.
I like the idea duke, but the language seems to be a bit unbalanced. Overall it has a formal tone which
isn't maintained. ('Information's key' is a bit sore thumbish, for instance.)
I think 'promise' could be elaborated upon, establish the significance of the term before moving to 'lend'.
(To owe is to have promised, and a promise is ... )
I think S2/S3 could both begin with the same phrase, "Absent trust, what remains ...
Not getting the hawk/pigeon reference (but that's likely my fault) though did enjoy the Delphic nod.
I think I've been steering you the wrong way. It's clear from the revision that 'formal'
was just an accident (which appealed to my prejudices) and it's the contemporary
you're after. I think having Polonius (even parenthetically) in the title steered me the
wrong way/set up certain expectations.
That said, I'm not getting is who this Polonius is. (I thought, for a while it was Trump
talking to Ivana/Kushner but your N is clearly too well balanced).
So maybe a less formal tone for the opening?
To owe is to have promised, to give your word, you know what that means. What it says about you to the world.
To lend, is to offer a hand, to say that I know you are good for it. That circumstances, alone, have brought us here
I'd been going to suggest Absent trust there’s only usury: need and needless cruelty, vigorish on principal long vanished, its repayment never contemplated or desired.
but ...
That said, 'never contemplated' surely refers to the next verse,not this one? Maybe repayment beyond means or desire ?
Given your Hamlet (p)references aren't you missing a trick? Information’s key: that promisor and promised know themselves, in truth, that each can tell a hawk from a handsaw, that both are worthy of belief.
(06-19-2019, 01:05 AM)Knot Wrote: .
Hi duke,
thanks for the spoiler, got it now
I think I've been steering you the wrong way. It's clear from the revision that 'formal'
was just an accident (which appealed to my prejudices) and it's the contemporary
you're after. I think having Polonius (even parenthetically) in the title steered me the
wrong way/set up certain expectations.
That said, I'm not getting is who this Polonius is. (I thought, for a while it was Trump
talking to Ivana/Kushner but your N is clearly too well balanced).
So maybe a less formal tone for the opening?
To owe is to have promised, to give your word, you know what that means. What it says about you to the world.
To lend, is to offer a hand, to say that I know you are good for it. That circumstances, alone, have brought us here
I'd been going to suggest Absent trust there’s only usury: need and needless cruelty, vigorish on principal long vanished, its repayment never contemplated or desired.
but ...
That said, 'never contemplated' surely refers to the next verse,not this one? Maybe repayment beyond means or desire ?
Given your Hamlet (p)references aren't you missing a trick? Information’s key: that promisor and promised know themselves, in truth, that each can tell a hawk from a handsaw, that both are worthy of belief.
Regards, Knot
.
Errrmmm. Can't say you're wrong because (a) the poet doesn't get to say that to the reader, and (b) if the intent, thematic or otherwise, isn't getting across it's on the poet, not the reader. However,
just trying to versify in the manner of Polonius' oft-quoted farewell to Laertes -- a little stuffy, maybe a bit hypocritical (the character is, after all, partly a villain) -- on the subject of what's going on with debt. The direct reference is to "neither borrower nor lender be," because (per P.) those two roles can easily get to hate each other. Personally, I'd restrict that meaning to friends (i.e. "Don't loan money to friends or relatives, you lose the friends and the money but you're stuck with the relatives.") So, keep it impersonal, or take on the personnae of confident lender and responsible debtor. Contemporary/thieves' cant such as vigorish, loan-sharking, and chilling the mark are shorthand that would have slowed things down to explain, but probably I should have.
Thanks for explaining and your additional suggestions!
just trying to versify in the manner of Polonius' oft-quoted farewell to Laertes ...
- Yes I got there, eventually but what I'm not getting is a sense of the relationship
between N and whoever N is addressing. The way the ideas are being reworked seems
more like a lecture to a class than a caution to an individual (if that makes sense).
The 'cant' doesn't need explaining (except the hawk/pigeon - all I found was
'unskilled/new gambler' which didn't help).
I think the logic fails me for the lack of the word ‘collateral’. Most transactions, except among friends, involve some form of securing the loan beyond trust. Lenders are notoriously not trusting. Now if this was intended as a loan between friends, which wasn’t addressed, then the comparison to a loan-shark isn’t appropriate. A loan shark demands collateral - one’s continued health.
There is no escape from metre; there is only mastery. TS Eliot
Non-practicing atheist
