2. "Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent,
and go bathe and admire myself." [2]
"I pass death with the dying, and birth with the new-washed babe....and am not
contained between my hat and boots..." [5]
"The runaway slave came to my house and stopped outside...
[I] brought water and filled a tub for his sweated body and bruised feet..." [7]
"Twenty-eight young men bathe by the shore,
Twenty-eight young men, and all so friendly,
Twenty-eight years of womanly life and all so lonesome." [7]
"Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them.
The beards of the young men glistened with wet, it ran from their long hair,
Little streams passed all over their bodies..." [7]
"They do not think whom they souse with spray." [8]
"This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe." [11]
"This is the tasteless water of souls....this is the true sustenance," [11]
"You sea! I resign myself to you also....I guess what you mean...
We must have a turn together...I undress...hurry me out of sight of the land...
Dash me with amorous wet....I can repay you." [15]
"Parting tracked by arriving....perpetual payment of the perpetual loan,
Rich showering rain, and recompense richer afterward." [21]
3. "Knowing the perfect fitness and equanimity of things, while they discuss I am silent,
and go bathe and admire myself." [2]
In this two lines, it seems as though bathing is a chance or activity for Walt to be with his body and soul in order to admire it. He realizes the depth of the quality of things, fitness and equanimity, but does not want to explore this knowledge. Instead he accepts it on a surface level and decides to enjoy the appearance of things. He is silent while bathing, meaning has no opinion or judgment-just admiration.
"Where are you off to, lady? for I see you,
You splash in the water there, yet stay stock still in your room.
Dancing and laughing along the beach came the twenty-ninth bather,
The rest did not see her, but she saw them and loved them." [7]
I combined these four lines because together, they fully capture the act of bathing and what it means to this 'lady' or 'twenty-ninth bather.' She is trapped within her home, for her womanliness etc, but is still interacting with the twenty-eight bathers, albeit in her imagination, through the activity of bathing and splashing in the water. The water here is supposed to represent an escape or release from the societal boundaries one is contained by. And again, the activity is associated with the body. She is finding joy and 'love'... 'dancing and laughing' by using and manipulating her body, not her mind.
"This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe." [11]
The main motif in these lines is grass, but the action connected with the grass is 'bath[ing] the globe.' The grass is seen as a commonality between humanity, something that conjoins everyone and everything together. Here the conjoining is represented by bathing. Our similarities and oneness cleanse all of existence, and bathing is seen as bringing to light those very similarities and togetherness.
"You sea! I resign myself to you also....I guess what you mean...
We must have a turn together...I undress...hurry me out of sight of the land...
Dash me with amorous wet....I can repay you." [15]
This seems to be a somewhat sexual moment between Walt and the Sea. The act of 'dashing' Walt with wetness is a gift of pleasure given by the sea. He is naked, so it almost reminisces an act of baptism or cleansing. The sea is washing the sin or societal constraints, 'hurry me out of sight of the land' from Walt, giving him that freedom and equanimity as mentioned earlier. The lines also reflect an inward and outward motion or connectivity for Walt wishes to repay the sea with a dash of amorous wet in response.
4&5. As discussed in class, with this poem Walt is trying to converge the I with the You. This idea of unification seems radical for the time of the poem, and even now, for everyone was/is stuck in the contraints of society with the focus being on that of the individual-self provision etc. In order to get his point across, Walt could not have simply stated, "We are one. So start acting like." There needs to be a transitional period, a cleansing of the self from the past ideologies and prohibitors, in order to allow the reader this transition into the new, connective self. The act of bathing seems to be the act of that transition. It is a physical activity, one that allows you to admire and appreciate the self. It is a pleasureful activity-the feeling of water, the rinsing of dirt, the clearing of the mind. It is one that can be done with others as seen with the 29 bathers. And water is also a natural ingredient provided by the Earth, a common factor that has a part in all our lives. The act of bathing is used by Walt to cleanse the reader of the past constraints, the house, intellectualness, the scents, the division, and transition into the future of freedoms, the ocean, the use of body, the connectivity.
I like your examples of baptism and sexual play, among others. Bathing here really does seem to be an opportunity for greater connection, whether to our own true natures, our environment, other people, or spiritual truths. Great painting, by the way!
ReplyDeleteExcellent! I agree: bathing is kind of "transitional" - - water also seems to be the medium of greatest attention to the body, the place where the body becomes fully recognizable and experienced . .
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