Know Thyself, and That Thou Art Mortal
If you want to know yourself
you’ve got to keep up with yourself.
Your self moves on, and is not today what it was yesterday;
and you’ve got to run, to keep up with it.
But sometimes we run ahead too fast
running after a figment of ourselves.
And that’s what we’ve done today.
We think we’re such clever little johnnies
with our sharp little eyes and our high-power machines
which get us ahead so much faster than our feet could ever carry us.
When, alas, it’s only part of our clever little self that gets ahead!
Something is left behind, lost and howling, and we know it.
Ah, clever Odysseus, who outwitted the cyclop
and blinded him in his one big eye,
put out a light of consciousness and left a blinded brute.
Clever little ants in spectacles, we are,
performing our antics.
But what we also are, and we need to know it,
is blinded brutes of cyclops, with our cyclopean eye put out.
And we still bleed, and we grope and roar;
for spectacles and bulging clever ant-eyes are no good to the cyclop,
he wants his one great wondering eye, the eye of instinct and intuition.
As little social ants perhaps we function all right.
But, oh, our human lives, the lunging blind cyclops we are!
hitting ourselves against unseen rock, crashing our head against the
roof
of the ancient cave, smashing into one another,
tearing each other’s feelings, trampling each other’s tenderest
emotions to mud
and never knowing what we are doing, roaring blind with pain and
dismay.
Ah, cyclops, the little ant-men can never enlighten you
with their bulging policeman’s-lamp eyes.
You need your own great wondering eye that flashes with instinct
and gleams on the world with the warm dark vision of intuition!
Even our brilliantest young intellectuals
are also poor blind cyclops, moaning
with all the hurt to their instinctive and emotional selves,
over their mutilated intuitive eye.
What is Man Without an Income?
What is man without an income?
— Well, let him get on the dole!
Dole, dole, dole,
hole, hole, hole,
soul, soul, soul —
What is man without an income?
Answer without a rigmarole.
On the dole, dole, dole,
he’s a hole, hole, hole,
in the nation’s pocket.
— Now then, you leave a man’s misfortunes alone!
He’s got a soul, soul, soul
but the coal, coal, coal
on the whole, whole, whole
doesn’t pay,
so the dole, dole, dole’s
the only way.
And on the dole, dole, dole,
a man’s a hole, hole, hole
in the nation’s pocket,
and his soul, soul, soul
won’t stop a hole, hole, hole
though his ashes might.
Immortal Caesar dead and turned to clay
would stop a hole to keep the wind away.
But a man without a job
isn’t even as good as a gob
of clay.
Body and soul
he’s just a hole
down which the nation’s resources roll
away.
Canvassing for the Election
— Excuse me, but are you a superior person?
— I beg your pardon?
— Oh, I’m sure you’ll understand. We’re making a census of all the really
patriotic people - the right sort of people, you know - of course, you
understand what I mean - so would you mind giving me your word? —
and signing here, please - that you are a superior person - that’s all we
need to know —
— Really, I don’t know what you take me for!
— Yes, I know! It’s too bad! Of course, it’s perfectly superfluous to ask,
but the League insists. Thank you so much! No, sign here, please, and
there I countersign. That’s right! Yes, that’s all! - I declare I am a
superior person. - Yes, exactly! and here I countersign your declaration.
It’s so simple, and really, it’s all we need to know about anybody. And
do you know, I’ve never been denied a signature! We English are a solid
people, after all. This proves it. Quite! Thank you so much! We’re
getting on simply splendidly - and it is a comfort, isn’t it? —
Altercation
Now, look here,
if you were really superior,
really superior,
you’d have money, and you know it!
Well, what abaht it?
What about it?
what about it?
why isn’t it obvious?
Here you are, with no money,
and here am I, paying income tax and god-knows-what
taxes
just to support you and find you money,
and you stand there and expect me to treat you like an
equal! —
Whereas, let me tell you, if you were my equal
you’d have money, you’d have it, enough to support your
self, anyhow —
And there you stand with nothing, and expect me to hand
it you out
as if it were your dues, and I didn’t count at all —
All right, guv’nor! What abaht it?
Do you mean to say what about it?
My God, it takes some beating!
If you were a man, and up to my mark, you’d have money
— can’t you see it?
You’re my inferior, that’s what you are, you’re my inferior.
And do you think it’s my business to be handing out
money to a lot of inferior swipe?
Eh? Answer me that!
Right ch’ are, boss! An’ what abaht it?
Finding Your Level
Down, down, down!
There must be a nadir somewhere
of superiority.
Down, and still
the superior persons, though somewhat inferior,
are still superior.
They are still superior, so there must be something they are
superior to.
There must be a bed-rock somewhere, of people who are not
superior,
one must come down to terra firma somewhere!
Or must one simply say:
All my inferiors are very superior.
There has been great progress
in superiority.
Fortunately though, some superior persons are still superior
to the quite superior persons who are not so superior as they are.
May I ask if you are really superior
or if you only look it so wonderfully?
Because we English do appreciate a real gentleman, or a real lady;
but appearances are deceptive nowadays, aren’t they?
And if you only look so distinguished and superior
when really you are slightly inferior,
like a shop-lady or a lady-secretary,
you mustn’t expect, my dear, to get away with it.
There’s a list kept of the truly superior
and if you’re not on the list, why there you are, my dear,
you’re off it.
There are great numbers of quite superior persons who are not on
the list,
poor things - but we can’t help that, can we!
/> We must draw a line somewhere
or we should never know when we were crossing the equator.
What is man, that thou art mindful of him,
or the son of man, that thou pitiest him?
for thou hast made him a little lower than the angels
who are very superior people,
Oh very!
Climbing Up
When you climb up to the middle classes
you leave a lot behind you,
you leave a lot, you’ve lost a lot
and you’ve nobody to remind you
of all the things they squeezed out of you
when they took you and refined you.
When they took you and refined you
they squeezed out most of your guts;
they took away your good old stones
and gave you a couple of nuts;
and they taught you to speak King’s English
and butter your slippery buts.
Oh, you’ve got to be like a monkey
if you climb up the tree!
You’ve no more use for the solid earth
and the lad you used to be.
You sit in the boughs and gibber
with superiority.
They all gibber and gibber and chatter,
and never a word they say
comes really out of their guts, lad,
they make it up halfway;
they make it up, and it’s always the same,
if it’s serious or if it’s play.
You think they’re the same as you are
and then you’ll find they’re not,
and they never were nor would be,
not one of the whole job lot.
And you have to act up like they do
or they think you’re off your dot.
There isn’t a man among’em,
not one; they all seemed to me
like monkeys or angels or something, in a limited
liability company;
like a limited liability company
they are, all limited liability.
What they’re limited to or liable
to, I could never make out.
But they’re all alike, an’ it makes you
want to get up an’ shout
an’ blast’em forever; but they’d only
think you a lower-class lout.
I tell you, something’s been done to’em,
to the pullets up above;
there’s not a cock bird among’em
though they’re always on about love,
an’ you could no more get’em a move on,
no! no matter how you may shove!
To Clarinda
Thank you, dear Clarinda,
for helping with Lady C,
It was you who gave her her first kiss
and told her not to be
afraid of the world, but to sally forth
and trip it for all she was worth.
So out she came, and she said she was Jane,
and you clapped your hands, and said: Say it again!
And you cried:’Ooray! Play up, John Thomas!
Let’s have no full stops, let’s just manage with commas! —
And the white snow glistened, the white world was gay
up there at that height in the Diablerets.
And we slid, and you ski’d, and we came in to tea
and we talked and we roared and you typed Lady C.
And how jolly it was with us up in the snow
with the crest of the dirty drab world down below!
And how bitter it is to come down
to the dirty drab world,
and slowly feel yourself drown
in its mud, and its talk, slowly swirled
to the depths, to the depths
of London town!
Conundrums
Tell me a word
that you’ve often heard,
yet it makes you squint
if you see it in print!
Tell me a thing
that you’ve often seen,
yet if put in a book
it makes you turn green!
Tell me a thing
that you often do,
which described in a story
shocks you through and through!
Tell me what’s wrong
with words or with you
that you don’t mind the thing
yet the name is taboo.
A Rise in the World
I rose up in the world,’Ooray!
rose very high, for me.
An earl once asked me down to stay
and a duchess once came to tea.
I didn’t stay very long with the earl
and the duchess has done with me.
But still, I rose quite high in the world,
don’t you think? - or don’t you agree?
But now I am slithering down again
down the trunk of the slippery tree;
I find I’d rather get back to earth,
where I belong, you see.
Up there I didn’t like it,
chattering, though not with glee,
the whole of the time, and nothing
mattering - at least, not to me.
God, let me get down to earth again
away from the upper ten
million - for there’s millions of’em
up there - but not any men.
Up He Goes!
Up I rose, my lads, an’ I heard yer
sayin’: Up he goes!
Up like a bloomin’ little Excelsior
In his Sunday clothes!
Up he goes, up the bloomin’ ladder
about to the giddy top!
Who’d ever have thought it of that lad, a
pasty little snot! —
Never you mind, my lads, I left you
a long, long way behind.
You’ll none of you rise in the world like I did;
an’ if you did, you’d find
it damn well wasn’t worth it,
goin’ up an’ bein’ refined;
it was nowt but a dirty sell, that’s all,
a damn fraud, underlined.
They’re not any better than we are
the upper classes - they’re worse.
Such bloomin’ fat-arsed dool-owls,
they aren’t even fit to curse!
There isn’t a damn thing in’em,
they’re as empty as empty tins;
they haven’t the spunk of a battle-twig,
an’ all they can think of is sins.
No, there’s nowt in the upper classes
as far as I can find;
a worse lot of jujubey asses
than the lot I left behind.
They’ll never do a thing, boys,
they can’t, they’re simply fused.
So if any of you’s live wires, with wits
to use, they’d better be used.
It there’s anything got to be done, why
get up an’ do it yourselves!
Though God knows if you’re any better,
sittin’ there in rows on your shelves!
An’ if you’re not any better,
if you’ve none of you got more spunk
than they’ve got in the upper classes,
why, let’s all do a bunk.
We’re not fit for the earth we live on,
we’re not fit for the air we breathe.
We’d better get out, an’ make way for
the babes just beginning to teethe.
The Saddest Day
‘We climbed the steep ascent to heaven
Through peril, toil and pain.
O — God, to us may strength be given
to scramble back again.’
0 — I was bom low and inferior
but shining up beyond
I saw the whole superior
world shine as the promised land.
So u
p I started climbing
to join the host on high,
but when at last I got there
I had to sit down and cry.
For it wasn’t a bit superior,
it was only affected and mean;
though the house had a fine interior
the people were never in.
I mean, they were never entirely
there when you talked to them;
away in some private cupboard
some small voice went: Ahem!
Ahem! they went. This fellow
is a little too open for me;
with such people one has to be careful,
though, of course, we won’t let him see! —
And they thought you couldn’t hear them
privately coughing: Ahem!
And they thought you couldn’t see them
cautiously swallowing their phlegm!
But of course I always heard them,
and every time the same.
They all of them always kept up their sleeve
their class-superior claim.
Some narrow-gutted superiority,
and trying to make you agree,
which, for myself, I couldn’t,
it was all cat-piss to me.
And so there came the saddest day
when 1 had to tell myself plain;
the upper classes are just a fraud,
you’d better get down again.
Prestige
I never met a single
middle-class person whose
nerves didn’t tighten against me
as if they’d got something to lose.
Though what it was, you can ask me;
some mysterious sort of prestige
that was nothing to me; though they always
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 859
