Would you please explain the color code you’ve been using?
Basically (I think) it was positive things (in black), vs negative things (in red)
But it's not any kind of serious "color code". It was just a moment's doodling.
Like Mat, I sometimes dissect and re-arrange things, like a puzzle,
when I'm trying to figure something out. None of that was meant
as some kind of interpretation of the poem. So there's nothing
to defend about it. It was just scribbling. I added the red immediately
before posting. It was an after thought. It took about 3 seconds to think,
(which shows) and then about 10 seconds to do the markup.
However, since you asked, I do remember what I was thinking at the time.
What I was trying to do at the time was figure out what the line
Illuminate his child’s belief in mightiness.
means.
First of all, who is the "he" referred to by the "his"?
Is it Cohen himself? --That is, is he talking about "his" child?
But that would make for some strange shifts in pronoun referencing
across the poem.
On the other hand, if "his" means his child's,
then he (Cohen) is talking about his child's child.
Which is possible. Except that that kind of cross-generational
awareness doesn't occur anywhere else in the poem.
So I take "his" to mean the child's,
and "child's" to be an adjective, --- not the possessive form of the noun.
And it means either "innocent" and "open", or else "childish" and "naive",
-----depending, respectively, on whether the "mightiness", that Cohen
wants illuminated for the child, refers to a positive attribute of God
(or manhood) or else to a negative aspect of "those who have
their channels in the bedrooms" of us all.
It does seem to be ambiguous. It almost seems that Cohen chose
this odd phrasing precicely in order to be neutral between the two.
Especially since the line occurs between two others which pull it in opposite directions -
Direct him to a place of learning.
Illuminate his child’s belief in mightiness.
Rescue him from those who want him with no soul,
And that's when that colorful idea --- to color-code the alternations
between positive and negative things across the poem --- occured to me.
(A true stroke of genius --- which first occurred to me when I was very young,
playing with crayons.)
As for "Illuminate his child’s belief in mightiness",
---I went with the red, because the line made me mad..
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I agree about mentioning the Bhagavad Gita in this context being appreciated.
I read it many many years ago, and remember nothing of it, except Oppenheimer's quote
Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.
and the fact that his mis-quoting of the Gita was very mis-leading about it.
The reason that it was is explained here -
http://www.hindu-blog.com/2007/02/wrong ... ta-to.html
The term used for death in the verse is ‘Kal’
which also means ‘Time’ so the verse also means
Time am I, that comes to destroy worlds, grown mature,
engaged here in subduing the world.
Even without thee, all the warriors stationed in the opposite ranks
shall not be. (Translated by Shakuntala Rao Shastri)
It seems that Cohen understood the Gita better than Oppenheimer did.
(man of peace, vs man of war)
I transcribed Cohen's off-the-cuff quoting from the Gita,
in the movie "I'm Your Man", here -
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8366&p=81878&hilit= ... ins#p81878
---repeated here -
Cohen: >
"There's a beautiful moment in the Bhagavad-Gita:
Arujna ...the general, ...the great general, ....
he's standing in his chariot, ....all the chariots are arrayed for war,
...and across the boundary he sees his opponents,
- and there he sees, - not only uncles and aunts and cousins,
-he sees gurus, -he sees teachers, that have taught him,
(and you know how the Indians revere that relationship,)
-he sees them!
And Krishna ...one of the expressions of the Deity
...says to him: "You'll never untangle the circumstance
that brought you to this moment. You're a warrior. Arise now,
mighty warrior. With the full understanding that they've
already been killed. And so have you. This is just a play.
This is my will. You are caught up in the circumstance
that I determine for you, that you did not determine
for yourself. So arise. You are a noble warrior.
Embrace your destiny, your fate,
and stand up and do your duty. "
Incidentally,
You who question souls, and you to whom souls must answer,
could as well mean Thoth, from The Book of the Dead, as anything else.
)
- 
.