Richard Wilbur. What connections.

So, I started reading his poems after one of those long conversations about the Iliad.

This is what happened.

The poem: A Hole in the Floor

The Carpenter’s made a hole

in the parlor floor, and I’m standing

staring down into it now

at four o clock in the evening,

as Schliemann stood when his shovel

knocked on the crowns of Troy.

A clean cut sawdust sparkles

on the grey, shaggy laths

and here is a cluster of shavings

from the time when the floor was laid.

They are silvery-gold, the color

Of Hesperian apple-parings.

Kneeling, I looks in under-

Where the joists go into hiding

A pure street, faintly littered

with bits and strokes of light,

enters the long darkness

where its parallels will meet.

The radiator-pipe

rises in the middle distance

like a shuttered kiosk, standing

where the only news is night.

Here’s its not painted green

as it is in the visible world.

For God’s sake, what am I after?

Some treasure, or tiny garden?

Or that untrodden place,

the house’s very soul

where time has stored our footbeats

and the long skein of our voices?

Not these, but the buried strangeness

which nourishes the known:

That spring from which the floor lamp

drinks now a wilder bloom

inflaming the damask love seat

and the whole dangerous room.

So, I began thinking about the meaning of this poem right around the word “Troy“, and promptly went back to the beginning to see what I could find.

Who is the carpenter? He’s made a hole, a rift, changed something that’s not supposed to be damaged. Off the bat, in the context of “Troy”, we think Paris. He’s gone and done something stupid, like making a hole in the parlour  floor. Good job, smart one. But then, couldn’t also the carpenter be the gods? For they, really, were the ones who started this whole conflict…So is the hole Helen, specifically, that we’re looking at, or is the hole the war as a whole, (bad pun).

It seems in the next line that the conflict we’re supposed to be paying attention to is the war itself-indeed, the hole is in the parlour floor, where everyone sits and waits to be called on, or to entertain others. This somewhat creepily parallels the sitting and waiting the Greeks have done for the past 9 years in what amounts to their city’s parlour room.

Who is the author? Odysseus? He’s staring across the battle field…this cunning character is probably the most likely to see the whole picture, judging by what he did to try to get out of coming in the first place.

Four in the evening-Hector was killed in the afternoon/evening, wasn’t he? Is this of any importance?

Schliemann is the person who ‘found’ ‘Troy’ in the 1800s…it is uncertain at this point how much of his findings are real, not faux (planted at the site for the fame), and whether or not the site is really Troy, but the use of the name here suggests the reader and writer as discoverers of Troy.

Though, knocking on the Crowns of Troy is almost like knocking on the doors…which is what the Trojan Horse did (theoretically).

Clean cut sawdust= new, like new warriors on the field of battle, left from the making of the conflict, the hole, however we refer to it, on the old, dusty structuring wood (laths) beneath the surface, next to a cluster of shavings from when the floor was made…the older warriors, who’ve seen war/construction before?

They are silvery gold– but aren’t silver and gold ‘opposites?’ …you’re not supposed to wear both at once… although, like the song says, “make new friends, but keep the old, one is silver and the other’s gold”? hmmm…

And then we get to the Hesperian apples. Oh, the connotations. The hesperian apples are similar to a greek version of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, or the magic apples from the chronicles of narnia (I wonder where CS Lewis got his ideas?? *thinking pose*), and are guarded by a serpent sent after the goddess Leto when she was pregnant with Apollo and Artemis…the point being, after that, the snake guards the apples from the mortals. However, one of these apples STARTS the Trojan war, when the goddess of Chaos wasn’t invited to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis *cough*ACHILLES’ PARENTS!!*cough**cough* So, the goddess of discord, Eris, throws a golden apple onto the wedding banquet table, with the label, ‘to the fairest of them all’. Of course, this is TEMPTING and the three major goddesses there all wanted the apple, Hera, Athena, and Aphrodite. So, they decide on Paris as a fair judge of who should get the apple, since he had proven himself in prior myths. So they troop up the hill to Paris, who was abandoned by his parents at birth because they couldn’t bear to kill him, even though it had been prophesied that he would bring a fiery downfall to Troy (good try…). Of course, Paris choses Aphrodite, because then he can get the girl…we all know the rest. So, in essence, the whole conflict was caused by an apple. Strangely familiar to anyone who knows the Bible, female temptation with an apple screwing up all mankind, etc etc. Also, similar to that Disney movie, Sleeping Beauty, where the wicked witch is mad cause she hasn’t gotten invited to the baptism.

Personal question here: If Achilles is younger than Paris (true), and its been 10 years since the start of the Trojan War (also true), why doesn’t Helen give up on Paris, whom she doesn’t even like, for Achilles, who’s a bigger hero anyway? Plus, Achilles is all depressed and what because of the whole Briseus thing…he could do with a little attention. Then, all the greeks can pack up and leave Troy, and go battle it out at home. Hector doesn’t get killed, neither does his family, and we can all be happy (at least, I would be. Is it obvious yet how I dislike the greeks?) Because Achilles will give Helen back to Menelaus if Agamemmnon gives Briseus back, and then Agamemmnon can just go find someone else. Because Menelaus would pull the whole ‘I’m your brother’ string, and Agamemmnon would probably give in. I mean, he’s in this whole war for his brother, if his brother asked him to just give the girl back, then he’d probably do it. We’d all be happy.

Kneeling: bringing self to the level of others, Priam kneeling before Achilles…lots of kneeling in these writings.

What are the joists? They’re in hiding- the women in the shelter of the Trojan walls?

A pure life, littered with bits and strokes of light– the city has had a good life, with some bumps and some moments of brilliance. It enters a long darkness (ten years of war) where its parallels will meet. A long darkness=Hades or fate as well…

Parallels=Hector and Achilles? They’re opposites…Achilles and Priam? They’re both rulers in their own right…

The radiator pipe=source of warmth, Olympus, close enough to see but not to go to…

Shuttered=shut up, not providing heat/guidance to the mortal world (the gods are in conflict as well as mortals)

The only news is night– despair, death, bad news.

The visible world– referencing Hades here, the opposite of the visible world…

Why does the author reference a single deity “For God’s sake” after discussing Troy, where there were multiple gods? Here the question is ‘what do they fight for’, or more broadly, what is humanity searching for? –> relates back to carpenter’s hole and searching as well as the inner metaphor.

The next lines show the truth: we don’t even know what we’re looking for!!

treasure/time? tiny garden/kleos?

or the untrodden place (the heart?) , the soul of humanity?

Where time (note the double meaning here, time and time) has stored out footbeats (the memories-war ballads?) and the long skein of our voices (the Iliad, or the string of fates, or the psyches that are all thats left, gibbering out your story for eternity in hades?)

The buried strangeness–>buried love, or more appropriately, lust that nourishes the known (the spirit?) or glory, with the known being the heroes spoken of in Homer’s epics?

That spring from which the floor lamp (the light, humanity?) drinks a wilder bloom (nectar, ambrosia of the gods)…the excitement that promotes love/lust and other extreme feelings after conflict, adrenaline…inflaming the damask love seat and the whole dangerous room. SO back to Paris and Helen here, with their meeting when Aphrodite pulls Paris from the battlefield and him and Helen have a bit of fun (even though Helen doesn’t want to…)

It sounds like Wilbur is suggesting that humanity is looking for love from the way he asks the question and then leaves us with the image of a ‘dangerous room’. Of course, Paris was looking for ‘love’ too; or at least, the most beautiful woman in the world, and look where that got him.

It’s a warning that what you want most can go up in flames in a moment, etc etc. Look at the Iliad, and almost no one gets what they want. Wilbur says: case in point.

Wow, that was annoying to type in the teeny tiny little window WordPress provides.