Welcome to the Goretti Publications Podcast; this is Donald
Goodman.  This is Season 1, Episode 6:  narrative poetry.

But before we begin, let me remind you:  Goretti
Publications is a small publishing house that produces both
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theology; philosophy; spirituality; history; and a large
quantity of original poetry.  Our website is gorettipub.org;
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And now, on with the show.

It was long held throughout the world—not merely in the
Western world, but everywhere—that if it was worth saying,
it was worth saying in verse.  Especially the most important
and fundamental texts of a people, its origin stories, were
recorded in verse.  We see this in the grand epics of the
Greeks, the Iliad and the Odyssey; we see it in Beowulf; in
the Epic of Gilgamesh; in the creation story of
Assurbanipal; and even in the Hebrew Bible, about a third of
which is written in verse.  We all know about the Psalms, of
course, which are obviously versified, though their
organization is very different from that of modern poetry;
in Hebrew, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the Minor Prophets
and nearly entirely in verse, and there is poetry
interspersed throughout the Scriptures.

The Greeks often wrote even their philosophy and science, in
verse.  Parmenides wrote in verse; Lucretius, the
first-century-B.C. Epicurean philosopher, wrote his magnum
opus, De Rerum Natura, in 7400 lines of verse.  Aratus wrote
his scientific astronomy in verse; the text of the famous
“cattle problem” from Archimedes to Eratosthenes was written
in verse.  Pythagoras, the famous mathematician (and
somewhat unhinged mystic), wrote his work in verse.

Why was verse so important to the ancients?

One important reason is memory:  it is easier to remember
verse than prose.  Sometimes the examples of this are very
basic, and yet nearly universal; I have seen grizzled
carpenters with decades of experience remind themselves of
the correct way to turn the screw by saying to themselves,
“righty tighty, lefty loosey”.  Is this a work of great
poetry?  Obviously not; but is it a versification that
greatly aids the memory?  Obviously yes.

A better example might be the lengths of the months.  Our
months are not all of the same length (our year's length
does not cooperate with that goal), and history has led to
the months not being evenly distributed throughout the year.
Most confusingly, we have two long months with thirty-one
days right after each other (July and August), and one
extra-short month, February.  We could, of course, remember
this the prose way, by simply reciting the months and their
lengths one after the other; but nobody does.  Instead, we
remember a simple poem:

	Thirty days hath September,
	April, June, and November;
	All the rest have thirty-one,
	but February, the shortest one.

This is the version I have memorized; but some version are
even more detailed:

	Thirty days hath September,
	April, June, and November;
	All the rest have thirty-one;
	Except February, twenty-eight days clear,
	and twenty-nine in each leap year.

Or:
	
	Thirty days hath September,
	April, June, and November;
	All the rest have thirty-one;
	Except February at twenty-eight,
	But leap year, coming once in four,
	February then has one day more.

Then there are similar poetic mnemonics for memorization of
grammatical rules, such as the irregular imperatives in
Latin (of which, mercifully, there are only four):

	Dic, duc, fac, fer:
	Should be an "e", but it's not there.

Or:

	Note socer, gener, liberi,
	and Liber, god of revelry;
	like puer, these retain the "e".

For those second declension nouns that retain an "e" in
their stems, when the rest drop it.

Or, frankly, even the rules for English spelling:

	When two vowels go walking,
	the first does the talking.

Or:

	"I" before "e",
	except after "c",
	and when sounding like "ay"
	as in "neighbor" and "sleigh".

And it's worth noting that, while not exactly verse, there
is a reason that we *sing* our alphabet, rather than merely
saying it:  the rhythm gives us a much easier way to
actually remember it.

Even in religion we have important mnemonics which depend
upon versification and rhyme; as, for example, the twelve
apostles:

	This is the way the disciples run:
	Peter, Andrew, James, and John,
	Philip and Bartholomew,
	Thomas next, and Matthew, too;
	James the Less and James the Greater,
	Simon the Zealot and Judas the traitor.

It is unquestionable that verse is an enormous aid to
memory.  The whole concept of an “earworm” only works
lyrically, not prosaically; no one ever had an “earworm”
from a dissertation.

Writing in verse can also be very useful for isolating
points from others, transitioning from one topic to another,
and so forth.  Consider Edna St Vincent Millay's poem, “The
Philosopher”, which has four four stanzas each with
different rhymes, each of which makes a different point:

	And what are you that, wanting you,
	I should be kept awake
	As many nights as there are days
	With weeping for your sake?
	
	And what are you that, missing you,
	As many days as crawl
	I should be listening to the wind
	And looking at the wall?
	
	I know a man that's a braver man
	And twenty men as kind,
	And what are you, that you should be
	The one man in my mind?
	
	Yet women's ways are witless ways,
	As any sage will tell, --
	And what am I, that I should love
	So wisely and so well?

The first verse asks what there is about this person that
should lead her to be so deeply emotionally affected by this
individual (who is nameless; indeed, his name is utterly
irrelevant to the point, and that point is all the stronger
for us having no idea who the object of the poem is).  This
is the verse rhyming “awake/sake”.

Then there is a verse rhyming “crawl/wall”; her interest
leads not only to sorrow, as in the first verse, but even to
a sort of catatonic inaction:  listening to the wind,
staring at the wall, in inactivity, perhaps even paralysis.

Then there is a verse rhyming “kind/mind”, which points out
that although this man has led her to sorrow and paralysis,
he isn't even that great a man!  She *knows* that there are
braver, and even kinder men around, and yet this one is the
one that has lodged in her heart.  Why?

And finally, the denouement:  there isn't any sense in it
all.  “[W]omen's ways are witless ways”; and yet her love
for this man, who isn't nearly as great a man as the depth
of her love would imply, is still itself a prodigy.  How
should she love “[s]o wisely and so well”, when “women's
ways are witless ways”?  Perhaps, after all, women's ways
aren't so witless as they might seem.

Ms. Millay could easily have written a little essay or an
open letter about how strange it is that love leads us to
a deep and often anguishing interest in individuals all out
of proportion to their objective worth; and yet it would not
have been nearly as effective as this short yet profound set
of verses.

(Of course, later in her life, Ms. Millay's poetry was often
denigrated by “free-verse” modernists due to its use of
traditional forms; but we have already explored the
foolishness behind such nonsense in an earlier episode.
It's also worth noting that Millay's personal life is far
from being an example to a Christian; indeed, it is full of
dissipation and sometimes outright wickedness.  but this
work is still a fine one and an excellent example of our
thesis.)

Verse can also impart on a text a strength and an
inspiration that it would otherwise lack, or at least have
in significantly less degree.  We hear of the ancient heroes
giving great speeches to their men in verse, using grand and
ancient formulas to instill spirit and warlike vigor into
their armies.  Sadly, we do not have the texts of such great
speeches; but a wonderful example is, as always, the
immortal Bard, William Shakespeare, who made such a powerful
example of it in his history play Henry V, when one of his
men wished that they had more soldiers on their own side:

	What’s he that wishes so?
	My cousin Westmoreland? No, my fair cousin:
	If we are mark’d to die, we are enow
	To do our country loss; and if to live,
	The fewer men, the greater share of honour.
	God’s will! I pray thee, wish not one man more.
	By Jove, I am not covetous for gold,
	Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost;
	It yearns me not if men my garments wear;
	Such outward things dwell not in my desires:
	But if it be a sin to covet honour,
	I am the most offending soul alive.
	No, faith, my coz, wish not a man from England:
	God’s peace! I would not lose so great an honour
	As one man more, methinks, would share from me
	For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more!
	Rather proclaim it, Westmoreland, through my host,
	That he which hath no stomach to this fight,
	Let him depart; his passport shall be made
	And crowns for convoy put into his purse:
	We would not die in that man’s company
	That fears his fellowship to die with us.
	This day is called the feast of Crispian:
	He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,
	Will stand a tip-toe when the day is named,
	And rouse him at the name of Crispian.
	He that shall live this day, and see old age,
	Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours,
	And say ‘To-morrow is Saint Crispian:’
	Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars.
	And say ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’
	Old men forget: yet all shall be forgot,
	But he’ll remember with advantages
	What feats he did that day: then shall our names.
	Familiar in his mouth as household words
	Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,
	Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester,
	Be in their flowing cups freshly remember’d.
	This story shall the good man teach his son;
	And Crispin Crispian shall ne’er go by,
	From this day to the ending of the world,
	But we in it shall be remember’d;
	We few, we happy few, we band of brothers;
	For he to-day that sheds his blood with me
	Shall be my brother; be he ne’er so vile,
	This day shall gentle his condition:
	And gentlemen in England now a-bed
	Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,
	And hold their manhoods cheap whiles any speaks
	That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

It is impossible to read this—or especially to hear this, as
it was meant to be received—without being inspired.  Even
though it contains some unfamiliar vocabulary (“crowns for
convoy”) and meaningless (to us) names (“Warwick and Talbot,
Salisbury and Gloucester”), we know what this means and what
we must do.  We have all been inspired, before a game or
something similar, by prose given to us by a coach or a
leader; but can we honestly claim that any such was even
remotely as inspiring as this verse masterpiece?

Nor need the verse be the beautiful, lilting blank verse of
Renaissance England, as above.  Tolkien's character Theoden
inspires his men with a beautiful, short, alliterative
piece:

	Arise, arise, riders of Rohan!
	Fell deeds awake, fire and slaughter!
	Spear shall be shaken, shield be splintered!
	A sword-day, a red day, ere the sun rises!
	Ride now, ride now, ride to Gondor!

This is a very orthodox Old-English-type alliterative poem
that is every bit as inspiring as Henry's.

It is recorded that many men could give poetic speeches off
the cuff; they were obviously not as polished, I'm sure, as
the examples we've given above, which benefit from calm and
peaceful composition; but I am also quite sure that the
formulas of pre-modern poetical composition would allow for
credibly poetic inspiration to be delivered in this way.

History and philosophy can also be credibly delivered in
this way.  In English, the best medium for such is likely
blank verse, or potentially alliterative verse.  Our
original poem this week is “The Question”, a poem on a
philosophical question, death, written in blank verse.  It
is not, like our poem in our last episode, “Death Has Been
Cheated Once”, a lyrical exploration of an aspect of
Chistian belief regarding death.  Rather, it is a real
philosophical discussion about death:  how the pagans
perceived it, from a heroic standpoint and from an Epicurean
standpoint; what was wrong with those standpoints; how a
Christian perceives it; and how this perception is better
than the others.

	Do you remember what you ask'd me, friend?
	You ask'd me if I was afraid to die.
	That question made me think of many things;
	it made me think about my college days,
	when I read Plato telling me about
	the condemnation Socrates endur'd,
	and what he said when people ask'd him that.
	He didn't know what happen'd after death,
	but neither did he worry; no, he said
	that even though he didn't know the truth,
	the gods must know it; and since they are good,
	he shouldn't worry, and would trust in them.
	And Socrates was not the first man ask'd
	that question; no, it's plagu'd the mind of man
	for ages; nor has any answer gain'd
	the general agreement of mankind.
	"The undiscovered country"; that is true;
	a mystery which people cannot solve,
	but which we all must face before too long
	and learn the answer finally, in the end.
	And darkness always holds a mystery;
	our minds fill in whatever eyes don't see
	and make a story which will give some shape
	to what is otherwise a shapeless void.
	And so we do with death, but even more:
	not only is its shape conceal'd from us,
	but no one else can see it during life;
	and after someone knows what lies beyond,
	he can no longer tell us what he saw.
	And this is just the nature of our lives;
	we cannot know what comes when we must leave
	the world we've come to know; and so we fear.
	It's like the ancient maps which, in the west,
	not knowing what comes next, just let the mind
	fill in the details, showing scary beasts
	and monsters, which the real world never knew.
	This terror; that's the fear that built the world;
	the fear that led the pharoahs, long ago,
	to flog their slaves to build those monuments
	that even to this day blot out the sun
	in their attempt to shed some light on death;
	great tombs to lead them to another world,
	which in their terror they believ'd must be
	a lot like that they left behind.  That fear
	compelled the heroes to their famous deeds;
	it made Achilles storm the walls of Troy,
	Diomedes to fight the gods themselves;
	their terror at what came when they should die
	compelled them to do things that we would note
	and talk about forever; in that way,
	they hoped to live beyond their days of death,
	avoiding that great pit of the unknown
	which could well end the world for them for good.
	This terror made the Romans seize the world,
	to get themselves an empire that would last
	and spread their fame for ages yet to come,
	so they could live forever in the songs
	and memories of people, far beyond
	the day they step beyond the world of light
	and into that thick blackness which conceals
	the undiscovered country from us all.
	But then, some people didn't fear at all,
	but not because they knew; because despair
	had led them not to care what came beyond.
	Instead, they liv'd their lives, and ate and drank,
	and revell'd in what time they had; what came
	when all their time was up was no concern
	as long as they were comfortable in life.
	But what about the poor?  about the slaves?
	about the ones who didn't have enough?
	Well, there was nothing for them but despair,
	to grab what little they could grab, and then
	just suffer through it; that must be enough.
	And when they suffer'd, they could not rejoice;
	the only time they had was misery,
	and they had nothing to look forward to
	except the end of sorrow, not to joy.
	They were like dogs, who, when their master's kind,
	could live a happy life, and eat and play
	in comfort, knowing that there's always more,
	and having no concern about their deaths;
	but who, if they're unlucky, will be kick'd
	and beaten, never having food and drink
	enough to fill their stomachs; hungry, cold,
	unlov'd they live their lives until they die,
	and then they cease to be; their wasted lives
	absorbed by endless, pointless misery.
	And this indifference built our sorry world,
	the lucky resting on the backs of those
	who aren't so lucky; many's misery
	permits the decent lives of just a few;
	but lucky or unlucky, when we die,
	we need not worry what might lie beyond.
	And so, my friend, your question comes again:
	Am I afraid to die?  No, I am not,
	'cause I don't need to fill the details in
	with wild imagination; I do know
	what lies behind the curtain of life's end.
	For me, the veil was ripped apart in two,
	and what was hidden shown in day's full light,
	the sun now shining brightly on the shapes
	whose mysteries confounded ages past
	and struck so many of our ancestors
	with terror or despair.  And when I pain,
	I know my pain has purpose; I am not
	a dog whose master takes his anger out
	on some poor animal; I know my pains
	and sufferings are not a waste of life,
	but just a trial I must endure on this,
	the road from life into the light beyond.
	Diomedes once fought the gods of Greece,
	struck Aphrodite as an enemy;
	but God, my God, is not some hateful foe,
	but rather is my friend, my closest friend,
	who loves me as no other can, who sees
	and guards me through my life, whose loving care
	embraces me along that winding road
	which leads me to my death.  My suffering
	is real, true misery; but I know God
	knows all about my sorrows; he himself
	took all of them, and more, upon himself,
	becoming human in all ways but sin,
	including suffering.  He died for me,
	to make up for my sins, and those of all
	the human race.  We suffer not like dogs,
	but like our God, who suffer'd for us all.
	So am I always happy?  No, I'm not;
	I often suffer from despair and fear,
	a lack of trust in what I have been told;
	much like a prodigy, who takes a test
	and knows that he has pass'd it; nonetheless,
	he agonizes, waiting for the score
	that he already knows will be an A.
	My comfort's not emotional; at times
	I feel quite happy, like a newlywed
	who overflows with passionate desire
	and love for her who gave herself to him;
	but just as often---possibly more so---
	I'm like that couple twenty-five years on,
	when all the luster's been rubb'd off, and stale
	familiarity has now replac'd
	what once was pure delight; or even more,
	a tir'd and sad disgust with one who now
	exasperates much more than she delights.
	Oh, no; my comfort doesn't make me smile,
	as if it were some magic happy pill
	to wipe away all sadness and regret;
	I do feel sadness, at what makes me sad;
	I feel regret and guilt for what I've done
	which I should not have; nothing wipes away
	those feelings; nor do I think something should.
	But something can now wipe away the sins
	that make me feel that guilt; and I can use
	my guilty feelings to make up for all
	the wrongs that I have done to God and man.
	My comfort isn't that my sadness stops;
	it's that my sadness has a purpose, too,
	as much as does my happiness and joy.
	A hero who gives up his precious life
	to save another doesn't hurt the less
	because his suffering saves someone else;
	to say he does reduces what he's done
	and makes it selfish; no, he truly pains,
	but he endures the pain because it brings
	a good about which otherwise would die.
	So all that pagan sorrow, long ago,
	and all its heirs, still living on today,
	was like a hero, perishing in fire,
	but not to save another; in the hope
	that someone might remember all his pain
	and sing a song about it later on;
	or even worse, to make sure some aesthete
	will have a happy life before he dies,
	without a recompense for him himself.
	My sorrow, though, is sorrow with an end,
	which doesn't make it lesser, but which does
	give it a meaning which makes it worthwhile.
	It isn't warm and fuzzy, like a dream
	a little girl might have, with rainbows bright
	and unicorns and kittens; what a joke,
	a parody the world will never know!
	Oh, no; it hurts; it hurts as much for me
	as it would hurt for anybody else.
	But it's a pain I know is something more;
	although it feels like it will never end,
	I know that it is really very short;
	that God himself endur'd what I endure
	for me; so I can do it now, for him.
	This is the light that chang'd the ancient world
	and all mankind forever; this the light
	that put to flight the darkness that conceals
	the undiscovered country from us all.
	We need not struggle without hope for life;
	our sorrows are just covers for our joy,
	which ending will be thrown off to the wind
	to make a way for joy without an end
	or any alloy.  So I don't fear death
	or any suffering in life.  I love
	my sorrows, for they are the keys I need
	to open up the gates to lasting joy.
	No, Faith does not eliminate all pain;
	but it gives meaning to it; I do know
	what happens after death, for God has told
	it all, and he is good; and so I trust.

This *could* be an essay; we could be exploring these
notions of death, and pagan ideas of death as opposed to
Christian ones, by writing a lengthy prose monologue with
footnotes and arguments.  Instead, this is a poetical
explanation of those questions, which the author suggests
gets at the same notions with at least the same level of
depth, and does so in a more readable way, particular when
*listening* rather than *reading* (as poetry is really
supposed to be consumed).

Thank you.  Until next time, this has been Gorpod, the
Goretti Publications podcast.