10-05-2017, 06:00 PM
(10-03-2017, 01:02 PM)alexorande Wrote: I've been meaning to return to this the moment I first caught this, but I had a lot on my plate the past few weeks, plus this is definitely a lot to digest. That said, I'll give it my best -- and I don't think I'm not one to post weighty pieces, either.
Death of a Philosopher
After Jacques-Louis David's "The Death of Socrates," oil on canvas, 1787 The picture on the start is good enough.
I guess Asclepius is owed a cock,
whatever that means.
The philosopher who said it,
said it with a finger propped
on how we can be green because "Green?"
our souls forget things like
an apple's sopping crunch, to Crito--
who is clinging to his pendent thigh. I get the use of pendent -- as uncommon a word as it is, the register's pretty highfalutin -- but what I don't get is the terrible, terrible sentence structure. "The philosopher who said it said it (note that there shouldn't be a comma there) with a finger propped on [his topic] (a finger propped on [his topic]?) because our souls forget like [his topic], to Crito." That doesn't quite make sense in a poem that has to make a lot of sense.
His other leg is placed upon
the makeshift lectern of a mattress,
protruding from his drapery
like morning light would mutely break
through dusty curtains into bed, onto bed
glowing like his chest. Not quite clear what's glowing, or if his chest should be "glowing" at all.
I envy just how sure he is;
reaching for the hemlock
as if it was a glass of wine, "If it were".
as if the executioner
was nothing but a cupbearer "were nothing but".
who cannot even bear to watch who could not
and death was just a drunken dream. Again, rather awkward: this reads as if "death was just a drunken dream" to the cupbearer who "could not even bear to watch". Speaking of awkwardness, if Socrates were so insane that "death seemed but a driunken dream", then the executioner who "were nothing but a cupbearer" shouldn't "not even bear to watch", not unless he had good imagined reason. Mixed metaphor here.
In this final lecture,
the apotheosis of opinion
seemed too much for Apollodorus,
who grinds his brow
against stone, Xanthippe, Xanthippe grieving for her cuckold husband's death? Massively out of character, even if it's in the painting.
who grieves just past the hall,
and his swooning students,
who curl and twist
like autumn leaves in a burn pile.
Except for one The isolation of this line, even the separation of this and the following lines, seems a little cheap.
who seems a little older,
and isn't dressed in autumn colors,
and shouldn't be where he is seated- Ugh! Two hyphens for an em dash, not one. xD
unless the stories of his master's death
manifested into strapping colors "manifested" indicates a change of tense that reads more clumsy than intentional.
strong enough to lift their limbs
from the canvas, contradicting
his teachings of ideal and phenomena. I don't see how the "stories of his master's death" "manifest themselves into strapping colors", especially since, to the Plato of the painting, they're not just stories -- Socrates is still there, and Plato is there as witness.
The man was Plato, and I bet he knew
what his teacher meant
by owing some medicine god a cock I bet it meant "me dying means society's cancer is cured", or "me dying is a cure to life" or something silly and romantic like that. Still, I'm neither Socrates nor Plato, but the speaker's unknowing here doesn't really say anything about the speaker, I think.
when his spine was tied to
a dumbbell of decrepitude. "a dumbbell of decrepitude"? Too much, I think.
I'll know too
--right now, I don't--
nor would I intend to.
Style notes. Out of time down here in the lib -- will dissect meaning, and quality of its content, later.