Lilith and Eve explained (sort of) This poem is not necessarily religious per se, but it is about life, death, and choices, and it uses religious imagery and references, so I thought this was the most appropriate category. In regards to meaning, I can't say much except that in our lives, others can dream for us and try to show us the way, but we make our own choices. Sometimes that's scary. Sometimes it's easier to ask someone else to make those choices for us, for good or ill. Then, if we don't like it, we can blame it on them. Or if someone else doesn't like it, we don't have to take responsibility. But the truth is, even giving these choices to someone else is making a choice. We are responsible, either way. And why not? We have to live with the consequences, ne? When it comes time to die, it's best not to have to look down in bitterness to describe how others ruined your life. It's best to find a little balance, a little harmony, and a small space to be at peace with what you've done. But that's just my choice. Yours is your own. A list of allusions: The title. I get so annoyed with the way women are portrayed in the Christian church. Even the Catholics, who have become so much better about it, are still far from positive about most women (and many conservative Protestant groups are much, much worse). I mean, all sin is Eve's fault for listening to the Serpent? Never mind that Adam had the same choices she did? Never mind that he *made* the same choice she did? And Lilith. Okay, so she disobeyed because she didn't want to be inferior to Adam, since they were created equal (yes, she was created with Adam). Why should she be inferior? Why should she settle for that? It's her choice, right? Free will *is* something the Christian church says god gave us. So is it a crime to use it? If yes, then what is it for, to look pretty? So in choosing between Lilith and Eve, in all honesty, I'm choosing between "villains." The only "good girl" out there is a woman supposedly virginal (I'm not going to argue about Jesus, what what about his probably *siblings*?) and passive, who may or may not (depending on the scholar) have been the original third part of the trinity instead of the Holy Ghost. Sure, she maybe had spunk as a person, and maybe was a good role model for the first few hundred years, but all character has been wiped from her in the modern mythology, as much as it was from the other two. Maybe more so. She's not even allowed her faults. So there's a silent trinity for you, a collection of three women with no voice. Which one should I choose to be like? What kind of role models are these? Actually, they're pretty cool, if you just look at what they did. Lilith walked away from everything she had ever known. Eve tried something new and scary. Mary's words were all the proper girl's, but later she held her son when he was brought down off the cross. That's courage through action. "Dream the impossible dream"and "To reach the unreachable star"are from Don Quixote, the musical. One of the other lines from that song which is appropriate is "To be ready to march into Hell for a Heavenly cause." I'm sure you know the story, and that I don't have to tell you what happened. The musical is almost the same as the book, except for the framing story. (The ballet, however, has nothing whatsoever to do with the original.) The King and the Page-boy are from the song and story "Good King Wencelas", which should be available in any reasonable collection of Christmas songs. This song has always fascinated me- it's one of the better Christian saint-stories. The miracle had nothing to do with bloodshed or destruction of unbelievers- perhaps that's why K-chan and I like it. Originally, the line "I choose between paths as they enter the wood" was even more blatantly an echo of Robert Frost's "Two Roads Diverged" poem. Sarah talked me into toning it down a little. Ah, we reach the biblical references. Left-hand, right-hand. The sides of god. Left is supposed to be bad, right is supposed to be good. But then, if you read Ursula K. LeGuin's beautiful novel "The Left Hand of Darkness", you may come to realize that things are not so cut-and-dry. Here's a poem of hers from that book: "Light is the left hand of darkness, And darkness, the right hand of light; Two are one, life and death, lying Together like lovers in kemmer, Like two hands joined together, Like the end and the way." Next, blossoming trees. I have only the vaguest recollection of a story of a saint coming to Ireland (maybe? maybe Britain?) on a coat laid on the water, and when he reached the other side, he and his fellow travellers found snow, so he planted his staff and it became a hawthorne tree, I think. It blossomed, anyway. I liked that one a lot as a kid, but I didn't understand what he supposedly did right and what wrong. Heck, that's been my problem with the Bible all along. I prefer to understand things, and I never understood what people did that was right and what was wrong in these stories. And some people seemed to be made to suffer no matter what they did- Job springs to mind. In fact, I've read that book several times, and I come no closer to understanding what the heck the argument is really about and what those people mean than I was when I started. Maybe it's because some of them are lying. Or maybe it's the language, though I understand some of the other books well enough. Maybe I just wasn't made in the mold that understands that sort of thing. Oh well. Does that make me bad seed? I suppose so. See the Parable of the Sower. The garden- Eden, with its accompanying thoughts of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the cross that Jesus bore. In all the songs, even if not in the stories, Creation is always singing. Perhaps that's why I like the songs better. For "The world's but a flow'r and a faire," see Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide, the end of Book V. Take Chaucer's words here with a grain of salt- he may have meant the opposite of what he's saying. Not only does he use Dante's words and twist them, but he was in a society where the religious was pervasive, allowing him the opportunity to make puns and "inside jokes" that would be more difficult for someone in our time to get across with as much subtlety. Then again, you may side with the Robinsonians of the world and say it means what it says and no more. Just remember that I don't. If you don't want to read Chaucer [notice, spoilers in this paragraph!], the story is that Creseide loved Troilus and vice versa, but during the war for Troy, Creseide was given up to the Greeks to be with her father, the traitor. She then (willingly or unwillingly, depends on your pov), allowed herself to be courted by the Greek Diomede. Troilus found out about it and got upset. During battle, however, he was killed (by Achilles, most say, though some reserve that honor for Hector alone). In Chaucer's version, after he dies, he floats above Earth and speaks of his revelations. I would quote the passages, but Sarah has the book, and I didn't memorize all 6-8 stanzas ^_^; When Troilus says the world is but a flower and a fair, he's either saying it's frivolous and brief and means nothing, or that it's beautiful and fun and wonderful and he misses it like crazy. Perhaps both. There's a faint tone of bitterness and self-mockery in the passages that could lend itself either way. Bells. "Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee," and I can't even remember who wrote that originally, though obviously Hemmingway used it for the title of one of his novels. Bells toll for death. In that vein, I highly reccommend the novel "The Doomsday Book" by Connie Willis. For whom the bell tolls, indeed. The bridge. Think Celtic and British mythology. Bridges mean death. For me, the ones that come most readily to mind are the bridge of swords and the crazy bridge in the story of Cucuhlain, the one that stretches across the chasm with ropes that fray hands and wind that ices the planks. Or, more mundanely, a cute little stone bridge over the creek at Wellesley, where you can drop leaves on one side then run around to the other to watch them come out again. Another reccommendation: Lorenna McKinnet's "All Soul's Night." The first time I actually listened to that song was on the way to dance the sun up on Beltaine. Near the end, she's standing on the bridge.