Here, then, at home, by no more storms distrest,
Folding laborious hands we sit, wings furled;
Here in close perfume lies the rose-leaf curled,
Here the sun stands and knows not east nor west,
Here no tide runs; we have come, last and best,
From the wide zone through dizzying circles hurled,
To that still centre where the spinning world
Sleeps on its axis, to the heart of rest.
Lay on thy whips, O Love, that we upright,
Poised on the perilous point, in no lax bed
May sleep, as tension at the verberant core
Of music sleeps; for, if thou spare to smite,
Staggering, we stoop, stooping, fall dumb and dead,
And, dying, so, sleep our sweet sleep no more.
-Dorothy Sayers, Gaudy Night
9 comments:
Harriet Vane composes the first octave of this sonnet in Gaudy Night and Peter Wimsey finishes it. I wish I could make better sense of the sestet. It makes me think of a spinning top - still, but only so long as a delicate balance is preserved. Does this mean that there is tension at the heart of stillness, or only that stillness (home, rest) is fragile? Or both? Or something else entirely? Peter characterizes his contribution to the sonnet as "A very conceited, metaphysical conclusion." But I don't understand why these lines are particularly metaphysical (or conceited, for that matter)...
Also, what is "the verberant core of music"?
And why is Love, as opposed to Wisdom or some other personified ideal, being called on to lay on her whips?
Both "metaphysical" and "conceited" are being used as technical terms of literary criticism. See "conceit" in Wikipedia. Lord Peter, you may recall, is very fond of Donne.
Ah. "The term is generally associated with the 17th century metaphysical poets in contemporary usage. In the metaphysical conceit, metaphors have a much more purely conceptual, and thus tenuous, relationship between the things being compared. Helen Gardner observed that 'a conceit is a comparison whose ingenuity is more striking than its justness' and that 'a comparison becomes a conceit when we are made to concede likeness while being strongly conscious of unlikeness.'"
Thank you for posting this poem, which I love, and which I was looking for on the internet when away from my print copy at home.
I think the sestet means that you can only have an ALIVE kind of stillness as long as you're spinning. If you stop spinning, the top falls over, and then you're merely dead. Love is what motivates us to keep spinning (love of a person, passion for a cause, etc); hence its whips. Paradoxically, you can only find and hold your real still center if you are in motion, living and acting in the world, rather than by sitting very still.
I just noticed that Malapropos has linked to Janet's very insightful comment - unfortunately, this blog is in a foreign language (something Scandinavian?) so I can't make much sense out of what it's saying...but I can guess at the meaning of "Heureka!". My sentiment exactly. :) I'm delighted and enriched by the comments on this post.
I think "Lay on thy whips, O Love" refers to a toy called a whip top--you keep it upright and spinning by whipping the side of the top.
I also think while the poem works taken on its own, it serves a very specific and poignant purpose within the Wimsey/Vane narrative. Harriet refused Peter for years because she feared both losing her independence and being less than his equal. At this point, she is considering giving up him and her London life for Oxford's shelter from past scandals; her octave imagines that as a scholar, all the daily confusions would fall away, and she could rest, live out her life in timeless contemplation.
Peter's sestet whips her octave around a full 180: he doesn't want her to give up on real life (and him), he wants to her to be fully engaged in life (and to him!) His kind of marriage is not a "lax bed" of passive surrender, but rather a balanced partnership that offers continual challenge--love not as an escape from striving, but indeed as an impetus to continue to strive.
His addition to her poem shocks Harriet--she finally begins to see that the privilege of his (literally) entitled life, which has previously made her feel inferior, is in fact a set of stultifying circumstances he struggles against, so as not to sink and drown ("fall dumb and dead") in that luxury. She sees his need for her might be real, not an affectation or a vanity or arising from pity, but a lifeline to a kindred spirit central to the survival of the self he usually conceals with glib flippancy but here reveals... with glib flippancy ("a very conceited metaphysical conclusion".)
...they don't make 'em like Sayers no more.
I just found your blog and this particular entry and thought I might also comment on my interpretation of this Sayers passage.
I think those first eight lines contrast with the second six, emphasizing different views of home and love.
In the first portion, home is idealized as the place where the spinning of the world does not affect them; home is the safe harbor; the sun shines directly overhead, there are no shadows; work does not trifle and there is no need to unfurl our "wings". I'm not sure what the sense of the rose-leaf curled is in this context, though.
In the second portion, a contrasting view is provided, that love and life are not lived in the absence of troubles, and that those challenges actually help us remain constant and alert; not lazy and sleepy; lulled to a quiet, but rather ready and awake. If we do not have some adversity, some differences in our home, in our close relationships, we may grow bored and disinterested, and that would be a worse end.
I think this is the point that franmatt makes.
I wonder why Love is called upon rather than wisdom, but I think it may be a reference to God. I may be way off here, but since adversity is often seen as the absence of God, maybe this point is being made that God is in the adversity...
I am not familiar with Sayers' writing to know if this is a reasonable interpretation, though.
What a thoughtful and interesting blog you have!
"Verberant" is a plural form of Latin "verbero"; infinitive "verberare": to lash, scourge, whip, beat.
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