Be rendered by the Bee —
Herself, without a Parliament
Apology for Me.
-F959, J852, 1865
The poem enacts the very problem it raises: an apology is offered, but we can’t quite determine who has given it, or whether it is even necessary.
My take on the poem was inspired by a comment from Moon on the poem preceding this one, F958, which featured a quote by Dickinson: 'To "thank" you - shames my thought!'
If thanking someone can shame one's thought, then so, perhaps, can apologizing.
Apology for Her
Be rendered by the Bee —
The Bee will render her own apology. This implies to me that the Bee needs no apology. The Bee pollinates and the Bee stings. That’s just what the Bee does.
And likewise the Bee's apology (or lack of one) will suffice for an apology from the poet.
Herself, without a Parliament
The poem offers an apology while questioning the grounds on which one might be required. Perhaps it was originally sent with a flower, an offering of beauty, for which the Bee, especially, need not apologize.
Apology for me.
-/)dam Wade I)eGraff
P.S. I made a fortuitous discovery while doing a Google search for "parliament bee."
There is a famous allegorical poem called The Parliament of the Bees. This must be what Dickinson is alluding to in her poem.
From Britannica.com: "John Day was an Elizabethan dramatist whose verse allegory The Parliament of Bees was published posthumously in 1641 and probably written near the end of his life. This exquisite masque, which is actually a series of pastoral eclogues, is about “the doings, the births, the wars, the wooings” of bees. The bees hold a parliament under Prorex, the “Master Bee,” and grievances are presented against the bumblebee, the wasp, the drone, and other insects whom the author uses to represent various human types. The satirical allegory ends with a royal progress of the fairy king Oberon, who dispenses justice among the bees."
An excerpt from Day's poem that is perhaps relevant to Dickinson's:
"Go go idle drone,
Thou enviest bees with stings
Because thine is gone.
This Bee sucks honey from the bloomes of sin:
Bee't nere so ranke or foule, he crams it in.
Most of the timber that his state repairs
He hew's out o'the bones of foundred players :
They feed on Poets braines, he eats their breath.
Die. Most strange conception !—life begot in Death."
P.P.S. I would love to hear your reading of this poem.
I think Emily was not very fond of parliaments with their noise , insincere and superficial oratory full of sound and fury signifying nothing. I so agree with her. Her father was a politician so she obviously had a good idea about the endless speeches, debates etc.
ReplyDeleteShe calls speech a prank of the Parliament in Fr 193. She prefers the sincerity of the heavy heart in that poem. Susan has given some very delightful notes for that poem calling parliaments an assemblage of windy politicians ( ha ha). Emily ofcourse preferred the language of the flowers and the bees, butterflies and birds. She was always so wise!!! So she's saying here that a flower and a bee could express her apology better than words( parliament). She says this with humility and we as usual are floored by her words!!!
Thank you for the information about the Parliament of Bees. Parliament of owls and Parliament of Bees actually sounds quite respectful. Owls are associated with wisdom, Bees with hard work, honey and Emily.. However I personally do share Emily's contempt for the long winded speeches of people in love with their own voices
ReplyDeleteA prank of the Parliament. So funny. Thanks for remembering that. I love the quote from Susan too.
DeleteI take “Her” to refer to a flower and, metaphorically, to the poem itself. The poet then says:
ReplyDeleteLet the Bee speak in defense of my flower, of my poem. My own apology, or vindication, lies in the poem's very existence; no further words are necessary.
The bee then would be us.
DeleteThis is an elegant "solution" (in the mathematical sense of the term) and a powerful way to read the poem. I like the trail to the Prowling Bee your take gives us.
Delete1, Reading your post reminds me of the famous “Flower Sermon” from Buddhism.
ReplyDeleteWhile Shakyamuni Buddha was delivering a sermon, he silently held up a flower and showed it to the assembly. Everyone was puzzled, not knowing what it meant, but only Mahākāśyapa seemed to understand the significance and smiled. This smile signifies that wisdom was transmitted without the use of language, and in the Zen tradition, the question, “Why did the Buddha hold up the flower, and why did Kāśyapa smile?” has become a central theme for Zen meditation.
2, To be honest, when reading Emily’s poetry, there are few poems that are easy to understand right from the start. when I happen to come across a poem that’s easy to interpret at first glance, it bring an ‘Anonymous delight’(J708) to me. But that joy is fleeting; only stillness remains! This poem is one of them. I have no choice but to go on a “treasure hunt.”
The expression “To ‘thank’ you—shames my thought!” mentioned by ‘d scribe’ appears in a letter Emily sent to Bowles in 1862 (L249). Interestingly, there’s another intriguing sentence in that letter.
“My Love is my only apology.”
Sewall comments on this letter as follows:
The verbal connections of the letter with the “Master” letters alone warrant the fullest examination; but even without them the letter seems crucial. (The Life of Emily Dickinson P.488)
Since it’s common for Emily to switch genders, might “her” here refer to Bowles rather than Sue? If so, the first two lines of the poem can be read as an love(‘apology’) from Emily to Bowles. Lines 3 and 4 suggest that, to Emily, Bowles himself is a love that needs no words. (“Speech – is a prank of Parliament” F193 / J688)
I wonder if Emily will scold me for getting it wrong.
Moon