Abstemiously.
The Rose is an Estate—
In Sicily.
-Fr994, J806, sheet 29, early 1864
This poem is coming from a different angle than “don’t forget to stop and smell the roses.” It seems to be saying, rather, don’t overindulge in smelling the roses.
I once read that the 12th century Islamic mystic Rumi’s poems sometimes contradicted each other because they were given to specific people for specific purposes. For instance, one person might need to learn to indulge more and another, to indulge less. This poem is for the latter audience. I learned from David Preest that, “Emily’s cousin, Perez Dickinson Cowan, recorded in his diary for 26 April 1864 that he had received from Emily a very fine bouquet together with this commandment-poem.” So this poem was specifically given to a young man, which makes it more…pointed.
But Richard Sewall comments that Emily could sometimes be wary of excess of the good, herself, for example stating in poem Fr312 that, ‘the least push of Joy/breaks up my feet/and I tip – drunken.’ So this poem is in keeping, whether written as a reminder for herself, or for her cousin Perez.
Let’s look at the poem. The first line, if we did not have that word “Abstemiously” following it, would read to me very differently. Bees do sometimes take a little from here and a little from there, abstemiously, but sometimes they seem to be careening luxuriously in one flower for a long time, drunk on pollen. So I would likely read the line as saying to partake deeply. But “abstemiously” changes this dramatically, as it means to partake in a way that shows restraint. I assume Dickinson means, to partake delicately and methodically, without destroying the flower.
Seeing the rose as an estate in Sicily opens up a whole new dimension to the flower. The fragrance of the rose opens us to something as luxurious and exotic as can be imagined. So on one hand the rose is like an estate in Sicily, and we should partake, but on the other hand, we should only visit such a grand estate now and then, like on a vacation. Dickinson raises the rose to swoony heights, but even as she does so, she warns us to take our swooning in measure. It's like telling us how incredibly amazing chocolate is and then telling us to not eat too much.
But I love this idea. It’s like imagining yourself in a Swiss Chalet with each bite of that chocolate, or a vineyard in France with each sip of chardonnay. I'm left with the idea of making each indulgence really count, and, in fact, making it count so much that we need not overindulge.
Next time I’m tempted to overindulge in the fragrance of a rose (which I confess happens often,) I’ll think of this poem and, instead, will just try to inhale deeply.
-/)dam Wade l)eGraff
P.S. I’m reminded of Sarah Silverman’s advice to Make It A Treat (M.I.A.T.)
ReplyDeleteIt is fascinating to me to consider this poem in the light of Dickinson’s earliest two rose poems.
For example, F10 (1858):
Garland for Queens, may be -
Laurels - for rare degree
Of soul or sword -
Ah - but remembering me -
Ah - but remembering thee -
Nature in chivalry -
Nature in charity -
Nature in equity -
The Rose ordained!
By the time we reach the end of this poem, the rose is more than a finite thing.
For when we look at the world as Dickinson urges us to, we find that nature — in its chivalry, in its charity, in its equity for all things, including us — has managed to fold our consciousness in with the material world. It has, in effect, ordained the rose… because it has ordained us too.
Unwittingly, we, along with the rose, have already been ordained in what might be called the church of nature. We only need to recognize it.
There’s another early poem Emily wrote on this same theme, F28 (1858), also invoking a rose.
A sepal - petal - and a thorn
Opon a common summer's morn—
A flask of Dew—A Bee or two—
A Breeze—a'caper in the trees—
And I'm a Rose!
Here life moves from the rose to the bee that lands on it, drinking a drop of dew, to the breeze, to us, and back. As in a modernist painting, figures and background merge into one.
The act of paying close attention to nature thus emerges as nothing less than a pathway for pursuing the sacred in everyday life.
Don’t you think this sense of the sacred in nature may inform Dickinson’s advice to her cousin?
For if nature is informed by chivalry, charity, equity, and we ourselves are part of nature, then nothing should be done frivolously. Even in the non-supernatural church of evidence and direct experience, then, there is steady motive towards moderation.
Thank you for bringing in the deeper sense of the rose with these poems. Yes, I do get a sense of deep reverence for the rose (and all it stands for) in this poem. I wonder what is implied by estate in Sicily (as opposed, say, to a convent in Assissi.) Wealth? And was there a sense back then of mafia, or wealth gotten through Ill means? Or is Sicilian estate just meant as something luxurious and, as you say, frivolous.
ReplyDeleteIt seems to me she makes two different claims in those last two lines, each interesting.
ReplyDeleteFirst there is the assertion that “The Rose is an Estate —“ One way to read this is that the single rose only seems to be single (solitary, finite); actually it is an entire estate with countless roses growing. Maybe the suggestion is that if a person takes his or her time, shows respect and close attention, partakes abstemiously and cherishes the sip, as it were, then a lifetime of roses awaits.
Another reading of this penultimate line might be to lean into the second syllable of “Estate”: the rose is a state (of being, of existence). Doesn’t that echo in the line too? The slightness of the downbeat of the “e” in “estate” allows this secondary way of hearing it.
Either way, if we think of this “Estate” proffered as vast, whether as a field of roses in the material world or as a possible state of being in someone’s mind, then that succinct last line comes even more as a surprise. “In Sicily.” With a period. No ambiguity.
So Sicily is a place on a map (as you ask, Adam, I wonder what this actual place represent to Emily Dickinson and her contemporaries? Remoteness? Luxury? Wealth? Crime?). How does it work metaphorically? Then is the estate that a rose may open to an admirer any one of these things, or a few of them at once?
Or is there simply humor in the multi-syllabic rhyme with “abstemiously”? It is funny somehow, even as it surprised us. I don’t have answers but I like the questions!
I didn’t mean that the Estate is frivolous at all in my previous comment, by the way. On the contrary, the earlier rose poems suggest to me how wonderous and serious the image of this flower is to Dickinson.
Love both of those readings of estate, a dozen roses becoming an entire estate of roses, and the state of the rose, which ties in nicely to your first comment. (Your rose idea reminds me of Rilke's rose poems, the only poems he wrote in French, worthy of Dickinson.)
ReplyDeleteI didn't mean to say that the Estate itself is frivolous, but the question remains, if it is not frivolous, then why not just live there? Why be abstemious? Make yourself at home.
It might be interesting to take into consideration alternative lines 3-4:
ReplyDeleteI know the Family
in Tripoli.