"If Jupiter and Saturn meet..." quote is from Yeats
Stephen LaBerge
Wily Wyndom's incantation. It's from one of W. B. Yeats's most
recondite collections of poems, the "Supernatural Songs."
The complete quote is as follows:
Conjunctions
If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
What a crop of mummy wheat!
The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
What does it mean? Mere mummery? Or mumbo jumbo?
I'll have to leave the answer to those of you
who can see in the dark...
Ann Hodgins
>I don't think anyone has previously identified the source of
>Wily Wyndom's incantation. It's from one of W. B. Yeats's most
>recondite collections of poems, the "Supernatural Songs."
>The complete quote is as follows:
>
> Conjunctions
>
> If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
> What a crop of mummy wheat!
>
> The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
> On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
>
I love W.B. Yeat's so I'll play with him. Hmmmm. What does he mean?
Saturn is often portrayed with a sickle and is sometimes understood as
the "grim reaper". Jupiter is the planet meaning fruitful abundance,
generosity overflowing and is the patron of Christmas gift giving.
So maybe Jupiter is growth and Saturn is harvest, which together is good
for humanity.
Mummery is role playing (I think) and wheat is many things.
Remember the use of wheat in Bergman's films?
Anyway, the next two lines have even me stumped.
But I will admit to a freudian type-o. I typed "sex" first instead of "next".
My unconscious is telling me that those lines are erotic, but my conscious
mind is not up to the challenge of interpreting it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ann Hodgins E Uassiuian is the will to continue
alte...@watdcs.uwaterloo.ca To laugh, to have fun and to be amazed.
Muffy Barkocy
"The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed."
[...] The Goddess,
another symbol for goodness and balance, is saddened, and takes solace
by leaning on the chest of Mars. This last image, though understandable
on a surface level, leaves me puzzled: Mars is usually a symbol of war
and fighting - a better fit to the sword than Jupiter - so why does the
Goddess take solace with him? Is she in fact taking solace from the
murderer of Christ? Or is she just leaning on another, strong god from
the pantheon?
I believe there was one myth, the details of which I forget, in which
Venus, who was married to Vulcan, was having an affair with Mars. All I
remember is something about how Vulcan thought of some trick for
catching them.
Muffy
Melissa Mychele D.
Well, he does mention meet and breasts. Maybe that is why you got so
flustered.
Larry Yaeger
>In article <13...@psych.stanford.edu> sl...@psych.Stanford.EDU (Stephen LaBerge) writes:
>>I don't think anyone has previously identified the source of
>>Wily Wyndom's incantation. It's from one of W. B. Yeats's most
>>recondite collections of poems, the "Supernatural Songs."
>>The complete quote is as follows:
>>
>> Conjunctions
>>
>> If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
>> What a crop of mummy wheat!
>>
>> The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
>> On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
>>
>
>I love W.B. Yeat's so I'll play with him. Hmmmm. What does he mean?
>
>Saturn is often portrayed with a sickle and is sometimes understood as
>the "grim reaper". Jupiter is the planet meaning fruitful abundance,
>generosity overflowing and is the patron of Christmas gift giving.
>So maybe Jupiter is growth and Saturn is harvest, which together is good
>for humanity.
>Mummery is role playing (I think) and wheat is many things.
>Remember the use of wheat in Bergman's films?
>
>Anyway, the next two lines have even me stumped.
Okay, here's another pass at interpretation:
"If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
What a crop of mummy wheat!"
Your comment about Jupiter's growth and Saturn's harvest being a good
combination spurred me to think: yes, but only if they play their roles
successively. Using growth and harvest as the metaphor, should they
"meet", then what a worthless crop would be obtained. Which crop could
be likened to dead food, or food for the dead (as it certainly wouldn't
have any value to the living), hence "mummy wheat".
"The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed."
Well, the title is "Conjunctions". So when might and right coincide,
that is, when the sword and cross are indeed one, trouble, even death,
ensues. I suppose you could relate Saturn with the sword (though this
is more typically Mars), and Jupiter with the cross (you mentioned
Christmas gift giving), so the first phrase is a summary statement
that the first two lines are now to be assumed to be true (at least
for the rest of these second two lines). And, given this dangerous
state, terrible consequences ensue: *the* savior (I'm not Christian,
personally, just noting that "He" is capitalized) dies. The Goddess,
another symbol for goodness and balance, is saddened, and takes solace
by leaning on the chest of Mars. This last image, though understandable
on a surface level, leaves me puzzled: Mars is usually a symbol of war
and fighting - a better fit to the sword than Jupiter - so why does the
Goddess take solace with him? Is she in fact taking solace from the
murderer of Christ? Or is she just leaning on another, strong god from
the pantheon?
Poets write for other poets, just as many writers practice their craft for
other writers, and artists paint for other artists. A long history and set
of symbols and myths are assumed and willfully invoked, that mere mortals
may never be privy to. (Of course, they never could cure an illness or
design a plane or recognize a for-loop if they ran into it repeatedly :-)
But, anyway, if there are any literature majors or full-time poets out
there, maybe they can provide a bit more insight?
Whether this relates to the impending plot-line of TP, of course, is not
really knowable. I mean we all use lifted quotations with some frequency,
whether the rest of the work being quoted has any bearing on the
conversation. I certainly quote Shakespeare's "First we kill all the
lawyers..." fairly often :-)
However, when I asked that question about the Goddess taking solace from the
murderer of Christ, I did get an impression of Annie leaning on the
breast of Windom Earle after he has killed Dale... I didn't like it, on a lot
of levels, one of which is that I still subscribe to the theory that Annie is
basically an innocent in the mold of Cooper, not an agent of the Black Lodge
as some would have her. But then we'll have to wait and see, won't we?!
--
-lar...@apple.com
"You wouldn't recognize a *subtle plan* if it painted itself purple,
and danced naked upon a harpsichord, singing, 'Subtle Plans are Here Again'."
- Edmund Blackadder
Ann Hodgins
>In article <52...@apple.Apple.COM> lar...@Apple.COM (Larry Yaeger) writes:
>
> "The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
> On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed."
>
>Venus, who was married to Vulcan, was having an affair with Mars. All I
>remember is something about how Vulcan thought of some trick for
>catching them.
> Muffy
Modern astrologers (perhaps not as deep as Yates) see the conjunction of
Mars and Venus as simply a symbol of sexual intercourse.
But this is disturbing and worrisome because Mars is also a symbol of
war. The myth implies that masculinity and warlike behaviour are
synonymous and that Venus is in collusion with Mars to promote war.
I worry about the strength of this myth when I see picture of Marilyn
Monroe entertaining the troops in WW2.
The belief that women love a man in uniform is deep and pernicious.
Anyway, the story is that Venus was married to Mercury/Hepheastus, the
lame smith. However, she was carrying on with Mars behind his back.
So to catch and humiliate her, Hephaestus, who was very crafty with his
hands, fashioned a net to fall upon Mars and Venus when they were in bed
together. The trick worked and the adulterous god and goddess were
were bare-assed front of all the other Olympians. Mars was enraged
and Venus just went home to sulk and console herself with a lot of new clothes
and make up.
Malcolm Austin
>I don't think anyone has previously identified the source of
>Wily Wyndom's incantation. It's from one of W. B. Yeats's most
>recondite collections of poems, the "Supernatural Songs."
>The complete quote is as follows:
>
> Conjunctions
>
> If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
> What a crop of mummy wheat!
>
> The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
> On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
>
While not denying the validity of additional interpretations, I thought it
would be useful to add this grist to the mill: :^)
From the Webster's New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (2nd edition)
mummy wheat -- a variety of wheat, _Triticum compositum_, said to have been
produced from grains found in Egyptian mummy cases.
I think I have heard of this elsewhere. If I remember correctly, this was
a previously unknown strain of wheat which has been revived (perhaps in
cross-breeds) since seeds were discovered (still alive) in Egyptian sarco-
phagi, perhaps in England.
Perhaps, in the poem, it is reference to "life from death", either
resurrection or something more ghastly and zombie-like.
Does anyone have more information (botanical or etymological) about the
phrase "mummy wheat"?
--
=Malcolm Austin================================================================
ma...@fid.morgan.com | I have discovered a remarkable quotation for this
#include <disclaimer.h>| .sig, but this space is too small to contain it.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bob Ingria
I don't think anyone has previously identified the source of
Wily Wyndom's incantation. It's from one of W. B. Yeats's most
recondite collections of poems, the "Supernatural Songs."
The complete quote is as follows:
Conjunctions
If Jupiter and Saturn meet,
What a crop of mummy wheat!
The sword's a cross; thereon He died:
On breast of Mars the Goddess sighed.
What does it mean? Mere mummery? Or mumbo jumbo?
Well, Yeats was a member of The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
(G.:D:.) [and isn't it interesting how the Golden Dawn acronym
contains two equilateral triangles of dots, just as the Twin Peaks
logo is bracketed by equilateral triangles] and is supposed to have
incorporated its rituals and symbolism into his poetry. I'll see if I
can dig up anything in either the G.:D:. literature or _Yeat's Golden
Dawn_, a study of Yeat's involvement with the G.:D:. However, the
last line reminds me of story of the infidelity of Aphrodite (Venus)
and Ares (Mars) in the Odyssey. (Aphrodite was married to Hephaestus.
He suspected her infidelity and eventually caught Aphrodite and Ares
in flagrante delicto in a net of unbreakable metal, and put them on
display in front of the rest of the gods, while they tried to conceal
themselves in each other's arms.) And the first stanza reminds me of
something Aleister Crowley might have written---the same sort of
obscure humor.
Oh, and of relevance to the whole .:T P:. twin theme, Yeat's name as a
member of the G.:D:. was
Demon est deus inversus
or ``The devil is god upside down''.
-30-
Ye Fra Irrumabo, His Marke
``Meditate upon this at second level.''