In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself -- Wislawa Szymborska

Guest poem submitted by Sachin Desai:

(Poem #1848) In Praise of Feeling Bad About Yourself The buzzard never says it is to blame. The panther wouldn't know what scruples mean. When the piranha strikes, it feels no shame. If snakes had hands, they'd claim their hands were clean. A jackal doesn't understand remorse. Lions and lice don't waver in their course. Why should they, when they know they're right? Though hearts of killer whales may weigh a ton, in every other way they're light. On this third planet of the sun among the signs of bestiality a clear conscience is Number One. -- Wislawa Szymborska

        Translated by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh.

This poem is straightforward and needs no interpretation. Wislawa Szymborska
writes simple poems that have a touch of the profound. This poem falls
neatly in that category.

Sachin Desai.

[thomas adds]

Sachin is exactly correct: Szymborska's poem seems simple enough on the
surface, but is touched by the profound. Specifically, I wonder to what
extent the poet is being ironic. It's almost a cliche to state that humans
are the only animals possesed of a conscience, and hence that they are in
some sense "superior" to mere beasts. And indeed, that's what today's poem
says, taken at face value.

But is that all there is to it? After all, one could argue that lions and
lice may "know they're right" simply because they *are* right: it is in
their nature to kill wildebeest or suck blood. Hence they should *not* feel
remorse or shame. Whereas humans can and often do do things which later
prick their conscience; feeling scruples afterward may be "civilized", but
it doesn't alter the deed itself. So perhaps humans are the more guilty ones
after all?

I'm reminded of this little gem by D. H. Lawrence, contrasting two types of
bloodsucker:

 "The Mosquito Knows"

 The mosquito knows full well, small as he is
 he's a beast of prey.
 But after all
 he only takes his bellyful,
 he doesn't put my blood in the bank.

        -- D. H. Lawrence

thomas.