Contend You Not

[Erthona]

Contend You Not
(for my daughters)

Contend you not then with the untrained mind,
conspire it will the scalpel to evade,
it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind,
some semblance of false pride that it may save.
Contend you not with those too easily hurt,
anemone are they who thus do live,
their feelers will recoil when to its work,
your reply has nothing there to give.
Contend not with those beyond assail,
with strong walls thick that let no mote inside,
you’ve not been asked to their caravel,
no worth to lean against the gate and bide.
The coin of proverbs cannot be given or spent,
on those who desire wisdom only to rent.
 
erthona
 
 
©2005, rev 2016

[dukealien]

Contend You Not
(for my daughters)

1. Contend you not then with the untrained mind,
   
2. conspire it will the scalpel to evade,
   
3. it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind,
   
4. some semblance of false pride that it may save.
   
5. Contend you not with those too easily hurt,
   
6. anemone are they who thus do live,
   
7. their feelers will recoil when to its work,
   
8. your reply has nothing there to give.
   
9. Contend not with those beyond assail,
   
10. with strong walls thick that let no mote inside,
    
11. you’ve not been asked to their caravel,
    
12. no worth to lean against the gate and bide.
    
13. The coin of proverbs cannot be given or spent,
    
14. on those who desire wisdom only to rent.
    

 
erthona
 
 
©2005, rev 2016

This is a lovely sentiment in what some would find an unlovely sonnet.  From a strict metric point of view, it displays almost every known "sin" against the form from (for moderns) inversion and unnecessary capitailzation to (for pedants) "missing" capitalization, rhyme, and variant feet.

However, it is what it is; I shall try to critique with the sole aim of making it easier and more enjoyable for readers to suss out the sentiment.

L1 - There's a little contre-reverte here (not immediately obvious that it is the other rather than the daughter's mind which is untrained) which would be a shame to lose by clarifying; nevertheless, "then" is metric filler and could profitably be removed - (only) for example, in "Contend you not with any untrained mind."  A dash or colon at the end of the line would also seem more appropriate than the comma.

L2 - Specificity and pointedness (g) could be improved by substituting "your" for "the," giving the daughter(s) ownership of the scalpel.  Some might also find a semicolon works better at the end of the line, or even a period.

L3 - Mixed metaphor:  running doesn't blind.  It closes fast its inner eyes to blind, perhaps?

L4 - This line is more friendly to improvement since it ends in assonance rather than rhyme.  The cliche "some semblance" is a good starting point (for changes) - it causes a confused double-negative anyway (the poor mind wants a semblance of pride - a false semblance would be the real thing, right?)  No rewrite offered here, but a true rhyme of "made" or "stayed" might be possible.

L5 - "(T)oo eas(i)ly" is, of course, awkward, but no exact replacement comes to mind.  "(W)ho cherish," for example, implies a normative judgment.  As with L4, though, there's considerable freedom for a more extensive change to this line since it does not strictly rhyme with L7.

L6 - Strictly speaking, the plural is "anemones."

L7 - A confused line - whose is the work?  The anemones', I guess.  In recasting this, work in harness with L5, perhaps arriving at a true rhyme.

L8 - Starting on a trochee, or just a missing first syllable... which is fine, when it adds something.  If you decide it does not, perhaps "your kind reply" could work (g).  This line would have to be altered to match your solution to the L7 puzzle, anyway.

L9 - Missing syllable, of course, since "you" was omitted from the now-standard lead-in.  If desired, the meter could be regularized by an addition later:  "Contend not with those souls..." for example.

L10 - "strong walls thick" is a necessary inversion since "strong thick walls," with or without comma, is clumsy.  "stout walls, sealed, to let..." comes to mind, but better is surely possible.

L11 - Mixed metaphor (it was a castle, now it's a boat - though caravels do have castles of a sort).  If you don't want to give up the ship, the meter could be regularized (foregoing "ask-ed") with a nautical expression ("you've not been asked aboard their caravel,") but since it's only a near-rhyme anyway, perhaps something more castle-like could be substituted - you've not been asked to join them in their keep?

L12 - The gate can remain if L11 is changed to a (land) castle, but "worth" is awkward - partly because the thought is there and worthy, but substitution difficult.  "Not worth your time to wait, locked out, or bide?"

L13-14 The couplet has some metric problems, but also does not quite make sense as a whole.  Can't give a proverb (so the other owns it) to one who only wants to rent, not own - good.  But spending, while it fits the metaphor of renting, has no place in that transaction.  The only way that works is spending to buy the other that bit of wisdom, but "or" excludes that idea.  A major revision, taking this into account, could read something like, "You waste the gift of proverbs when it's sent/to those who own no wisdom, only rent."  "Coin" could probably be worked in there somehow.

Despite all the above (meant to be "serious" but probably just excessive), it's a fun poem - especially the work involved in translating to prose for understanding.  Hope at least one of the above suggestions is useful (and that this was not a jape, posting a minor or major Elizabethan poet's actual sonnet to let critics make fools of themselves).   Enjoyed it.

[Erthona]

dukealien,

Thank you very much for the excellent critique. I will use about 75% of it. Some I think is just misunderstanding, but I will look at that also. "proverbs" since you have brought it to my attention, should be capitalized, thus referring to the book of "Proverbs". I was thinking especially of the passage:

"Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:…" Proverbs 1:20 My bad on not making that more clear.

Thus:

The coin of proverbs (the words of Wisdom) cannot be given or spent,
on those who desire wisdom only to rent.

I'll admit to a little obscurity, but I figured the basic idea would get across even without knowledge of the specific reference to the Biblical book. Thank you again, for I now see I need to cap "proverbs".

Speaking of capitalization, I do not hold with capitalizing the start of ever line in a sonnet, although I had a more subtle motive for doing so, as you might notice the start of every fourth line starts with "Contend you not..." and although it is a bit of a ball-peen hammer to the temples, that was my intent...judicious or not (one must consider the audience for whom this is written).

I think if you look up "evade" and a "save" "veyd" and "eyv" (from dictionary.com) you will see they are a fairly close rhyme.

Mixed metaphor me? I am the King of the metaphor Good point, but let us break it down.

"it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind"

There are two parts to this line. Part uno: it runs away from the truth/wisdom, so it will not have to change its mind (its thoughts to bind) the first part, the running, has nothing to do with the second part, the closed mindedness.
So no, running does not blind, running gets it away from what it does not want to hear. That seems clear to me, and maybe you just misread it, but after this explanation, if it still seems unclear, let me know.

Everything else you have pointed out I agree with. Adding "caravel" was a last minute change and had been carnival, but that did not even come close to a rhyme, so I changed the end word, but little else. I like your suggestion on the word change there.

I thought a sonnet would be a good workshop piece. At best I write one about once every three years, just to see if I still can. It is certainly not my forte and I appreciate all the help.

Best,

dale

[dukealien]

Very happy to have helped.  However...

Some decades ago, I was employed by the US Air Force (SAC, no less) to read and misunderstand Certain Important Documents line-by-line.  The Documents were then changed, with  suppressed grumbling, to eliminate all possible ambiguity.  If I've successfully misunderstood only 25%, it shows how badly out of practice I am. 

dukealien,

Thank you very much for the excellent critique. I will use about 75% of it. Some I think is just misunderstanding, but I will look at that also. "proverbs" since you have brought it to my attention, should be capitalized, thus referring to the book of "Proverbs". I was thinking especially of the passage:

"Wisdom shouts in the street, She lifts her voice in the square; At the head of the noisy streets she cries out; At the entrance of the gates in the city she utters her sayings:…"  Proverbs 1:20 My bad on not making that more clear.

Thus:

The coin of proverbs (the words of Wisdom) cannot be given or spent,
on those who desire wisdom only to rent.

I'll admit to a little obscurity, but I figured the basic idea would get across even without knowledge of the specific reference to the Biblical book. Thank you again, for I now see I need to cap "proverbs".

Speaking of capitalization, I do not hold with capitalizing the start of ever line in a sonnet, although I had a more subtle motive for doing so, as you might notice the start of every fourth line starts with "Contend you not..." and although it is a bit of a ball-peen hammer to the temples, that was my intent...judicious or not (one must consider the audience for whom this is written).

I think if you look up "evade" and a "save"    "veyd" and "eyv"    (from dictionary.com) you will see they are a fairly close rhyme.

Mixed metaphor me? I am the King of the metaphor    Good point, but let us break it down.

"it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind"

There are two parts to this line. Part uno: it runs away from the truth/wisdom, so it will not have to change its mind (its thoughts to bind) the first part, the running, has nothing to do with the second part, the closed mindedness.
So no, running does not blind, running gets it away from what it does not want to hear. That seems clear to me, and maybe you just misread it, but after this explanation, if it still seems unclear, let me know.

Everything else you have pointed out I agree with. Adding "caravel" was a last minute change and had been carnival, but that did not even come close to a rhyme, so I changed the end word, but little else. I like your suggestion on the word change there.

I thought a sonnet would be a good workshop piece. At best I write one about once every three years, just to see if I still can. It is certainly not my forte and I appreciate all the help.

Best,

dale

[tectak]

Contend You Not
(for my daughters)

Contend you not then with the untrained mind, I have had to contend with this one before so am hesitant about commenting in case I have changed. First off, there is a strange and assumed  conditionality in this opening inversion. I have given  up suggesting that contend is just not the mot juste so I will take issue with the "then" word. Why then? Surely, if you had punctuated correctly we would have had "Contend you not, then, with the untrained mind". Or, and it ill becomes me to be so flippant, is the "then" to indicate that you do not mean"now". I am blowed if I can tell.
conspire it will the scalpel to evade, gobbkedygook. What is IT? Do you mean "with" not "will"? Does it make a difference?
it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind,
some semblance of false pride that it may save. This is an ITeration of alarming proportions....especially as I have forgotten what it is.
Contend you not with those too easily hurt, half a foot short so I stumble. Do you say ee-ah-zilly? Yee   haaaa!
anemone are they who thus do live, Why? What is the truth in this. People who are easily hurt are anemone?Huh?
their feelers will recoil when to its work,
your reply has nothing there to give. I have no idea what this means and so you may say "agreed"and leave it at that.
Contend not with those beyond assail, I still cannot read the meter from line to line but this line is missing you.
with strong walls thick that let no mote inside, The whole thing is beginning to lose whatever rationale  I may have distinguished it with. There is an elitist swash to the poems buckle but I just don't have the inturlectyouall wherewithall to follow your meaning...so it lacks clarity of expression rather than of intent. By that I mean I trust you to have intent but I am buggered if I can understand how you make manifest the point(s). Sorry.
you’ve not been asked to their caravel,
no worth to lean against the gate and bide.
The coin of proverbs cannot be given or spent,
on those who desire wisdom only to rent.
 
erthona
  Hi Dale, what's new?
 
©2005, rev 2016

[Erthona]

Ah good to have you back. Not sure why I re-posted this thing (evidently I should revisited those other comments although I did try and make changes with this one, for some reason it resists me). You are right it has been here before and it is still no better. I think you wrong me. The "it" in the first four lines refers to the " untrained mind", that you missed that concerns me. The rest of the crit I will take on as  a whole, thanks for the comma placement. It is true it may come across as elitist, but it is more a warning for my daughters about what sorts of people not to struggle against. Being the type to write a sonnet about once every three years it is difficult to see where I am screwing up in terms of the particulars of form. Being dyslexic it is difficult to see where I am inserting inversions. Sonnets have never felt natural to me, I suppose just to much Germanic syntax in my bones. Trochee always seems to work better for me and I notice that you often switch between the two yourself, so maybe I'm not the only one.

Anyway, I am just glad you are doing well and will soon return to the fold, I have missed you Will look forward to a description of your new abode. Are you still in country or did you flee to  the land of Jupiter? I would move to the island despite Etna in a minute, after all it is at least half of my homeland, the other being the Florida swamps. Which would you choose?  



dale

PS Almost forgot    [ee-zuh-lee]   definition of easily

rule of three applies to the second unaccented syllable according to milo when writing IP.

[RiverNotch]

Contend You Not
(for my daughters)

Contend you not then with the untrained mind, I get how in reading the then should be smooth, but yeah, I'm starting to think it should be separated by commas. Or "Contend you not with any untrained mind", as per the duke's suggestion above.
conspire it will the scalpel to evade, maybe colon instead of comma?
it flees on fearful legs its thoughts to blind,
some semblance of false pride that it may save.
Contend you not with those too easily hurt,
anemone are they who thus do live, Though I immediately thought sea anemone, which I am pretty sure this is, there is still the matter of the other kind, the kind which, though I have never identified in the wild, having been the speaker in a certain poem I like is the kind I like more.
their feelers will recoil when to its work,
your reply has nothing there to give. You missed a half-foot, but I think here it's excusable.
Contend you not with those beyond assail,
with strong walls thick that let no mote inside, maybe colon instead of comma?
you’ve not been asked to their caravel,
no worth to lean against the gate and bide.
The coin of proverbs cannot be given or spent, A foot too much,
on those who desire wisdom only to rent. and a foot or half-a-foot too much. This maybe the big finale, but I have a feeling they can still be made more uniform.
 
This felt more like advice on who to pair up with rather than who to argue with for me, but I'm pretty sure both mean the same.

And now concerning my understanding:
L1, L5, L9 - Don't deal with 1 stupid folks 2 sensitive folks and 3 smug folks.
L2 - I got something from this on my first read-through, but I forget what the heck it was, especially when I read through tectak's review. Then again, "with" over "will" and "your" over "the", I still honestly wouldn't get, so -- well, I don't know.
Latter note: Oh. The untrained mind will conspire to evade the (or the girls') scalpel, ie the stuff they want to be blind to! Ahh -- the inversions here are punishing. 
L3 - I think I got this on my first reading -- they run, so they don't hear what they should hear, ie so that they are blind. Somehow, this feels like this could be straightened out, but I just read a few of John Donne's sonnets, and though his syntax is much clearer, my braine still reeleth from the thous.
L4 - Again, I got this, and if this and its topwise-neighbor were arranged normally, you wouldn't need the comma. In fact, either you already don't need the comma, or you need more of them, but I can't really be sure. My interpretation: they don't hear what they should hear, and so they remain proud of their stupidity. 
L5 - No issues here, for me.
L6 - Anemones, yes. I already said my main point with regards to my understanding here -- until the next line, it's not really clear what you mean by anemones, and even then it could still lead to a bit of confusion, especially for avid gardeners. Aside from the introduction of "anemones", this line actually feels unimportant, with all the rest that follows it being already obvious -- they, the sensitive souls, are the anemones, what with the speaker never actually describing his daughters as anything here.
L7 - This is a confused, but not really confusing, line -- what exactly is the "its"? The anemones? But then, at this point of the anemones' metaphorical discourse with the girls, shouldn't "its" be something referring to the girls' work, perhaps? Since "anemones" should be "anemones", if my guess is right here, then "its" would be a good deal clearer if it's "their".
L8 - The feelers will recoil if the girls' reply is meaningless -- which, I guess, says something, but in both the context of an intellectual and emotional struggle, I don't see a meaningless reply as having that defining effect upon a sensitive soul -- I don't think "those too easily hurt" would realistically (and I'm guessing you're not going for operatic caricatures here, since this seems to be framed in a practical, proverbial context) be as hurt by something which "has nothing to give" rather than something that has something that could be seen as painful to give, whether in its emptiness (for emptiness is only truly painful in certain contexts -- in most contexts, and even sensitive souls understand this, an empty reply is just that, because human beings in general have such a thing as intuition) or not. That is, I do think the whole point of this part is weak, and you might want to revise it -- the "antagonists", the sensitive people, are good, but your characterization of them is inaccurate, at least in my interpretation.
L9 - Again, that missing you. I disagree with the addition of "those" as suggested above, but only because I'm, er, completist. And as for your "antagonists" here, well, wouldn't those "beyond assail" naturally include those of "untrained minds"? Evasion is just another kind of wall.
L10 - "strong walls [so] thick that [they] let no mote inside" Strong and thick feel terribly redundant.
L11 - Huh. That mixture of metaphors, it really felt natural earlier. Then again, I do tend to make bad cocktails. I would have a point on this, but that would be redundant -- also, like I said on my note on line 9, the whole piece of the argument here is dangerously close to that of the very first piece, the one from lines 1 to 4, so I'm really more attuned to just scrapping these four lines altogether.
L12 - No complaints against this specific line (in fact, I rather like this -- all words fairly simple, but all also fairly important) -- in fact, perhaps you could just blend the thoughts of the first piece of the argument and this one? Hmm.....
L13-L14 - I actually read "to rent" as "to tear apart", so that those who would take the wisdom here would only tear apart, which, judging by your syntax, but without fully considering the importance of the word "coin", is closer to the meaning meant -- nevertheless, to consider it as renting as in, well, not the tearing apart one, would be just as valid, if you consider dukealien's suggestion. But in fact, since you mentioned the book of Proverbs (whose part with the lady wisdom crying out, by the way, is one of my favorite parts of the Bible), I would support much more something along the lines of those verses instead, completely ignoring the whole coin and rent idea. Right now, I'm too lazy to think of an actual translation of this idea, but since the King James Bible was translated with the English ear in mind, and since iambic pentameter is a close approximation to the rhythm of regular speech, I bet King Solomon and King James's company of translators would have a better presentation of this than I.

I also enjoyed it, although with the logical slip-up in lines 5 to 8, and the general overlap between lines 1 to 4 and lines 9 to 12, I'm starting to think a superior edit of this would be a general elaboration on the one idea in lines 1 to 4 and 9 to 12 -- that is, instead of telling the girls to contend not with specific groups of persons, instead, it becomes to contend not with only one group of persons, those who are specifically mentioned in line 9, and then elaborating appropriately, with all the points in here thus integrated -- "their walls don't let no dust motes in / or if not that, then they run, so that they'll be all deaf and poop"....."they fear the scalpel of your intellect / for their spirits may be proud, but their brains nil"....and doing away with the whole "Contend you not" opening structure. Of course, the poem itself would ultimately become something else, but since the main point (don't mess with these shitty people) will be kept, and the images and voice may very well be maintained, I don't think it'd be that much of a transformation. Anyways, it's your choice, and in general, it's already getting there. 

A bit of a joke: but yeah, it needs more elitism. Even if I might be one of those bad people your daughters shouldn't contend with. Elitism is good!

[Erthona]

Thanks RN,

A very concise and helpful critique, I don't think I have any disagreements except maybe the philosophical ones and as this is advice about who not to waste ones time on... (If it makes you feel any better, I doubt my daughters would agree with the advice in this poem either). You have touched on many points that have vexed me and given me an answer for the last line "on those| who want| wisdom| only| to rent." At least I think that might work, need to check I don't have some trochee in there. Unless I work with it a lot, my ear becomes more and more inaccurate. All in all, at the moment it just makes my brain hurt It probably needs to come out. (Do I need to note that came from a Monte Python skit, we just recently had a horrendous and somewhat ridiculous debate about the difference between allusion and plagiarism)

Thanks again,

dale

[RiverNotch]

"except maybe" -- you mean "no wait, they're not disagreements, just agreements in bad emotional timing", right? Clownfish live inside me. But a brief return:

I still can't wrap my head around the symbols, but, and I'm sure this is true for 75% of all ears, the feet on your suggested line are:
iamb iamb trochee trochee iamb
That break in the middle with the two stresses clashing sort of makes the end of the line (and so the poem) weaker, but to my inexperienced cochleas it's excusable.