leonardcohenforum.com

Ahh! What fun!
Interpreting a poem, particularly Cohen’s poetry, is a tricky path to walk. You and I know we each strive to comprehend his work in a way that is satisfying to our own curious view/perception of Life. If Cohen one day stumbled on my posts, he may well laugh at the absurdity of some of my braver interpretations; and if he did laugh, I could only smile and say; “Thanks anyway Leonard for taking me to that inner-tuition, whether you intended it or not.”
Each of us who walk this rocky path of commentary, are viewing the panorama from half way up the hill, so to speak and each has the opportunity to gaze where he or she is inclined. One may search out the valleys, the crest, the local fossils/geology, a Burning Bush or the Moon. It is this opportunity for each of us to daydream a little that I so enjoy; to reflect and to contemplate and then to mould a considered (though often flawed) response; for the sheer pleasure of it. That is why we are here; for sure.
So from our hillside position we saunter and the direction of our gaze probably defines us. And this view certainly colours our understandings and our individual responses to the surrounding landscape (poetry).

…and so, fellow travellers, we gaze on
I can see your reasoning Doron for viewing/interpreting verses 3, 4, & 8 as very dark when you say;
“Now, could LC attribute all these violence to a benevolent force that is meant to awaken him? That’s a little hard to accept. Mightn’t he refer to a much darker force?”

Perhaps this is the case, (but, there is always a “but” ) verse 9 takes us/me in a different direction; it is a different “moment”, a shift in attitude in the song.

9.
“And he gave the wind
My wedding ring:
And he circled us
With everything.”

If you listen again to this song being sung (C.D./iPod) you will hear that the music is very Spiritual throughout verse 9. The music, more than the words in this verse of the song, sings to me of hope and redemption. The vocals in verse 9 are very uplifting from my hillside view.
Listen again to the music of verse 9…and then tell me again that there is no hope peppered into this lament, Doron.
I hear hope; hope breaking out of despair; like a “wounded dawn” …like that thankful cry of David, his “broken hallelujah”.

Elsewhere on this album/C.D I hear Leonard hovering around the same wounded hallelujah (synthesis of the two lines) when he bemoans his rise and fall yet again:

“You lift me up in grace
Then you take me to a place
Where I must fall.”

(Tine/Doron/all,)
It seems that this “wounded dawn” is a recurring experience for Leonard and may be his inspiration; hence he says;
“Be the truth unsaid And the blessing gone, If I forget My Babylon.”
The “darkness” is a muse of a sort

Perhaps he feels/intuits that either Life or his G~d orchestrate this recurring “Le Schute” (This Camus-esq Fall) in order to “Wake him up” (Buddhist Awakening).
Of course one could blame poor old Satan for this “Fall”, but Satan only does the work that Leonard’s G~d ordains according to the author of The Book of Job. (And I choose this book as my definer of all things Shaitan/Satan.)

(As I have mentioned to you before, D.B, I love this little book (of Job) and it’s interesting expose` of Satan’s limits when Job’s God says to Satan, “You may do what you like to Job, but you may not kill him.”
And Satan saunters off; yet operates within the limits that Job’s God set for him.)

But really, I’m not big on “dark forces’ and “satan’s” and such. We all have our part to play, our job to do in this Masquerade. As I have often said, the ‘darkness’ that man is exposed to, in my opinion, is his own personal ‘ignorance’; and the only significant external force is that which he may be fortunate enough to experience when, as the Buddhists say, he ‘Awakens’ into or via, that Force.
(Otherwise it would be “Ye of little faith” for this fool, Mat.)
Enlightenment is temporary, I suspect; a pebble-slippery hill-top memory at best perhaps; and perhaps this is why Leonard so often “set out one night” and goes “stumbling through the dark”; (with “Longing”) into…this Babylonian Boogie Street of ‘wounded’ and ‘broken’ awakenings.
…and that process of experiencing his ‘broken and wounded dawn’ is his inspiration.

Or similarly, as you put it in a previous post Doron,

“Simultaneously, he evokes the struggle of the artist, his need and sometimes his inability to sing…”

Mat belly-button-gazer-J (as Manna so aptly defined me, once!)

mat james wrote:Opposites “need” each other, …and at that interface, that wounded dawn is a transient co-existent moment in a day. It does not last all day, or all night, just occasionally somewhere in between. Then back to Babylon or Boogie Street we go! Yet he/we remember that moment of fusing opposition; and without one you lose the other, and, that glorious vision.

....
…and that process of experiencing his ‘broken and wounded dawn’ is his inspiration.

Mat, These are beautiful. Yes I felt there could be a relationship between Babylon an Boogie Street. Thanks.

Mat,

Wow! I can’t expect to relate to everything you’ve written in your last posting, but I took your advice and listened again to the song, and I see your point about the music. Generally speaking, when listening to the song, with its somewhat jumpy arrangement, it doesn’t seem as unequivocally about depression as it does when you only read the lyrics.
However, since it would be boring if I agreed with you on every point, here is a quote on which I beg to differ:

You and I know we each strive to comprehend his work in a way that is satisfying to our own curious view/perception of Life.

Well, I can’t deny it altogether, and surely, into any process of interpretation you bring something of yourself, wittingly or unwittingly, but I’d like to think that I do my best to use whatever is in the poem and not more, except for the most obvious allusions. I undoubtedly get it wrong sometimes, but at least this is my ideal. That’s what I tried to do in my earlier postings (but as we’ve said many times before: a good poem or song can be interpreted in various ways, and mean different things to different people, and that, as you say, is part of the fun).

Hi all,
Thanks for the generous remark TineDoes.
Doron, does this comment below make you my "Shaitan" (adversary, tester, tempter)

However, since it would be boring if I agreed with you on every point,...Well, I can’t deny it altogether,

'Shaitan'. I believe it is an Islamic word, Doron. What is the Hebrew equivalent? Could you please give me your understanding/meaning of it in case I am misusing the name/term.?

I'm off on a tangent again; sort of.
This quote from "East of Eden" (Steinbeck) aligns (in a way) with my thoughts on the importance of the Book of Job in my above post and the opportunity for choice of action.
I get the feeling Leonard would enjoy this clarity moment of Steinbeck's.
I just love it.
("Thou mayest"/you may)

http://timshel.org/timshel.php


Mat.

Mat,

This is really an inspired quotation, thank you for it. The story about the Chinese sages learning Hebrew in order to get the Bible’s meaning right is beautiful, very much to Steinbeck’s credit (although, clearly, he didn’t know much Hebrew). It was especially intriguing for me, because comparing biblical translations is what occupies me daily in recent months. However, the verse in question is one of the most difficult in the Old Testament, and Steinbeck’s and his Chinese protagonists’ interpretation is not the final word. I may go into it some other time, but meanwhile, would you care to say more on how you connect this with Job?

would you care to say more on how you connect this with Job?

(Doron)

'timshel'

timshel or timshol?

All I can say is thank heaven for free will

Please forgive my indulgence and sense of humor -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kl-VCHzS1So

I have just discovered this band by a twist of fate due to the above said word.

Well, as I said earlier Steinbeck’s knowledge of Hebrew must have been very limited. First, the correct transliteration of that Hebrew word is not “timshel” but “timshol”. Now a little lesson in biblical Hebrew is required. Hebrew has many fewer tenses than English; it means that when translating from English to Hebrew something is often lost (unless it could be compensated for somehow), and when translating from Hebrew to English, the translator must use his own judgment on which tense to use exactly. In biblical Hebrew one of the two most common tenses is known as the “imperfect” and it can denote an action on a continuum from present to future, and under certain circumstances, even past (in modern Hebrew it denotes only the future). Also, unlike English, the Hebrew verb includes the pronoun, identifying the doer of the action. So “timshol” means “you [will] rule”.

Now the verse in question has to be regarded in view of another, earlier one. First, here is the King James Version again, with the Hebrew verb added:

Genesis 4:6-7:
And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule [timshol - second-person singular] over him.

Now here is the scene in which Adam, Eve and the snake are punished before being driven out of Eden:

Genesis 3:16:
Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule [yimshol - third-person singular] over thee.

I quote the KJV because its translators were consistent here in translating the same Hebrew words in the different verses with the same English ones, while the translators of other versions often picked different English words for the two scenes, thus spoiling the connection. Please notice the similar wording in the end of each quote (except for the pronouns). Some commentators believe that there was a mix-up in the long process of copying the OT over generations, and part of the verse in chapter 3 somehow found its way into chapter 4 (the issue of transmission and text corruption should always be taken into account when seriously considering ancient documents). On the other hand, if one maintains that the text is as it should be, what are we to make of all that? In the case of the woman we have a universal law dictated here (which not a few men still would like to apply): men rule over women, who are enslaved by their desire for them. Now what about Cain and sin? Is this another universal law? Surely not, otherwise sin would be nonexistent. So on principle, the conclusion reached by the Chinese sages in Steinbeck’s novel could be correct: all options are there, and it is up to one’s individual decision whether to conquer sin, but again, this is a matter of interpretation, and is not explained unequivocally even when one learns to read the original text.

Now, Mat, after this long and perhaps unnecessary elaboration, you still need to tell me where you see the connection with the Book of Job.

Doron, thanks for the clarifications above.

Now, Mat, after this long and perhaps unnecessary elaboration, you still need to tell me where you see the connection with the Book of Job.
Timshol.
...So on principle, the conclusion reached by the Chinese sages in Steinbeck’s novel could be correct: all options are there, and it is up to one’s individual decision whether to conquer sin, but again, this is a matter of interpretation, and is not explained unequivocally even when one learns to read the original text. (Doron)

It is the use of the term “thou mayest/you may” that took my fancy when reading both "The Book of Job" and "East of Eden".
Steinbeck’s Chinese sages translate ‘timshol’ as “Thou mayest” (rule).
They dismiss “shall” and “will” and no one even mentions “can”.
‘Thou mayest’ translates in todays language as, “you may”, which is a polite way of saying that one has permission to do a certain action if they choose to do so.

Job 12,13: And the Lord replied to Satan, “You may do anything you like with his wealth, but don’t harm him physically.”

(The Living Bible version)
Now, this framing story in the Book of Job is of great interest to me for it defines Satan's limitations; and those limitations are controlled/defined by "The Lord (God)".
The Lord gives Satan permission…
The implication here is that Satan accepts the “rule” (“You may” and “you may not”) of God and can only operate within the parameters that God/Lord sets for him.
Satan's role in this divine drama may be to test "man" but he does not test "God"; rather he (Satan) does as he is told.
It follows then that (Job's) God is in control of evil; not Satan.
And, in the context of Biblical literature, one could argue that Satan is an integral part of that Unity which defines itself as "I am Who AM".
{One could also argue that Job has more "freedom of will" than Satan, as Job has the opportunity to break the "rule" and “curse” God whereas Satan sticks to the limitations set by God…and does not kill Job; only destroys his wealth at first, then later, with the Lord’s permission (‘you may’), wipes out his family.}

So, for me, the beauty of this book is not the main plot, but the sub-plot.
And this book wipes out the idea that Satan is the enemy of God; in fact this book designates Satan as God's willing (though unsavory) ally.
The (unknown) author of the Book of Job positions Satan as an obedient servant (though distasteful to Him) of Job's, "Lord/God".

And now back to our thread context, "By The rivers Dark";
Job may well have said/thought:

“Then he struck my heart
With a deadly force…
By the rivers dark
Where I could not see
Who was waiting there
Who was hunting me.”

And how could poor old Job/Leonard or any Biblical "believer" judge who the real ‘hunter’ was (Satan or Satan’s Boss)?
So Job just gets on with the job of being Job. ("My faithful servant... who fears God and will have nothing to do with evil").

"By the rivers Dark," I wander on...

Mat.

Mat,

Your recent posting was very thought-provoking. I’ll try to comment briefly on some of its points.

Starting from the bottom, I was impressed by the comparison between Job in his story and LC in this song. You say they wouldn’t know who the real hunter is, Satan or his boss. But I think that for Job there is only one possible answer, and that’s the “boss”. He is never even aware that Satan is involved in the game. He maintains his faith in God both in the beginning of the story and in the end, when God himself speaks to him but gives him a very unsatisfactory answer to his protest. And indeed, the real dilemma of the book is how can God allow all these terrible things that happen to good people; the real responsibility lies with him, not with Satan, who is but a tool. I would guess that for LC too the ultimate address would be the highest one, and not someone in between.

You are right about the fact that in this book Satan is not the enemy of God but a loyal servant. I believe that the idea of the enemy came with Christianity (although something similar may have existed earlier in Zoroastrianism).

Now about translation, and as I said before, it is a very complicated business. You wrote:

‘Thou mayest’ translates in todays language as, “you may”, which is a polite way of saying that one has permission to do a certain action if they choose to do so.

In the case of Cain, I wouldn’t say that he is given permission to overcome sin, and therefore “you may” would not be a good translation after all. Perhaps “you can (if you have the will)” would be better. And in the case of Job, “you may” is something added by the “Living Bible”, which is, as you know, a paraphrase rather than a faithful translation, and should be used with caution (or not at all).

Do I criticize too much? Sorry, but that’s what happen to someone working with the problems of biblical translation on a daily basis. So to end on a more positive note I’ll say that I really admired your point, saying:

One could argue that Job has more freedom of will than Satan, as Job has the opportunity to break the rules and “curse” God whereas Satan sticks to the limitations set by God…

Very well said and a good point in favor of the freedom of will, which us lowly humans enjoy (or suffer), but Satan and the angles lack.

Thank you for letting me join this great discussion! Every thing I saw is probably repeated earlier, but I have a few observations.

First, in "That Don't Make It Junk" the line "Why do you bother with my heart at all?" resonates with many other lines in other songs. It seems to be perfectly answered in, "This heart, it is not yours." This also mirrors the feelings in "Love Itself" where the narrator discovers that "You have loved enough-now let me be the lover."

I don't claim to know the Deity that is referenced in these verses-whether it is the God of Abraham, Isaac & Jacob, Jesus, Mohammed or any other Prophets or the indeterminate deity of the Zen followers. In any case, the reference to the Psalm represents a startling reversal. The original singer of the Psalm represents those original refugees who were troubled by their alienation from the true Jerusalem and their acceptance of their refugee status. Leonard's song takes the other direction and laments those who abandon, "Babylon." This seems very significant. Maybe Montreal represents the true Jerusalem and New York is the new Babylon, but it is obvious that the narrator is extremely torn.

To prefigure just a bit, the line from "Boogie Street," "Now come my friends, be not afraid, we are so lightly here; it is in love that we are made and in love we disappear. Though all the maps of blood and flesh are posted on the door, there's no one who has told us yet, what Boogie Street is for." The map of blood on the door is clearly a reference to the Passover-and the question remains, "Who is passed over?" In this life, where all of us are mortal, it seems that it is nobody. What are these maps and what do they represent in the eternal scheme? Is it dodging a bullet? Is it an infinite regress of repetition forever? Is there some larger issue that all of this is working toward? I think that Leonard suggests that he doesn't know the answers, but is at least able to better form the questions.

Another mystic Mat, one of the first significant female figures in both religion and literature, Julian of Norwich, inspired a great song, called the "Bells of Norwich." It was written by Sydney Carter who also wrote the great Quaker hymn, "The Lord of the Dance (Simple Blessings)."

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.

Ring out, bells of Norwich, and let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.

Love, like the yellow daffodil, is coming through the snow.
Love, like the yellow daffodil, is Lord of all I know.

CHORUS

Ring for the yellow daffodil, the flower in the snow.
Ring for the yellow daffodil, and tell them what I know.

CHORUS

All shall be well, I`m telling you, let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know.

Loud are the bells of Norwich and the people come and go.
Here by the tower of Julian, I tell them what I know.

CHORUS

All shall be well, I`m telling you, let the winter come and go
All shall be well again, I know

I think that in some way, Leonard is saying, "That All Shall Be Well Again." It is one of the truest and most comforting notions that we have. I look forward to discussing this more with you all.

Joe

Joe,

I’m very glad to see you’ve joined the discussion. I think it is Mat who should respond to you first, but I believe he’s gone away for a few days, so it might be a while before you’ll hear from him. I’ll also try to write more later.

While we are waiting for him to come back, I thought I’d say a little more about the Book of Job, which caught Mat’s fancy so much. The book is framed by a story written in prose (1:1-3:1 and 42:7-17), while in between there are poetic speeches by Job and his “friends”, and a final one by God himself. In the frame story God allows Satan to strike Job in order to test his faith, and in the end, after he seems to have stood the test, restores his health and wealth that were taken away from him, and even gives him a new family (but what about the children he lost?). In the frame story - actually, in its first part, because he is not mentioned again in the end - Satan is a kind of mischievous subordinate, who teases God into having a bet with him (although the stakes are not specified) concerning Job’s possible reaction to the misfortunes brought upon him. The most damning fact in this story is that God, supposedly omniscient and therefore in no real need of such a test, lets himself be drawn into this cruel game, at the expense of Job. He is being almost cynical, while Satan is only doing his job.

Before the final reward God answers Job’s complaint on why do the righteous suffer with a rather unsatisfying bottom line: you are too small to question my greatness, and you will never be able to grasp the measures of reality. Many generations of philosophers, theologians and writers have debated the message of this book, and I have nothing new to offer of my own, but I was recently reminded of a great short story which is based on this book, and felt that I’d like to share it.

Mat had surprised us with some pages from Steinbeck, and I would like to recall another great American writer of the twentieth century. Bernard Malamud is one of my favorite authors; he was a true master of the short story (his collected stories number 55, and include many great ones), and he also wrote several excellent novels (my favorite is The Assistant). One of his short stories, written in 1957, is called “An Apology”. I couldn’t find the text on the Net, so I’ll have to summarize it.

On a hot day in New York a couple of policemen pick up an old peddler who has no license and put him in their car to be taken to the station. The younger of the two, called Lou (in the role of Satan here), insists on questioning and charging the peddler, convincing the older one, Walter (in the role of God), not to leave the peddler alone. The peddler refuses to identify himself or answer most questions. On their way to the station they stop at Walter’s house so he can change his shirt, and later get stuck in a traffic jam on the bridge, when the peddler tries to run for it. The policemen catch up with him, lying on the ground and scratching himself fervently. A woman who passes by recognizes him as Bloostein, a man she knows from the neighborhood, although she doesn’t know where he lives. She tells them:

“My father said he used to own a store on Second Avenue but he lost it. Then his missus died and also his daughter was killed in a fire. Now he’s got the seven years’ itch and they can’t cure it in the clinic. They say he peddles with light bulbs.”

The woman asks the policemen what did the man do, and Walter answers: “It doesn’t matter what he tried to do”. (Just like Job: it didn’t matter what he did, he was punished anyhow).

Walter then tells Lou “Let him go”, and so they do. However, the same night Walter finds the peddler in front of his house, asking for one of his two boxes of light bulbs the policemen had misplaced, and Walter drives him in his car to look for it. After driving around town for hours (stopping here and there for drinks while the peddler is waiting in the car), Walter gives up and buys a new box of bulbs, telling the peddler that’s the one he’d lost. Still, much later the same night Walter can’t sleep and when he looks out the window he sees Bloostein standing out there in the rain. He goes out again, feeling a “sickening emptiness”:

“Staring down at the sidewalk he thought about everything. At last he raised his head and slowly said, ‘Bloostein, I owe you an apology. I’m really sorry the whole thing happened. I haven’t been able to sleep. From my heart I’m truly sorry.’
“Bloostein gazed at him with enormous eyes reflecting the moon. He answered nothing, but it seemed he had shrunk and so had his shadow.”

Here lies the difference between this story and the story of Job: in the original story, God never apologizes. He restores Job to his earlier position, but says nothing about all the suffering he caused him for no good reason. Here the policeman, in a very human gesture, apologizes. Malamud’s consistent message was that being truly human is more important than being godly, truly or not.

Hi Doron,
Thank you for that great summation of the Malamud story. I was trying to find my copy of Frye's "The Great Code" because he has much to say about the Book of Job. Unfortunately my books are scattered or boxed up because of a moisture problem that we have in our basement. I'll look forward to contributing to that part soon.

However, I do wish to comment about how the Job situation, while perfectly literary and confusing it is so common to us in everyday life. Who hasn't wondered how he or she has been targeted for misfortune with a silent sky never acknowledging any involvement.

This brought to my mind one of my favorite Thomas Hardy poems, "Hap."

IF but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

Then would I bear, and clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased, too, that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
--Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan....
These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

How much more painful would it be if "Dicing Time" were what determined our fate? And who knows if it isn't true on one level or another?

Leonard's narrator in "By the Rivers Dark" certainly seems to side with the presence of an almighty. There is an acceptance of the narrator's responsibility for creating the conditions that are now being experienced.

Doron, I'll start the thread about "Lines" in the very near future.

Joe

Joe,

Thank you for that poem by Hardy. Unless I’m mistaken, he seems to adopt Job’s position of “accepting both good and evil”. Or perhaps he is more agnostic?

I’m glad that you are going to start another discussion. We can have both simultaneously.