right so that he will be a success and happy?

[Tuesday Afternoon]

6. well a mother/son relationship IS a female/male relationship. --

therefore ... you can extrapolate from that point in regards to the question you asked I Ching, right?

[Maraya1969]

8. I think I can. Yes the one person only wants the other one to be happy and successful

and does not want to burden them, (I don't always regard the pronouns because it is the substance that matters), with their problems. That person also has an extremely high regard for the other one.

That would make sense. You may be right! Thank you!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

9. happy to help ...

good luck to you Maraya1969

[Maraya1969]

14. Aw thanks.

[cliffordu]

7. I believe you are exactly right.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

10. is that what you took away from it, too?

or do you have another interpretation?

[cliffordu]

17. At first I thought it was about a mature woman and a very young man....

I kept having a snag at the lines

"The firm fruition of her need,

He shines anointed; and he blurs Her vision, till it seems indeed

A sacrilege to call him hers."

OR: KEEP HIM as hers

I didn't get that completely until YOUR take on it.... I realized that the quoted line above describes EXACTLY what happens when a child is born.

Anointed....(with oil, in most circumstances) - in this instance - anointed with the fluids of birth.....

Juxtapose THAT line against the first set -

"And like to none that she has known

Of other women's other sons..."

This is about HER son......

Thanks, TA - great take on that.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

18. yes, the son was the fruit of her need for her man ...

his father.

the thing that is getting me...

about where she focuses on the end ...

and I think this is where Maraya needs to pay attention in what regards she asked I Ching ....

[cliffordu]

19. I haven't tossed the Ching for almost 40 years.

She's on her own for that part.....


I quit using the Ching when all I ever threw was "Work on what has been spoiled"

Used it every day for a year or two......

[Tuesday Afternoon]

20. thing about it is

for every question asked seems there will be five more that follow and those five each have five more and the possibilities are exponential .... and seems like you just get further and further into yourself.

[cliffordu]

21. That's the point. Dig deeper and deeper and deeper.....

But I didn't have very far to dig when I was 20........

[Tuesday Afternoon]

22. you know what they say about digging ...

Last edited Thu Mar 28, 2013, 08:22 PM - Edit history (1)

meh, I Ching is not for me.

[Maraya1969]

23. There is a hexagram that tells you to stop asking questions.

It basically says, "I gave you the answer so stop asking it again and again"

If you get it with lines it may mean something different but if you keep asking questions and end up with #4 "Youthful Folly"

[Maraya1969]

12. Thank you too cliffordu!

Poetry has always been a downfall of mine.

To note though I looked up "The Man against the Sky" and this is not from that poem unless the person that printed it wrote the wrong poem. Something got messed up. But it doesn't matter. Just a curious note.

[Chan790]

24. It's from a different poem in the same book.

The name of the poetry collection is also The Man Against the Sky published in 1919, named after the last poem of the collection.
Robinson is often studied as a transitional figure in the early 20^th c. from classical poetry to modern: Robinson stylistically compares to Browning and Coleridge, particularly his adherence to classical forms; his influence in turn can be seen on poets such as T.S. Eliot and Dylan Thomas in terms of ambiguity and subject-matter.

This collection is a popular study piece for poetry students for a number of reasons, not least is that the meaning of these poems, nearly all about parental relationships, are generally opaque and discomfiting. They're hard to interpret; most analysts agree however that they're not "happy poems", the titular piece often read as a contrast piece to Robert Browning's Childe Roland to The Dark Tower came...another poem of a nightmarish vision with a foreboding tone and ambiguous resolution, often misinterpreted as an optimistic piece for its subject's perseverance through adversity.

The quoted segment comes from The Gift of God, which can be found here: http://intertwingled.net/poets/Edwin%20Arlington%20Robinson/The%20Gift%20of%20God%20-

[elleng]

11. Yes, I think so.

Been a long time since I've tried to do such.

[Tuesday Afternoon]

13. thanks, elleng ... been a while for me as well ---

can't wait for your Sunday! do you think maybe you will take some pics?

[elleng]

15. Me too, can't wait.

May take pics of daughter at KenCen, especially if weather's good; don't expect cherry blossoms. JUST have dinky camera in phone, so couldn't publish even IF I did take pics!

[Tuesday Afternoon]

16. gosh ...

doesn't matter. you guys will have a wonderful day. I just know it.

[TrogL]

25. This is really spooky

I think this has something to do with adoption.

[Maraya1969]

28. You know you might be right! She feels like she is unqualified because of her

problems so the best is to let someone else raise the boy.

What do you think the last line means? The goal?

[TrogL]

37. She doesn't care about his aches and indignities

She fears a little for so much Of what is best, and hardly dares To think of him as one to touch With aches, indignities, and cares; She sees him rather at the goal,

I'm a little concerned about all the random capitalizations. I'm almost wondering if it's a misprint and what's intended is "as the goal".

What I'm seeing, regardless of the wording, is she is NOT seeing the actual boy, in fact puts a wall up between her and boy and rather deals with a perfect image of the boy, which she already sees at the goal, presumably successful career or something like that. Her goal is the success, not actually dealing with the actual boy in front of her.

[Maraya1969]

38. From what I read about him he had an unhappy childhood. But I think it was his father

that was the problem. Your take is interesting and now I want to go read about him again, (the author). They said his poems were dark and depression a lot.

[struggle4progress]

26. OK, I'll give it a try:

And like to none that she has known
Translation: This is a good week to obey the speed limit and make sure you've paid your taxes

Of other women's other sons
Translation: If you see a wacko in a bullet-proof vest, carrying an assault rifle, head a different direction

The firm fruition of her need
Translation: Remember that it's not a good idea to get drunk and climb up on the police station roof

He shines anointed
Translation: Stop eating junk food and get more exercise

and he blurs Her vision
Translation: The early worm gets eaten by some bird

till it seems indeed a sacrilege to call him hers
Translation: Capitalism sucks!

She fears a little for so much of what is best and hardly dares
Translation: (Dunno. The poet is becoming somewhat obscure and opaque here)

To think of him as one to touch with aches
Translation: Floss. You'll be a better person for it

[Maraya1969]

27. Oh well then THAT must be it!

I guess you don't take these things very seriously do you? That's OK a lot of people don't.

Why don't you go to http://www.facade.com/stichomancy/ and ask it how YOU feel about it? It would be interesting to see the answer.

[struggle4progress]

34. I used to throw I Ching forty or more years ago. I finally decided

it was only a way to shake up my thinking about questions: I'd get some "answer" that forced me to try to look at whatever I was wondering about in some way different from whatever way I had been looking at it, which I supposed could be helpful if I didn't take the "answer" too seriously as a definite "answer." Then I put the I Ching down and never went back to it as divination, though from time to time, I've picked up my copy to wonder about how various ideas in it are connected

How do I interpret my stichomancy reading?
we were obliged to double our pace, and were so happy as to pass it without meeting with any misfortune, except that we heard a bird sing on our left hand -- a certain presage among these people of some great calamity at hand. As there is no reasoning them out of superstition, I knew no way of encouraging them to go forward but what I had already made use of on the same occasion, assuring them that I heard one at the same time on the right. They were happily so credulous as to take my word, and we went on till we came to a well, where we stayed awhile to refresh ourselves. Setting out again in the evening, we passed so near a village where these robbers had retreated that the dogs barked after us

How amazing! I see that this seems to be telling me what I'm already inclined to believe. Hmm. Come to think of it, much of what happens to me simply confirms my prior beliefs to me. I suppose that could be because my beliefs are so brilliantly and cleverly in accord with reality, that there just isn't much more for me to learn. Or maybe it's sarcastic: it could be telling me that I'm a pig-headed nitwit who is unable to accept any beliefs except those I already hold. I often dislike sarcasm, so if it's saying that, I don't particularly want to hear it. Hmm. If this little snippet of Lobo's Voyage to Abyssinia is helpful, maybe I should read the whole book. On the other hand, I don't think that's a particularly well-written passage, and I generally don't read stuff I don't consider well-written -- unless there's something definite to gain from the reading: I'll sometimes read badly math papers because I enjoy the math. But Lobo seems to have a superior nasty streak: he thinks some people are simply superstitious and credulous, and he's happy to manipulate them. Hmm. Maybe I have a superior nasty streak. But I don't manipulate people, and I don't call people names like superstitious or credulous -- though I'm certainly not above ribbing them, gently I think, though they may not always think my ribbing is gentle. No, I don't think I'll read Lobo's book: I've got books stacked around even room in my house, partially read; every paragraph I read in a really good book produces cascades of possibilities and doubts in my own mind: but from this one paragraph, I suspect that in reading Lobo's book I should simply wonder constantly why he wrote such dreadful dreck. Hmm. Stichomancy. Why shouldn't I just read a good book and see what I learn from it, instead of reading a "random" snippet? Of course, it's not really "random," since it's computed by a deterministic algorithm. I once had long arguments with a few people about what "random" actually means: I think Kolmogorov was right to indicate that the notionis best explained by computational complexity theory, and that "random" is just a catch-all phrase for stuff that's somehow too complicated for us to compute -- but that's just my opinion, and many people really dislike that idea. Ah, well. Another fifteen minutes wasted posting on DU

[Maraya1969]

40. Or you could just take that one sentence as your answer. It is telling you that you believe in

all this kind of hokum, (as Sheldon would say) so just believe in it and it will work.

[antiquie]

30. My experience on the site...left me puzzled.

The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Rinkitink In Oz by L. Frank Baum:

The pearl fishers who lived at the lower end of the island tried to escape in their boats, but they were soon overtaken and made prisoners, like the others. Nor was there any attempt to resist the foe, for the sharp spears and pikes and swords of the invaders terrified the hearts of the defenseless people of Pingaree, whose sole weapons were their oyster rakes.

When night fell the whole of the Island of Pingaree had been conquered by the men of the North, and all its people were slaves of the conquerors. Next morning the men of Regos and Coregos, being capable of no further

[Maraya1969]

33. Well you are supposed to ask it a question.

I would say that that passage is speaking metaphorically about someone who feels they are a prisoner of something or someone. Something that they feel they are overpowered by and can't escape.

But I don't know what question you asked.

[antiquie]

36. Will I prosper?

Too close for comfort...

[Maraya1969]

39. I have found it is better to ask more specific questions. Although you may get a non-specific

answer. Do you feel as if something is stopping you from prospering? Or maybe it is your own mind that does not feel you are entitled to proper for whatever reason. That could be the prisoner - you. Or maybe someone close to you does not want you to prosper and you unconsciously adhere to their beliefs.

I think a better question to ask is, "What is stopping me from prospering?"

And then if you get any insight into a negative belief that may be stopping use you can try this tapping video to rid yourself of the beliefs.

&list=FLcsOnsrC151CmGjEYKK3ZCQ

I find that it works really well! You start out with a feeling that is stuck in you and you tap the different points on your body and say what he tells you to say and I swear, each and every time I have done it the feeling has lessened greatly in me.

Boy I am opening up to the weird new age-y things I do. But actually I spoke to a friend who is a social worker and he said they used the tapping method at one place he worked. And it reminds me a little of PTSD therapy.

[lunatica]

35. She sees the great potential in another, not the actuality

I have that problem. I see what people can be as people, not necessarily their career, if they strive to listen to their better nature all the time. If they live up to what they know they are capable of.

Most of us fall short of that. Far short. And I think most of us know it on some level.