“The Indian to His Love” by William Butler Yeats

Wes & Erin discuss “The Indian to His Love.” Upcoming Episodes: “Picnic at Hanging Rock”; Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House” and “An Enemy of the People.” Pre-order Erin’s forthcoming book “Avail” here: http://subtextpodcast.com/avail For bonus content, become a paid subscriber at Patreon or directly on the Apple Podcasts app. Patreon subscribers also get early access to ad-free regular episodes. This podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit AirwaveMedia.com to listen and subscribe to other Airwave shows like Good Job, Brain and Big Picture Science. Email [email protected] to enquire about advertising on the podcast. Follow: Twitter | Facebook | Website Transcript 0:19 Erin: patreon.com/ subtextpodcast. 0:32 Wes: Hey, welcome to part four of our four part series on Yeats. For this part we're going to discuss the Indian to his love. Erin, were you familiar with this poem before reading it for today? 0:43 Erin: I was not. I was not familiar with this one. 0:46 Wes: Yeah, it's an early poem. He wrote it when he was 23. You don't see as much written about this. I had trouble finding anything really, but I didn't look that hard. But I was looking in, you know, collections of critical essays and things like that. 0:59 Erin: You mentioned you love this poem. So I don't want to say anything bad about it, but I will say that this, this is a bit of my nightmare vision of a relationship. It scares the crap out of me, this poem. 1:12 Wes: Yeah, well, I think it's meant to. 1:14 Erin: Yes, yes, yes, I think so too, at the end. Yeah, but. 1:18 Wes: But I was curious. I was wondering if you were going to think, oh, well, this is juvenile or something like, you wrote it when he was 23. Yes, yeah, I'm too ignorant. To me it's just a nice bump advanced enough to make the distinction. So anyway, but it occurred to me, okay, yeah, others might not think this is that great maybe, but yeah, Yeats 1:41 Erin: is one of the few poets to really take a whole lifetime to. It's the rare poet who writes his best work so late in his life. Right. So there's a sort of lifetime of apprenticeship and sort of like gearing up for that great work that has to happen. So ordinarily the poem of a 23 year old super famous poet would be, you know, a Keats or something like that. In this instance, it sort of. It sort of reads to me like juvenilia, because Yeats is such a slow starter, not in terms of output but in terms of greatness, you know. 2:14 Wes: Well, I really. I think the thing that grabbed me about this poem was the last two lines of the first stanza. A parrot sways upon a tree, raging at his own an image in the enameled sea. And I know you haven't read this yet, so you should read it in a Second. Second. But I just wanted to say that. That it's. It's those two lines that I think made this a poem that I always. That I, you know, I had a weakness for. Yeah. 2:36 Erin: What's the seed of so much to come, you know? So it's interesting to see it appear here. Like. Oh, he's really interested in birds and narcissism. Narcissism and enamel. And water, apparently, that doesn't undulate at all, even though it's the same. Anyway. 2:54 Wes: Guess it's a lagoon or something. Well, yeah. Why don't you read it before we say more? 3:00 Erin: Okay. The island dreams under the dawn and great boughs drop tranquility the peahens dance on a smooth lawn A parrot sways upon a tree Raging at his own image in the enameled sea. Here we will moor our lonely ship and wander ever with woven hands Murmuring softly, lip to lip along the grass, along the sands Murmuring how far away are the unquiet lands how we alone of mortals are hid under quiet boughs apart While our love grows An Indian star, A meteor of the burning heart One with a tide that gleams the wings that gleam and dart the heavy boughs the burnished dove that moans and sighs a hundred days how when we die our shades will rove When Eve has hushed the feathered ways with vapory footsole by the water's drowsy blaze. Yeah, it's hard to read. The lines are uneven, you know, in length, so the music is kind of a little jaunty. 4:04 Wes: Yeah. Very interesting images to begin with because the boughs are dropping tranquility, which I suppose they would normally be dropping. Fruit. 4:14 Erin: Yeah, I think fruit or blossoms. Flowers, depending on the season. Yeah. 4:20 Wes: So. Yeah. So what's being dropped is tranquility. And it seems to account for the smoothness of the lawn and the smoothness of the sea. The tranquility of the sea. Because for the parrot to be looking at the sea as if it were a mirror, it has to be still. Although I will say that only occurred to me preparing for this episode. I had always thought. I had always imagined this as the sea being raging as well. I was thinking of enamel, not as, like, shiny lacquer, but as like some kind of thickly painted brushstrokes. Thick brushstrokes on a canvas of a raging sea. And the parrot looking angrily into that sea and seeing himself in a more. In a less literal sense. 5:08 Erin: Ah. 5:09 Wes: So. Which is a weird idea to have, but I just hadn't thought about it very, very ever very carefully. And then. Yeah, but obviously it's something that's tranquil. The. The enamel, right. Is the. It's. It's. It's shiny enough to be a mirror that the parrot can see him, see himself in. 5:26 Erin: Yeah. There's this tension here between the natural and the sort of cultivated. Right. Because we have. The island is dreaming. We don't know of what. But I think that that self consciousness or that implication that the island has a kind of consciousness like this is almost. I mean, this is a sort of enchanted place. And then the lawn speaks to me of cultivation. You know, that's not a smooth lawn, is not a naturally occurring thing. And then we have this image of the, as you say, the still water so that the parrot can see his own reflection. But there's a self consciousness there. So there's this. The tranquility seems like this very thin enamel surface underneath which there's something going on here. And it's an un. 6:12 Wes: They might just be at a Sandals. There's no one around. 6:19 Erin: That's right. 6:20 Wes: They had a really nice resort. 6:21 Erin: That's right. That's right. 6:24 Wes: But yeah, the island dreams. Right. So I like that personification in the beginning. Although I guess one might think that's a little too cliched or something. Maybe that's why you might read this as a young poem, that kind of personification right off the bat. But I really like the image. It's dreaming in a way, and so it's conscious, but it's not fully conscious. 6:48 Erin: Yes. And it's not woken up yet, even though dawn has broken to sleeping in as well. Which is what you. 6:54 Wes: You. 6:54 Erin: What you can do with sandals if you don't have an early checkout. Just like this contrast between the natural and the cultivated. There's this contrast, I think, between tranquility and things which are not tranquil at all. I mean, we have raging is. You know, I'd imagine this is a loud parrot. This is an angry parrot. And yeah, maybe because he's not under the boughs getting tranquility dropped on him, but sitting on top of the bow, he's not the beneficiary of the tranquility. 7:28 Wes: Yeah, it really is a very sudden turn at the end of the stanza. It's all been tranquility and smoothness and peahens. And then we can imagine the swaying of the parrot. Right. Have you seen videos of parrots and how they do that swaying thing? So we can all imagine how they do that. It's not a Particularly violent image necessarily. But then, yeah, suddenly we have raging. He's seeing himself in the sea. And you know, we can imagine it like a dog seeing himself in the mirror and thinking another dog and getting angry at the other dog and barking, that kind of thing. 8:03 Erin: That's nice. 8:04 Wes: So it really speaks to kind of dynamic of narcissism involving entrapment in one's own image, but also an element of hatred. Because the image often becomes an ideal image to which one. Right. The real self can't live up to that ideal self. So the self that you see in the mirror is an ideal. And then I fall short of that and that's where the self hatred comes in. 8:31 Erin: I can't imagine looking in the mirror and seeing an ideal. But sure, I know what you mean. 8:37 Wes: So Narcissus. Yes. Narcissus can look in the. And because he's so good looking. 8:44 Erin: Yes. Must be hard. 8:45 Wes: He's gonna see. He's gonna see the ideal there and he's gonna neglect him, his real self until he dies. Because he's so enamored and entrapped in the. In the image. Right? Yeah. So for most of us, we can get what the ideal image is just an aspiration. It's what Freud called the ego ideal, or it's just that it's the person we want to be, it's the person we're striving to be. And then we in real life fall short of it. And so in that gap, conscience plays a role, but also self hate can kind of step into that gap. So if you took to go long to kind of say more about this whole narcissism thing, if you take someone who's really pathologically engrossed in that ideal image of themselves to the point where relatedness with others is. Is discounted, where does the element of. Of rage come in? Right. So if it's some for the failed narcissist, you see the rage come in with. With self hate. But maybe the way to put it is this. Well, there's the narcissism of minor differences. Right. Another Freud rage in animals is rage against. It's not really rage, but aggression against conspecifics. Right. So a lion hunting a deer. The aggression involved is not the aggression involved in that it would have towards a conspecific. Right. If it were competing for a mate, let's say. Then you see things that resemble anger in human beings. So we have to see a creature like ourselves in order to have this sort of rage. I'm really all over the place with this. I'm not explaining anything. I don't know. Not connecting all these threads together. The narcissism of minor differences suggest that we. There's special animosity between. From Russia to Ukraine, for instance, right now because of Putin's fantasy of being one with Ukraine. Ukraine is this part of Russia that has been lost and it must be brought back into the fold. And the way to do that is with violence. 10:54 Erin: The closer you are to something, the more conflict with that thing upsets you. It seems to be the. 10:59 Wes: Well, the more potential for conflict. 11:01 Erin: The more potential for conflict. Okay. Yes. 11:03 Wes: We make more demands on those who are like us. So for instance, Right. We make no moral demands on animals because they're not creatures who are self conscious like us. They're not like us enough. 11:15 Erin: Yes. 11:16 Wes: So we don't get mad when the dog cuts us off in his car, get attacked by a dog and bit. And I don't moralize it. But. 11:26 Erin: Right. 11:26 Wes: With human beings, to the extent that we think that we can get into the mind of another and that they ought to have certain attitudes towards us and that they're doing something wrong if they don't have that attitude. Right. That's where aggression comes in and that's where these very moralized feelings. Right. Aggression as a. And you did something wrong. 11:45 Erin: Yes. 11:45 Wes: Right. The closer we are or the more that we resemble another, the more potential there is to feel wronged as opposed to just saying, oh well, they're alien to me anyway and they don't matter to me. So yeah, let's point to the irony that the parrot is looking at himself in a calm, tranquil medium and yet feels rage at that calmness. So it's sort of. It foreshadows something a bit sinister. Right. In this paradise. I think. Yes, that's going to. That I think we're going to learn about as we get into the details of this very codependent relationship. 12:28 Erin: That's right. 12:30 Wes: Part of this is about the narcissism of lovers and getting trapped in a. With someone. Right. Who is just your mirror in a way. You love them because they are. They seem to be like you and an extension of you to the exclusion of the rest of the world. 12:47 Erin: Yes. 12:48 Wes: I think that's what's being kind of hinted at here. 12:51 Erin: Yeah. So I think what you're suggesting is the idea that they even share the same face. They murmur lip to lip, which could be one mouth. Right. The top lip and the bottom lip of a single mouth. Right. Or they're Murmuring into each other's mouths. 13:07 Wes: You're giving me an idea here that this is like the sixth sense. Like it's just. In the end, you find out it's just one person. 13:15 Erin: Yes, exactly. Exactly. 13:17 Wes: The Indian to himself. 13:20 Erin: That is his love, you know, what are they murmuring about? The point of it all? Like they would have nothing to talk about in this place. Because it seems like there's a level of cultivation here and also of self, you know, whatever we want to call it, like self consciousness. There's a level of. It's not self consciousness, it's dreaming. But that seems related to art. And the fact that this place is enam, like the sea is enameled around it means that there's something sort of constructed or, as I already said, cultivated. You know, the peahens dance. And though on first blush, that might not be. That might just be describing the way that they're moving, that can also be read as evidence of this kind of cultivation in which this whole place is not quite as it seems, or everything is about performance and. 14:04 Wes: Yeah. Or it sounds like we might be in a painting or an art object. 14:08 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 14:09 Wes: But the enameled part, right inside the 14:12 Erin: urn, the Grecian urn, though, there's some key hints. This is very, very different from the Grecian urn, of course, that is frozen at the point before, just before the moment of consummation, and also at a point of highest intensity. And I think it's significant that it's never really daytime on this island. One of the key things I noticed, right, it's dawn and then it's evening and night in the middle, instead of day, there's a sort of implied day, but we never get any description of full sun. So there's something that's either waxing or waning at any given moment about this place. It's never itself, which seems to me to be suggestive of the fact that it's an art object. It's not the actual thing, it's the mimetic. It's not the real or it's part of a dream. 14:58 Wes: Yeah. 14:58 Erin: Yes, yeah. 14:59 Wes: It's the dream that you're coming out of just as you wake up because 15:03 Erin: you've killed the person that you were stranded on the desert island with because you got on each other's nerves and couldn't take it anymore. 15:11 Wes: I mean, when the narrator says, here we will more our lonely ship. Right, so there's another little bit of a sinister suggestion there. Lonely and more makes me think of marooned. 15:23 Erin: Yes. 15:25 Wes: They were supposed to just be on a three hour tour. Luckily they had sandals. 15:29 Erin: All their clothes. Yes. 15:32 Wes: So this is a day excursion from the resort. It's not. But anyway. And now they're stuck together forever. 15:39 Erin: I knew this was really about the Skipper and Gilligan. Hence one needing to die. Yeah. 15:45 Wes: Wandering with woven hands, murmuring softly, lip to lip. Very romantic. 15:49 Erin: Not to me. 15:50 Wes: Great, if you limit it to part of the day. But it's kind of terrifyingly enmeshed, Right? 15:57 Erin: Yes. 15:58 Wes: And merged at another level. 16:00 Erin: Yes. 16:01 Wes: Which is again where the narcissism comes in. It's like they're the same person, they're not two distinct individuals. 16:07 Erin: Yes. And this is a great way to kill desire. And one day we'll talk about Anne Carson's Eros the Bittersweet, which is like foundational text to me. A lot of my first book is take some ideas from this. But the idea is that what's necessary to the erotic is always some kind of triangulation, whether the third point on that triangle is your beloved's office job that keeps him away from you or a third person rabbit. She. She examines the. This one particular fragment of Sappho's in which she's watching her beloved and trying to put herself in the place of this man who is courting her beloved. Right. And so the idea of the triangulation that she's watching someone else speak to the beloved is really important. The erotic charge, the whole idea of Eros, is that that you can't have desire for what is already yours fully. That you are fully enmeshed with. You can't have desire for that thing. That's. That's a contradiction. How can you desire what you already have? So you need to have some distance, some air, some ability to get away from that person and cultivate desire for that person in order for the relationship to work. And so I read the second stanza and it fills me. Me with terror because this is not any. No one can love another human being under these conditions. It's too much. Right. 17:35 Wes: By the way, we should be mentioning your book more. Well, let's take a moment to talk about our sponsor for this episode, Erin and her book. Yeah, we should be mentioning the fact that you have a book coming out. When is it coming out? 17:52 Erin: January 20th, 2026. 17:55 Wes: Okay, so we have time. 17:57 Erin: Yes, we have a lot of time, 17:58 Wes: but the more episodes we mention it on, the better. 18:00 Erin: Okay. 18:01 Wes: Because we're not going to be able to insert it as an advertisement after the fact. Yeah. So that's Very cool. 18:07 Erin: Thank you. 18:07 Wes: And tell us the name again. 18:09 Erin: Avail A V A I L. Okay. 18:12 Wes: Are there any poems in it that involve this amount of codependency? 18:18 Erin: All of them end in tragedy if they do. No, no. I have a terror of my speaker, shall we say. There's always that triangulation. Useful tactic. Speaker has a terror of codependency. 18:32 Wes: Okay, good. What these two need is a good veil. 18:35 Erin: That's right. That's right. That's Eros. That's what that's about. The veil is the embodiment of the erotic. Right. It's the distancing tactic, one of many. Something so that you don't murmur lip to lip, and then you can't understand each other. It's like, what? I don't know. Very impractical. 18:55 Wes: Just get away from me. 18:57 Erin: Exactly. But then what do you need to be? If you can already read each other's thoughts, why are you even murmuring? 19:04 Wes: We've been stuck on this island for 30 years already. 19:11 Erin: Draw a line in the sand. This is your half of the island. This is mine. 19:18 Wes: I get this. Peahen. You can have the other peahen. Yeah. So I think this is intentional. I mean, I had the same reading of all this. There's too many clues. 19:29 Erin: Yeah, yeah. 19:30 Wes: And right, so murmuring, how far away are the unquiet lands? Right. Yeah. 19:37 Erin: Yes. Unlike right here, which is so quiet with the raging parrot that won't shut up. 19:42 Wes: Right. Well, the raging parrot. All the rage is inside them, just bubbling. That's the kind of quietude that they have. Right? 19:51 Erin: Yes. 19:51 Wes: Yeah. So everything's quiet and peaceful. It's the serenity now kind of thing. Right. 19:55 Erin: Yes. 19:56 Wes: Seinfeld. 19:56 Erin: Yes. Love it. 19:57 Wes: Yeah. And the parrot is just a hint of what's going on internally. 20:02 Erin: Yeah. But the focus is elsewhere, you know, I like that they're so happy. Unlike over there. Right. Which seems to me also to be indicative of trouble. You know, first of all, they have to tell themselves how happy they are all the time, which is always a bad sign. And second of all, they're fixated on. This is so much better than that place. Right. We have to keep talking about that place and how much better this place is in order to get ourselves feeling good about the situation, which is obviously really a shitty one. So. 20:30 Wes: Yeah. I mean, I do still find this poem romantic, don't get me wrong. Despite that some of these negative implications, 20:39 Erin: you're just a better person than I am. That's just the way it goes. 20:44 Wes: So in the next stanza, we get we alone of mortals are. So this kind of exceptionalism for the enmeshed narcissistic lovers hid under quiet bowels apart while our love grows. An Indian star. So now we get a bit of a grandiose element here. Right. So there it's. It's a star or a meteor. And I suppose as a star, it could be reminiscent of the star of David. 21:08 Erin: Oh, yeah. Or of Bethlehem. Do you mean. 21:11 Wes: Wait, Bethlehem, the guiding star that took. 21:15 Erin: Yeah, yeah, that's the star of Bethlehem. 21:17 Wes: So it becomes a. It becomes kind of a beacon for others. Their love becomes an emblem. So a meteor of the burning heart, One with the tide that gleams, the wings that gleam and dart. So now I think we're meant to imagine the. This star reflecting in the water as well, and the wings of birds as they fly, reflecting in the water. And then they become one. So all the things that are reflected are one in the water, which is only. Again, this is another thing that I didn't really think of until this reading that we're doing. 21:48 Erin: Yeah. The words that stick out to me in this stanza are apart. 21:53 Wes: Right. 21:53 Erin: That's a really interesting word. They're apart from what the boughs hid under quiet boughs. 21:59 Wes: Apart apart from the other mortals. 22:02 Erin: From the other mortals. Right. From the unquiet lands. But that apartness could also, you know, at first it seems to reflect that they're actually apart from each other. Immediately. It seems to reflect that it's the boughs that are apart from each other, oddly. Yeah. And then the Indian star. This is a question that I had, which is maybe a stupid question. So this. This is an Indian speaker. So to be an Indian, whether this is related to being indigenous to a place, is that. Am I. Is that wrong? 22:34 Wes: I don't know. 22:35 Erin: I know with India it has a different valence, but is this related to indigenous people? Is that where that origin comes? Is that the same origin? 22:44 Wes: I don't know. 22:45 Erin: Okay. 22:46 Wes: I don't think so. I don't. But I don't know. And I don't know the significance to Yeats, except that it's something exotic and there's an Orientalism going on here. 22:58 Erin: But at any rate, say, putting. Putting that aside, that question, aside of being indigenous, is this an Indian who comes to this island? So it is not an island that they have been to before. So this is not like part of, say, if it's India, it's not part of India. Right. It seems separate from that. It seems outside of that realm. And therefore the star that is created is linked to this couple rather than to the place that they are, even though it seems dependent upon that place as. Or part and parcel of that place as the representative of their love and their love in this particular habitat that grows out of them. 23:36 Wes: So this is something that others can see from far away. They can't have it. Right. We're special. We have our love here. We are apart from everyone, and we don't have to deal with all the noise and all the crap that goes on in the real world. But here, let's kind of hike up a flag so that everyone can see us and envy us or put up a little star. And maybe we're trying to educate people, hey, why don't you be like us? Why don't you be loving something like that? Or maybe they're inducing envy and saying, look how much better we are than all the rest of the. Right. 24:12 Erin: And yet that modifier would suggest that all the rest of them. If this is an Indian, because of his place of origin, the Indian star would be accessible to the unquiet lands as well. 24:24 Wes: Right. 24:24 Erin: Or it would be belonging to the unquiet lands. 24:27 Wes: Yeah. I wonder. I don't know. I mean, I think maybe Indian belongs to the island as well. Just because it's exotic to you and me. It's a faraway place and it's a paradise or a dreamy place or something that's unfamiliar. Whatever associations one might have at that time with India. England has occupied India. Since when? Yeah, I don't know. I couldn't figure out what. Yeah. Does Indian star. Is that an idiom of some sort? Does it mean something in particular? 25:01 Erin: No, Perhaps I'm making too fine a point of it. 25:03 Wes: But associations are. 25:04 Erin: No. 25:05 Wes: Yeah, but why don't you restate your point? Is that the Indian star would be far away from where they are, as opposed to far away from where the readers are. 25:14 Erin: No, that it would be that it seems to sort of arise out of this place which is separate from the unquiet lands. And if the speaker has taken his name from his place of origin and the fact then that the star is given this modifier, which is indicative of, like, a whole society and a whole culture which they had rejected. And therefore that it seems. Yeah, it's like original sin or something. You know, it's like followed them into Eden here. Like, perhaps this island is representative of this. The island itself is the exoticized, idyllic place. And so this is just giving it the name that it also gave those who were moored shipwrecked Whatever we want to call it on it. At any rate, a meteor of the bur. Burning heart is quite interesting because first of all, you could read that as a metaphor of the burning heart. They're very. Two words are quite close. And also meteor seems so transient. Right. It burns out. So we have this eternality versus this sort of flash in the pan. Flash in the sky. 26:20 Wes: And it's moving like the birds. So even though not moving fast enough, probably. Well, meteor is moving fast. Right. A comet. What looks still. Yeah. So it's flashing across the sky. 26:32 Erin: Yeah. Coming right for us. 26:34 Wes: I mean, is Indian star. Is that a. Was there a time when people called. Right. Meteors or like a falling star? 26:42 Erin: I don't know. I looked this up and I couldn't find anything about it. 26:45 Wes: Same with. Same with me. Yeah. 26:46 Erin: I think of the star. Was it the star of India? Wasn't that like a diamond or something? You know, I think of like a jewel. The Star of India, not the Indian Star. No one would call it that, but. But I think of it as like a jewel which is eternal. But this is a meteor which is a hunk of rock which is. I mean, I suppose that's eternal too, depending on where it lands. 27:04 Wes: But burning up in the atmosphere. But as far as. Yeah, the burning part, it doesn't last very long, but it's interesting. Yeah. Because they're loved. They're no longer just in their love. It's become something that's being shown to others, signified to. To others. Something that. And to themselves. Something that they can see. Right. So they can see it in the meteor and they can see it in the reflection of the meteor in the water. Yeah. 27:32 Erin: And it's true, that would be. Ordinarily would be a child. Right. But the child would triangulate the relationship and therefore it has to be something that is only going to last a very short amount of time. It's going to be representative of them, but just in a flat so that it doesn't preoccupy them for too long, it seems. 27:52 Wes: Right. 27:52 Erin: But I like what you point out, that the tide gleams with this light, the wings that gleam and dart. I'm thinking of the. Again jewels, maybe the jewel toned green, perhaps of the parrot reflected in the enameled sea darting. So the parrot's moving. 28:08 Wes: Yeah. Well, we got. Who knows how many types of birds are here. We've got peacocks and doves and parrots. 28:15 Erin: Yes, the burnished. 28:17 Wes: Who's doing the flying? The flying. At this point, I don't know whose wings These are. 28:22 Erin: Well, nobody goes anywhere, so I don't think of any of them as flying. Yeah, they're all sort of stationary. 28:28 Wes: Yeah. So now we get the heavy boughs and the burnished dove, which is interesting, right, because the boughs have dropped tranquility. You might think that the boughs, if they've dropped their fruit or their flowers or whatever, that they're lightened by that. But I suppose if you drop lightness, if you drop tranquility, then you get heavier. 28:48 Erin: Oh, I love that. That's great. Yeah, okay, smart. 28:54 Wes: But also, at this point, right, it sounds like heavy brows, maybe, or it sounds like sleepiness is coming. 29:02 Erin: And then we have the burnished dove. 29:04 Wes: It's been polished, right. Similar to the enameled sea in the beginning. We have something else now that's polished and pointing to its, you know, resemblance to an artifact. And of course, one can't help. Can't help but think of sailing to Byzantium and the bird made of gold at the end. 29:21 Erin: But thus it's a sort of automaton because it. Because it makes noise and it. But it lasts only a hundred days. I couldn't think of the significance of a hundred days. Or maybe it doesn't last 100 days, but it moans and sighs for that long, which is. It seems extremely discontented. 29:39 Wes: It's also extremely irritating. I will tell you from personal experience, one of my staff meetings in the room, there's always a dove in a cage and the thing will not shut up. 29:48 Erin: What? Someone has a dove in a cage and all your staff made it. What kind of symbolism is that? That's insane. 29:59 Wes: Yeah, that's a good point. I never thought about that. But anyway, he's happy you got to let the dove out of the cage occasionally, and he's happy he can fly around, but. Yeah, very annoying. Actually, doves are very, very annoying. They're moaning and sighing, so I sympathize with this word moan. So it sounds like the dove is representative of the longing of love here. And that's what they listen to for 100 days. And the moaning is about. So you might even think of the dove as singing about how when they die, their shades will rove. The dove is portending their death. 30:39 Erin: Yes. Not a symbol of peace either, because. Yeah, tranquility has been dropped and now the dove is sitting on the. On the bow. So it's. Yeah. What can we say? What can we say about that? It's confusing a bit. 30:52 Wes: Yeah. Normally we would think of the dove as representative of peace and it would go along with tranquility. But here it's moaning and sighing and introducing a bit of dissatisfaction and tension into this peaceful world. But only for a hundred days, you know, Maybe after that hundred days they just die and become shades. I don't know. 31:13 Erin: That's how long. 31:14 Wes: And they can be there. 31:14 Erin: How long it takes for one to eat the other because they have no. The peahens all run away from them. 31:21 Wes: Right. They've eaten all the birds. 31:23 Erin: There you go. 31:23 Wes: The eve has hushed the feathered ways. Right? Yeah. So the birds do. Something happens to the birds, right? 31:30 Erin: Yeah, that's right. Just a pile of feathers. 31:33 Wes: Hush the feathered ways with vapory footsole by the water's drowsy blaze. The drowsy blaze of the water still, you know, suggests. Right. Some light is still being reflected in it. The light of the meteor. 31:47 Erin: Oh. 31:48 Wes: Or the stars. No, I think of the starry sky in general. Yeah. Because the meteor is such a. Oh, 31:53 Erin: I saw blaze passing thing. Right. But drowsy because it's getting late. So I thought it was sun, like the sunset. But yeah, you're right. The vapory footsole. That's. So I'm taking that as evenings walking on the foliage and leaving dew. Is that right? 32:09 Wes: Well, there's shadows. Our shades will rove the footsole. 32:15 Erin: Oh, that's the shade. 32:16 Wes: The footsteps of the shades, I think. Yeah, vapory footsteps. So they're. Right. So they're no longer fleshy, so to speak. 32:24 Erin: Oh, they're. Yes, vapory in terms of ghostly. Yes, I get it. 32:28 Wes: Yeah. They're ghosts now. Yeah. So if they're leaving footsteps in the sand, I don't know if you've tried as a ghost to leave footprints in the sand. 32:38 Erin: That's good. Yes. I was thinking in terms of water vapor. Dumb. Yes. 32:43 Wes: Well, they're leaving some kind of trace. Right. Some kind of minimal trace, apparently, in something akin to a footstep. But whatever a ghost would. Would leave hints, maybe just a little bit of fog or smoke. I don't know. But yeah, so something vapory, I guess. 33:00 Erin: Yes. 33:00 Wes: There you go. Vapory is vapory. 33:02 Erin: I see. 33:03 Wes: And that seems to be the kind of logical conclusion of their sort of love, which is to become spirits. To become some. You know, to leave their fleshy incarnation and to become. I don't know. 33:19 Erin: Oh, this is so. This is so Paolo and Francesca, isn't it? Yeah, this is hell. Yeah. 33:26 Wes: Yeah, I thought of that. 33:27 Erin: Yeah. I didn't think of that until right now. That's. You're Otherwise would never have thought of it if I didn't think of. Shadowy. Yes. Spirit. 33:37 Wes: Yeah. 33:37 Erin: Yeah. This is a bit hellish. Interesting. Do you think. Do we think he thinks it's hellish or do we think this is just him? I mean, there's a consciousness that there's something not quite right and that this has to end or that this is just a dream. But I don't think that he's. Wink, wink. This is hell. 33:56 Wes: Yeah. And I don't want to disappoint listeners who think of this as a romantic, sweet poem, which I think it still is. 34:02 Erin: Yes. I'm sorry, I'm so. 34:04 Wes: I think it's both at the same. I mean, I think. 34:06 Erin: So jaded. Everyone should not listen to me. 34:09 Wes: There's. There's romance in this idea of merger and being so wrapped up in someone else that you. You disappear, I guess, and maybe you disappear with each other and become these shades. And so it's evocative of death and so scary in that sense. And obviously, on a practical level, it can't be done. It's bad, you know, it's hellish, as you. As you point out. On a practical level, it's not sustainable, but the idea of it is motivating to people, I think. I don't think you can get it out of romance, this type of idea. 34:44 Erin: No, no, probably not. Probably not. It's just when. When put in this kind of way, I mean, of course that's a romantic idea, but then, you know, it's. It's quite extreme. 34:54 Wes: Life will disabuse you of it. You know, when you're young, maybe. Maybe when young ends. This is young. Yeah, right. Conception of love. And then, you know, life. Life will teach you. 35:06 Erin: Well, maybe I like people too much. You know, I don't want. I don't. 35:09 Wes: You don't want them to become shades? 35:10 Erin: I don't want them to be. Exactly. Exactly. 35:12 Wes: Disappear into you. 35:13 Erin: Yeah, that's. That sounds like certainly no fun for them. That's all I have to say. There is something romantic about that idea, of course, but it's put in such a way here as to be so extreme that it really highlights what is terrifying about that prospect, or what is impossible and therefore terrifying about it. 35:29 Wes: There's this show called Man Seeking Woman, which I think I tried to show you, but you didn't. I don't think you liked it. 35:35 Erin: I don't remember. 35:36 Wes: Anyway, it's sort of. It's a show premised on taking metaphors literally. Every episode is about him trying to Find a woman. And so in one episode, he goes out on a date with a literal troll. Or in another, another episode's called Wedding from Hell. And the wedding is literally in hell. Him and his friend have to go down to hell to go to the wedding. But it's all about, like, typical, you know, trials and tribulations of being at a wedding, you know, someone's location, wedding. But in one episode, he. He starts dating someone and they immediately jump into codependency, let's say. And so they get surgically connected to each other. They become Siamese twins, basically, so that they lose their right arm and leg. So they're like, they're still. They're four limbed creature now, but they're right connected at the side. 36:26 Erin: Nice. 36:27 Wes: The very end of the episode when they break up, they just rip apart their bodies and it's just like this bloody mess. Yeah. 36:38 Erin: Nice. 36:39 Wes: So keep your distance, people. Keep your distance. Don't be like these two romantic, sweet lovers on their island, dreaming under the dawn. 36:51 Erin: Yes. 36:52 Wes: No. So hopefully this hasn't been too cynical. 36:55 Erin: I hope. I hope not. I hope not. 36:58 Wes: All right, do we have anything else? 37:00 Erin: No. 37:01 Wes: All right, thank you. 37:02 Erin: Thank you. And thanks to everyone who listened. 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