Thoreau in Love

HENRY IN LOVE

A Thoreau Tableau Vivant

Introductory Notes.

The premise of this tableau vivant (literally, a “living picture”) involving Henry Thoreau (1817-1862) , Emily Dickinson (1830-1886), the Bhagavad-Gita and a narrator is that a general audience, hearing their words read aloud, may connect with this literature more readily than by reading the separate works, or by reading about particular works. My hope is that the listeners may thus be inspired to look into the original texts, all of which are readily accessible. Why these three? In my case it is rooted in Professor Paul Friedrich’s course on Thoreau and the Gita in the Graham School, Master of Liberal Arts Program at the University of Chicago. As presented in the Winter Quarter of 2007 this course included a sprinkling of work by other writers, including several of Dickinson’s poems which Professor Friedrich brought to class. It occurred to me midway through the term what good companions these three make in several ways. First, Thoreau had Charles Wilkins’ 1785 translation of the Gita (the first in the English language) with him during his two years -- 1845-1847 -- at Walden Pond. He repeatedly refers to this narrative in his journal, as well as in the two books published after his time at the Pond - A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (1849) and Walden; or, Life in the Woods (1854). Thoreau’s mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882), had introduced Thoreau to the Gita around 1840, and they (Thoreau and the Gita, but not always Thoreau and Emerson) remained lifelong friends and companions. The central, unifying theme of both Walden and the Gita I take to be the promotion of a spirit of conscious detachment, not letting affairs and concerns of daily life stand in the way of living in harmony with the natural world, taking only sustenance from it, and living with an appreciation for nature which will surely come to anyone who takes the time to look closely at what is neither made nor manipulated by man. At a more abstract level it is suggested that the Gita presented to Emerson, Thoreau and their colleagues in what came to be called the transcendental movement an alternative to 18^th Century rationalism and 19^th Century materialism, as well as an antidote to the Puritan and Calvinist traditions which had worn thin among a good portion of the New England intelligentsia of their time.

Emily Dickinson is included in this Tableau because of strong thematic parallels between her poetry and Thoreau’s writings, particularly their resistance to social convention and pretentious custom, a disdain for material or worldly pursuits and for whatever they regarded as tainted by hypocrisy. Also, Thoreau’s works are almost entirely male-focused. Women are seldom mentioned and never given a place of prominence or even relevance. For example, according to a search I conducted on the website www.online-literature.com/booksearch.php, in all of Walden the words female, sister, mother, girl, wife and woman appear in relation to a member of the opposite sex only 13 times, and never in relation to a specific individual. Dickinson, born 13 years after Thoreau, probably knew who he was, but there is no record of their ever having met. Still, she was likely influenced by aspects of his thought and shared his disregard for contemporary social convention. Thus Dickinson’s principal biographer, Richard B. Sewall (1908 – 2003, detailed reference in Bibliography) notes that Thoreau’s Walden is one of 30 books from the Dickinson household library later removed to the Dickinson Collection in the Houghton Library at Harvard which contain markings or notches presumptively made by Dickinson herself. In Dickinson we have not only the mid-19^th Century perspective of a thoughtful woman, but also that of a person who lived mostly indoors in contrast to Thoreau’s preference for the outdoors. Finally, we have the contrast of Thoreau’s superb multi-layered prose and Dickinson’s poignant and sometimes enigmatic poetic expression. While Thoreau wrote poetry as well, the quality of his prose is beyond question, as is the quality of Dickinson’s poetry. Emerson didn’t think much of Thoreau’s fairly flowery poetry, and to a 21^st Century eye much the same can be of Emerson’s. Most of Dickinson sounds quite modern to this reader. Note in the selections included in the Tableau that Dickinson’s poems often take an odd and unexpected turn just at their end.

This presentation in an oral format. The custom of reading most literary works from printed versions is barely two centuries old. Thoreau was a rhetorician, a skilled public speaker, as were Emerson and others in New England letters at the time. Public lectures were a common form of both entertainment and public education. Many of Thoreau’s thoughts were first recorded in his extensive journal and later, in more polished form, expressed in public meetings, writings and addresses. It is not difficult in reading Walden to think of Thoreau reciting his written words aloud. The Bhagavad-Gita is grounded in the oral literary tradition of the Indian subcontinent reaching back well more than 2,000 years. The Gita came eventually to be written down in a number of scripts comprising the Sanskrit language, but no one seems to know very precisely when or by whom this first occurred. It seems likely that prior to 400 BCE the Bhagavad-Gita was not be found in written form, and by 200 CE it had been recorded in several Sanskrit scripts. Here is what Gita scholar Winthrop Sargeant [see annotated Bibliography at the end of this paper] says in the introductory pages to his own translation of the Gita:

The written, as opposed to the spoken [Sanskrit] language dates only from about 300 B.C., and even then very little was written down. . . . The bulk of Sanskrit literature was not written down until well into the Christian era. . . . Sanskrit is the only ancient language the exact pronunciation of which is known today. . . . The Bhagavad Gita in its written form at any rate, is generally thought to date from the second or third century A.D., . . .

Thus for many centuries the Hindu public would have known of the Gita only through recitation. Mahatma Ghandi (1869 – 1848) is said to have started many days with a morning ritual of walking about publicly reciting passages from the Gita. Of course there is no record of any of Dickinson’s poetry being publicly recited, mainly because only a very small portion was even published or known about in her lifetime. However, her poetry lends itself to oral rendition, particularly by a person who is emulating the presumed persona and bearing of a living Dickinson.

As to the particular passages selected here for recitation, my only objective has been to give a fair picture of major themes and how they can be connected in the three sources. Fortunately, these source materials are not strictly linear works with exact beginnings, middle portions and endings. Thus random readings of any of the three authors or works can be as rewarding as starting at any particular point. The final objective is to provide a narrative which can be read aloud by the players in about an hour as the presumed outer limit of effective audience attention without a break or intermission. It would be perfectly possible to provide a more extended version with might run to an hour and a half or more, with an intermission, but that is not the present undertaking.

The stage setting.

Henry David Thoreau is seated Stage Right. He sits on a well-worn Windsor rocking chair in front of the semblance of a primitive cabin. [I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, and three for society. Walden – Visitors. Note: Thoreau’s rocker, built ca. 1815, was acquired by the Concord Museum in 1873.] It is not necessary to construct an elaborate cabin semblage. A few well-positioned plants, an iron cook pot, a small stack of firewood, all strategically placed near where the Thoreau figure is seated are sufficient to create the impression. Thoreau holds a notebook and writing instrument. He may also on occasion pick up a small flute and play simple melodies. Thoreau’s flute is also in the Concord Museum. It was made in Albany, NY around 1820 and belonged originally to his father, John. Thoreau’s interest in what may be termed natural and spontaneous music is well documented in his writings. An excellent reference source regarding Thoreau and music is Kenneth W. Rhoads article, “Thoreau: The Ear and the Music” in American Literature, Vol. 46, No. 3, November, 1974. As lead-in and introductory background music, I suggest using excerpts from the ‘Thoreau’ section of Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata which may be heard in the background as the Tableau opens.

A book or two and manuscript folders may be seen at Thoreau’s side. His rustic dress and straw hat are in keeping with the mid-19^th Century setting near Concord and Walden Pond in rural Massachusetts. He should appear rather unkempt in keeping with his disdain for external impressions. The photographic record of Thoreau is sparse and postdates Thoreau’s time at Walden. Emerson wrote in his 1862 eulogy:

He wore straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to brave shrub-oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a hawk’s or a squirrel’s nest. . . . His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and hardy, his hands strong and skillful in the use of tools. And there was a wonderful fitness of body and mind.

Contrast Emerson’s description with that of Nathaniel Hawthorne who wrote of Thoreau in his journal for September 1, 1842:

Mr. Thoreau dined with us yesterday. He is a singular character – a young man with much of wild original nature still remaining in him; . . . He is ugly as sin, long-nosed, queer-mouthed, and with uncouth and somewhat rustic, although courteous manners, corresponding very well with such an exterior. But his ugliness is of an honest and agreeable fashion, and becomes him much better than beauty. . . . for two or three years back, he has repudiated all regular modes of getting a living, and seems inclined to lead a sort of Indian life among civilized men – an Indian life, I mean, as respects the absence of any systematic effort for a livelihood.

Emily Dickinson is seated Stage Center at a writing table with a kerosene lamp or a candle and a vase of fresh flowers. She is dressed ideally in a white dress of cotton or linen, but in upper middle-class daytime fashion appropriate to the era of New England, ca. 1850. She is usually pictured with her hair bound tightly to the sides and parted in the middle. She holds a writing pen in hand and manuscript sheets are on the table. She continues throughout to write, and when she speaks, it is as if she were reading to herself something she has just written or has selected from recently completed material. An extended scholarly discussion of Emily Dickinson’s views regarding apparel and appearance can be found in an article in The Emily Dickinson Journal, Vol. XIV, No. 2 (Fall, 2005). The article, by Daneen Wardrop, is titled “The Body’s Body: Dickinson’s Fashions and Amplitude.” Because of her reclusivity for much or her life, there is a scant photographic record of Dickinson.

Krishna and Arjuna are at Stage Left. Krishna is in garb appropriate to a charioteer of ca. 400-200 BCE; Arjuna wears the dress of a warrior (such as a helmet, and breastplate) with sword, bow and arrow as appropriate to warfare of the time and circumstance. In the writer’s conception, Krishna is seated in a chair (or semblance of a chariot) with his hands on the reins of imaginary horses. Arjuna stands just behind or is seated to the side of Krishna, as if in a ready position on the chariot and about to enter battle. Several Gita websites include illustrations of artists’ conceptions of the Gita setting. See, e.g. www.asitis.com/gallery .

The Narrator may stand at Center Stage or somewhat to Stage Right at a podium. When not speaking, he/she may move offstage or to the side. The dress of the narrator may be basic black, or whatever does not call attention to his/her person or suggest any specific time or circumstance. The Narrator is speaking to the audience at the present time. The other players are speaking from their works in their own time and setting.

Lighting and Presentation. Each of the dramatis personae is visible at all times to the audience, but held in dim light until they speak, at which time they are illuminated as far as possible. When not speaking they are to be essentially motionless, except that Dickinson may be observed writing. If the narrative warrants, any of the players may exhibit particular interest in what someone else is saying by the movement of their bodies or by their facial expressions, as if each of them was hearing everything said by the others. However, these reactions should be used sparingly so as not to detract from the speakers.

End of Introductory Notes

* * * * *

START OF THE TABLEAU VIVANT

[Lights emphasize Narrator and Thoreau figures. In the

background is the sound of the Thoreau movement

from Charles Ives’ Concord Sonata.]

DRAMATIS PERSONAE:

Narrator

Henry Thoreau

Emily Dickinson

Krishna

Arjuna

NARRATOR.

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen. Much of what you are about to see and hear is presented exactly as it was conceived and written, in part more than 2,000 years ago, and in part a mere 150 or so years past. Our object is both to entertain and to inform. That is, to present something which may be of significance in your own life, and hopefully not put you to sleep. For a few moments please put the modern world aside, including all cell phones, pagers and the like. Pacemakers and locator alarms on ankles are excepted.

In the early months of 1845 Henry [David] Thoreau decided to move from the home he shared in Concord, Massachusetts with his family to a site at nearby Walden Pond. We will call him, simply ‘Thoreau’ or Henry Thoreau, as it is said that no one called him Henry David Thoreau during his lifetime, as some modern scholars and teachers do. Thoreau was 28 years old in 1845 and a graduate of Harvard College. He had worked locally as a school teacher, as a surveyor and skilled handyman, and with his father in a pencil making enterprise.

Thoreau was a younger friend and protégée of Ralph Waldo Emerson, also of Concord, then in his early 40s and arguably already the preeminent American intellectual of the time. Emerson owned the land by Walden Pond where Thoreau decided to build his cabin, having purchased eleven acres next to Walden Pond in 1844 for $8.10 per acre.

Listen carefully and you will even hear about a connection between Thoreau and the City of Chicago, Illinois. Here are two physical descriptions of Thoreau from very different times and circumstances. The first is from Emerson’s eulogy at Thoreau’s 1862 funeral:

[Insert from above, p. 7]

The second is earlier in time, by Nathaniel Hawthorne from an 1842 journal entry:

[Insert from above, p. 7]

THOREAU.

When I wrote the following pages, . . . , I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months. . . . Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like. . . . I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. . . . [Walden, Economy]

I have traveled a good deal in Concord; and every where, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways. . . . I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. . . . But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon ploughed into the soil for compost. . . . Most men, even in this comparatively free country, through mere ignorance and mistake, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. . . . . It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself. . . . [Walden, Economy]

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. . . . It is never too late to give up our prejudices. No way of thinking or doing, however ancient, can be trusted without proof. . . . Practically, the old have no very important advice to give the young, . . . I have lived some thirty years on this planet, and I have yet to hear the first syllable of valuable or even earnest advice from my seniors.

[Walden, Economy]

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion. . .

[Walden, Where I Lived]

NARRATOR.

Thoreau lived at Walden Pond from July 4, 1845 to September 6, 1847, two years, two months and two days. He then took several years to shape his experience at Walden as recorded in his journal into the carefully worked and reworked narrative published in 1854 titled Walden; Or, Life in the Woods. In the meantime he had published in 1849 his first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers. About 1,000 copies of this first book, longer and much more florid than Walden, were printed. It is an extended and reflective travelogue of a trip Thoreau took with his beloved brother, John, who had died suddenly in 1842. Thoreau eventually had to pay for and take possession of more than 700 unsold copies of A Week on the Concord which he stored in his small upstairs bedroom/study/library. He was then able to boast that he had a personal library of some 900 volumes and that he was the author of more than 700 of them himself. Little wonder that he did not rush to press with Walden which he took seven years to complete. Before Walden was published Thoreau had written out seven successive full drafts. Remember --- it’s the 1850s -- no word processors. No typewriters. No electricity.

THOREAU.

I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there. Perhaps it seemed to me that I had several more lives to live, and could not spare any more time for that one. . . I had not lived there a week before my feet wore a path from my door to the pond-side; and though it is five or six years since I trod it, it is still quite distinct.

[Walden, Conclusion]

NARRATOR.

While Thoreau was at Walden, young Emily Dickinson was a teenager growing up with her brother and sister in nearby Amherst, Massachusetts. Born in 1830, Dickinson lived almost all her life in the family home. She went to school locally studying English and Classical literature, as well as mathematics, biology, history and religion. She had friends and traveled occasionally to Boston, Cambridge and Connecticut in her early years.

Neither Emily nor her sister, Lavinia, were ever married. Her brother, Austin, married Emily’s best friend and confidant, Susan Gilbert, in 1856 and they lived next door to Emily and Lavinia, unhappily married for the duration. Dickinson wrote, but did not publish, poetry throughout her life. The bulk of her work was written in the 1860s and only came to light in raw manuscript form (almost 1,800 poems in all) after her death in 1886. Her sparse poetic style was unique, very unlike the rhapsodic flamboyant poetry which was common in the romantic Victorian tradition of her time. Emily Dickinson was very reclusive in her later years, likely as the result of chronic illness and impaired vision. Dickinson’s focus on the natural world was no less incisive than Thoreau’s, and she was an avid gardener in her early years. While her biographical record is extensive, especially as a result of abundant correspondence, much is not known and will perhaps never be known about the enigmatic Emily. Fortunately, her poetry is a powerful voice which speaks for itself, provoking but not requiring commentary.

DICKINSON.

I’m Nobody ! Who are you?

Are you - Nobody – too?

Then there’s a pair of us.

Don’t tell ! They’d advertise – you know !

How dreary – to be – Somebody !

How public – like a Frog –

To tell one’s name – the livelong June –

To an admiring Bog !

[No. 260 – 1861]

NARRATOR.

In his cabin which he carefully constructed at Walden Pond Thoreau had a copy of Charles Wilkins’ 1785 translation, the first into the English language, of the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita, as we shall typically call it, is a small part of a very large Indian epic initially recorded in the Sanskrit language, called the Mahabharata. The Gita part of the epic, more than 2,000 years old in Thoreau’s time, is concerned with the uncertainty of a young man in the face of a confusing world making conflicting demands in a time of transition and uncertainty. Sound familiar? The Bhagavad Gita ( or ‘Song of the Lord’) is basically a dialogue between the young warrior, Arjuna, and the guru-God Krishna. As the Gita dialogue commences, young Arjuna is looking out on a battlefield where large contending forces are facing each other just prior to battle. This is essentially an internecine conflict over the control of Bharata, or northern India , that is -- a family feud involving very large extended families. I now read from the Gita text:

There Arjuna saw, standing their ground, fathers, grandfathers, teachers, maternal uncles, brothers, sons, grandsons, friends, Fathers-in-law, and companions in both armies.

And looking at all these kinsman so arrayed, Arjuna, the son of Kunti,

Was overcome by deep compassion; and in despair he said: [Ch. 1, 26-28]

ARJUNA.

[Arjuna speaks here for the first time to the audience.]

Krishna, when I see these my own people eager to fight, on the brink,

My limbs grow heavy, and my mouth is parched, my body trembles and my hair bristles;

My bow, . . ., falls from my hand, my skin’s on fire, I can no longer stand – my mind is reeling,

I see evil omens, Krishna: nothing good can come from slaughtering one’s own family in battle – I foresee it !

I have no desire for victory, Krishna, or kingship, or pleasures. What should we do with kingship, . . .? What are pleasures to us? What is life ? [Ch. 1, 28 – 32]

I have no desire to kill them, . . ., though they are killers themselves – no, not for the lordship of the three worlds, let alone the earth ! [Ch. 1, 35]

How can we be so ignorant as not to recoil from this wrong? The evil incurred by destroying one’s own family is plain to see, . . . [Ch. 1, 39]

Oh, ignominy ! We are about to perpetrate a great evil – out of sheer greed for kingdoms and pleasures, we are prepared to kill our own people.

It would be better for me if Dhritarashtra’s [Try to say: Dree – tar – ASH - tra’s] armed men were to kill me in battle, unresisting and unarmed. [Ch. 1. 45-46]

NARRATOR.

The Gita text continues.

Having spoken this on the field of conflict, Arjuna sank down into the chariot, letting slip his bow and arrow, his mind distracted with grief. [Ch. 1, 47]

[Arjuna is seen to do as the Narrator and Gita text describe.]

NARRATOR. [Continues . . . ]

Arjuna has yet to hear from Krishna. He will receive some guidance in due course. . . Meanwhile, back to 19^th Century Massachusetts. . . . Simplicity, living in the moment. Treating each day as the essence of life preceded by what is gone forever, and will be succeeded by the unknown. We have what is at hand, . . . today . . . nothing more, . . .or less.

DICKINSON.

What I can do - I will -

Though it be little as a Daffodil -

That I cannot - must be

Unknown to possibility -

[No. 641 -- 1863]

To be alive - is Power -

Existence - in itself -

Without a further function -

Omnipotence - Enough -

To be alive - and will ! -

‘Tis able as a God -

The Maker - of Ourselves - be what -

Such being Finitude !

[No. 876 -- 1864]

THOREAU.

Our life is frittered away by detail . . . Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity ! I say let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; . . . Instead of three meals a day, if it be necessary, eat but one; . . . Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry. Men say that a stitch in time saves nine, and so they take a thousand stitches to-day to save nine to-morrow. . . . I perceive that we inhabitants of New England live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that that is which appears to be. . . . In eternity there is indeed something true and sublime. But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages. And we are enabled to apprehend at all what is sublime and noble only by the perpetual instilling and drenching of the reality that surrounds us. [Walden, Where I Lived]

[Thoreau seems lost in his thoughts for a moment, . . . . then he continues: ]

I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse, and a turtle-dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken concerning them, describing their tracks and what calls they answered to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound, and the tramp of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, and they seemed as anxious to recover them as if they had lost them themselves. [Walden, Economy]

NARRATOR.

James Joyce could not have written a more cryptic passage. What do these words mean? Are they symbols? What loss is Thoreau lamenting? In Walden, while he often speaks directly and categorically -- very in your face as we say – he also speaks in deep metaphor and symbolically. A hound, a bay horse, and a turtle dove. Fertile ground for a term paper, a thesis, or an entire doctoral dissertation. But listen to what Thoreau said just before this enigmatic passage:

THOREAU.

You will pardon some obscurities, for there are more secrets in my trade than in most men’s, and yet not voluntarily kept, but inseparable from its very nature. I would gladly tell all that I know about it, and never paint “No Admittance” on my gate. [Walden, Economy]

NARRATOR.

Thoreau did not profess to formal religious belief in terms of a Christian denomination. At Walden Pond, instead of a Bible, Thoreau had the Bhagavad Gita, which in the end is itself essentially a religious text, a design for living articulated by Krishna who knows all, and sees all, including the unknowable and the unseeable.

We will hear something of what Emily has to say about religious belief and then return to the Gita. A legendary anecdote from the few months in 1848 when Emily attended Mt. Holyoke Seminary tells of the school head, Mary Lyons, asking all the students in an assembly to rise if they wanted to be Christians. Eventually all were standing, except Emily. She later explained:

[Note. See Sewall, Life of Emily Dickinson, Harvard Univ. Press (1974), p. 269]

DICKINSON.

[Emily here speaks directly to the audience, not from her poetic works.]

They thought it queer I didn’t rise. . . . I thought a lie would be queerer.

[Emily picks up a manuscript, and reads . . . ]

To lose One’s faith - surpass

The loss of an Estate -

Because Estates can be

Replenished - faith cannot -

Inherited with Life -

Belief - but once - can be -

Annihilate a single clause -

And Being’s - Beggary -

[No. 632 -- 1863]

NARRATOR.

Religion, serious organized religion was an important part of life in 19^th Century New England, and both Thoreau and Dickinson struggled with their relationship to conventional Christian theology and practice. So did Emerson and many others in their circle.

Now, recall that Arjuna has questioned his obligations as a warrior in the battleground spread out before him and seeks guidance from Krishna, his mentor.

[From Gita, Chapter 2]

KRISHNA.

Arjuna, where do you get this weakness from at a moment of crisis? A noble should not experience this. It does not lead to heaven, it leads to disgrace.

ARJUNA.

. . . how can I shoot arrows at Bhishma and Drona in battle when they should be honoured? . . .

My mind is bewildered as to what is right. I ask you, which would be better?

Tell me for certain. I am your student, I have come to you for help. Instruct me !

KRISHNA.

You utter wise words, yet you have been mourning those who should not be mourned; the truly wise do not grieve for the living or the dead.

There never was a time when I was not, or you, or these rulers of men. Nor will there ever be a time when we shall cease to be, all of us hereafter.

Just as within this body the embodied self passes through childhood, youth, and old age, so it passes to another body. The wise man is not bewildered by this.

But contacts with matter, Son of Kunti, give rise to cold and heat, pleasure and pain. They come and go, Bharata, they are impermanent and you should endure them.

It is just these bodies of the indestructible, immeasurable, and eternal embodied self that are characterized as coming to an end -- therefore fight, Bharata!

Death is inevitable for those who are born; for those who are dead birth is just as certain. Therefore you must not grieve for what is inevitable.

NARRATOR.

We’ll come back to Krishna and Arjuna. What’s going on here? Why was Thoreau so focused on this ancient Gita text as to include it in his limited Walden library? What did Thoreau make of these assertions? There are numerous references to the Gita in Walden, but the best explanation by Thoreau of his interest in Indian (i.e. non-Western) literature and philosophy is found in his 1849 self-published volume titled: A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, an account of travels on these rivers a decade earlier, in 1839, with his brother, John. . . . Excuse me, Mr. Thoreau, why did you take the Gita with you to Walden Pond?

THOREAU.

[Reaching for a loosely bound folder of manuscript material, he reads: . . . . .]

Men do not fail commonly for want of knowledge, but for want of prudence to give wisdom the preference. . . . The wisest conservatism is that of the Hindus. “Immemorial custom is transcendent law,” says Menu. That is, it was the custom of the gods before men used it. The fault of our New England custom is that it is memorial. What is morality but immemorial custom? Conscience is the chief of conservatives. “Perform the settled functions,” says Krishna in the Bhagavad-Gita; “action is preferable to inaction. The journey of thy mortal frame may not succeed from inaction.” . . . . “Wherefore, O Arjuna, resolve to fight,” is the advice of the God to the irresolute soldier who fears to slay his best friends. . . . these philosophers dwell on the inevitability and unchangeableness of laws, on the power of temperament and constitution, . . . and the circumstances of birth and affinity. The end is an immense consolation; eternal absorption in Brahma. . . . The New Testament is remarkable for its pure morality; the best of the Hindu scripture, for its pure intellectuality. The reader is nowhere raised into and sustained in the higher, purer, or rarer region of thought than in the Bhagavad-Gita. . . . “The forsaking of works” was taught by Krishna to the most ancient of men, and handed down from age to age, . . . “Let the motive be in the deed and not in the event. Be not one whose motive for action is the hope of reward. Let not thy life be spent in inaction for the man who doeth that which he hath to do, without affection, obtaineth the Supreme. He who may behold, as it were inaction in action, and action in action, is wise amongst mankind. He is a perfect performer of all duty. . . . He abandoneth the desire of a reward of his actions; he is always contented and independent; and although he may be engaged in a work, he, as it were, doeth nothing. . . . .

What, after all, does the practicalness of life amount to? The things immediate to be done are very trivial. I could postpone them all to hear this locust sing. The most glorious fact in my experience is not anything that I have done or may hope to do, but a transient thought, or vision, or dream, which I have had. I would give all the wealth of the world, and all the deeds of all the heroes, for one true vision. But how can I communicate with the gods who am a pencil-maker on the earth, and not be insane?

“I am the same to all mankind,” says Krishna; “there is no one who is worthy of my love or hatred.”

Krishna’s argument, it must be allowed, is defective. No sufficient reason is given why Arjuna should fight. Arjuna may be convinced, but the reader is not. . . . Behold the difference between the Oriental and the Occidental. The former has nothing to do in this world; the latter is full of activity. The one looks in the sun till his eyes are put out; the other follows him prone in his westward course. There is such a thing as caste, even in the West; but it is comparatively faint; it is conservatism here. It says, forsake not your calling, outrage no institution, use no violence, rend no bonds; the State is thy parent. . . . There is a struggle between the Oriental and Occidental in every nation; . . . I would say to the readers of Scriptures, if they wish for a good book, read the Bhagavad-Gita, an episode to the Mahabharata, said to have been written . . . . more than four thousand years ago, it matters not whether three or four, or when, - - translated by Charles Wilkins. It deserves to be read with reverence even by Yankees, as a part of the sacred writings of a devout people; and the intelligent Hebrew will rejoice to find in it a moral grandeur and sublimity akin to those of his own Scriptures.

[Note. The passages above are from the Monday chapter of Thoreau’s A Week On the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.]

THE RAILROAD STORY

NARRATOR.

Thoreau was not fond of modern inventions and gadgetry. It seems strange that he was able to be so poetic in referring to a line of rail which passed near to Walden Pond and was in his time a fairly recent addition to the Concord landscape.

THOREAU.

The Fitchburg Railroad touches the pond about a hundred rods south of where I dwell. . . . I usually go to the village along its causeway, and am, as it were, related to society by this link. . . . When I meet the engine with its train of cars moving off with planetary motion, -- or, rather, like a comet, for the beholder knows not if with that velocity and with that direction it will ever revisit this system, since its orbit does not look like a returning curve, -- . . . I hear the iron horse make the hills echo with his snort like thunder, shaking the earth with his feet, and breathing fire and smoke from his nostrils, (what kind of winged horse or fiery dragon they will put into the new Mythology I don’t know,) it seems as if the earth had got a race now worthy to inhabit it. If all were as its seems, and men made the elements their servants for noble ends ! . . . I watch the passage of the morning cars with the same feeling that I do the rising of the sun, which is hardly more regular. Their train of clouds stretching far behind and rising higher and higher, going to heaven while the cars are going to Boston, . . . The stabler of the iron horse was up early this winter morning by the light of the stars amid the mountains, to fodder and harness his steed. . . . All day the fire-steed flies over the country, stopping only that his master may rest, and I am awakened by his tramp and defiant snort at midnight, when in some remote glen in the woods he fronts the elements incased in ice and snow; and he will reach his stall only with the morning star, to start once more on his travels without rest or slumber. . . . . Have not men improved somewhat in punctuality since the railroad was invented? Do they not talk and think faster in the depot than they did in the stage-office?

. . . We have constructed a fate, an Atropos, that never turns aside. (Let that be the name of your engine.) [Walden, Sounds]

NARRATOR.

There is no record of Emily Dickinson and Thoreau every having met each other in person. Because her works were not published and essentially unknown in her lifetime, it is unlikely that Thoreau had any knowledge of Dickinson’s poetry. But did Emily Dickinson read any of Thoreau’s published work, especially Walden ? A copy of Walden was in the library of Dickinson’s home. Dickinson was 24 when Walden was published and 32 when Thoreau died in 1862. We have just heard Thoreau comparing the Fitchburg Railway trains to celestial objects, as well as their being personified, if that is the term, as iron horses. Here is Emily Dickinson speaking of trains, not horses, in 1862.

DICKINSON.

I like to see it lap the Miles -

And lick the Valleys up -

And stop to feed itself at Tanks -

And then - prodigious step

Around a Pile of Mountains -

And supercilious peer

In Shanties - by the sides of Roads -

And then a Quarry pare

To fit its sides, and crawl between

Complaining all the while

In horrid - hooting stanza -

Then chase itself down Hill -

And neigh like Boanerges -

Then - prompter than a Star

Stop - docile and omnipotent

At it’s own stable door

[No. 383 – 1862]

NARRATOR.

We are indebted to a short article by Nathalia Wright of the University of Tennessee, published in Modern Language Notes in 1957, which suggests that Dickinson may have been thinking of or perhaps influenced by Thoreau’s account when she composed the piece we just heard. None of Dickinson’s poems have titles, and we have no commentary by her. So it is pure speculation. What is striking is that both of these iconoclasts, neither of them admirers of modern mercantile economics, are so sympathetic to these noisy, dangerous machines, which had emerged as part of the New England landscape only during their adult years. It seems to me that, to this day, many of us are more tolerant of railroads and trains than many other species of mechanical apparatus which now surround us.

* * * * * * * * *

THOREAU.

Time is but the stream I go a –fishing in. . . . I have always been regretting that I was not as wise as the day I was born. . . . I do not wish to be any more busy with my hands than is necessary. My head is hands and feet. I feel all my best faculties concentrated in it. My instinct tells me that my head is an organ for burrowing, as some creatures use their snout and fore-paws, and with it I would mine and burrow my way through these hills. I think that the richest vein is somewhere hereabouts; so by the divining rod and thin rising vapors I judge; and here I will begin to mine.

[Last paragraph of Where I Lived in Walden.]

I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me, -- . . . . No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant by it. . . . The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils. . . . . Thus is seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf. What Champollion will decipher this hieroglyphic for us, that we may turn over a new leaf at last?

[About mid-point in Spring in Walden.]

DICKINSON.

A Dew sufficed itself –

And satisfied a Leaf

And felt “How vast a Destiny” –

“How trivial is Life” !

The Sun went out to work –

The Day went out to play

And not again that Dew be seen

By Physiognomy –

Whether by Day Abducted

Or emptied by the Sun

Into the Sea, in passing

Eternally unknown –

Attested to this Day

That awful Tragedy

By Transport’s instability

And Doom’s celerity.

[No. 1372 - 1875]

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,

One clover, and a bee,

And revery.

The revery alone will do,

If bees are few.

[No. 1779 - undated]

KRISHNA

I taught this undying discipline to the shining sun,

. . . . .

This is the ancient discipline that I have taught to you today;

You are my devotee and my friend, and this is the deepest mystery.

[Ch. 4, 1 and 3]

ARJUNA

Your birth followed the birth of the sun;

How can I comprehend that you taught it at the beginning ?

[Ch. 4, 4]

KRISHNA

I have passed through many births and so have you;

I know them all, but you do not, Arjuna.

[Ch. 4, 5]

He who really knows my divine birth and my action, escapes rebirth

when he abandons the body --- and he comes to me, Arjuna.

Free from attraction, fear, and anger, filled with me, dependent on me,

purified by the fire of knowledge, many come into my presence.

[Ch. 4, 9-10]

Even if you are the most evil of all sinners,

you will cross over on the raft of knowledge.

Just as a flaming fire reduces wood to ashes, Arjuna,

So the fire of knowledge reduces all actions to ashes.

No purifier equals knowledge, and in time

the man of perfect discipline discovers this in his own spirit.

[Ch. 4, 36-38]

So sever the ignorant doubt in your heart with the sword of self-knowledge,

Arjuna ! Observe your discipline ! Arise !

[Ch. 4, 42]

NARRATOR.

Thoreau died after a long bout with tuberculosis on May 6, 1862. He had taken little note of the Civil War which had started a year before, though his record as an opponent of slavery was perhaps the strongest of his contemporaries. In 1859 [October 30] Thoreau read an impassioned plea to the citizens of Concord on behalf of John Brown who was later [December 2] hanged for treason after leading a revolt against slavery in Virginia. In 1861 Thoreau traveled to Minnesota with young Horace Mann, then age 17 and about to enter Harvard, on the theory that a trip West might improve his health. They stopped in Chicago on their way to Minnesota. We have a first-hand account of that visit from Robert Collyer, a Chicago clergyman who was to become the first president of the Chicago Literary Club upon its founding thirteen years later. In 1883 Collyer recalled meeting Thoreau in Collyer’s study for three hours on the afternoon of May 22, 1861 stating:

. . . he [Thoreau] was rather slender, but of a fine, delicate mold, and with a presence which touched you with the sense of perfect purity as newly opened roses do. . . . he has great gray eyes, the seer’s eyes full of quiet sunshine. But it is a strong face, too, and the nose is especially notable, being . . . a sort of interrogation mark to the universe. His voice was low, but still sweet in the tones and inflections, . . and he had Tennyson’s gift in this, that he never went back on his tracks to pick up the fallen loops of a sentence as commonplace talkers do. He would hesitate for an instant now and then, waiting for the right word, or would pause with a pathetic patience to master the trouble in his chest, but when he was through the sentence was perfect and entire, lacking nothing, and the word was so purely one with the man that when I read his books now and then I do not hear my own voice within my reading but the voice I heard that day.. . . . This is the picture I treasure of Henry Thoreau as I saw him in my own house the year before he died.

* * * * *

[Note. Collyer’s lecture regarding Thoreau was delivered at the Church of the Messiah in New York on January 28, 1883, and first published in Clear Grit: a Collection of Lectures Addresses and Poems, Boston: Beacon Press, 1913. The entire lecture is reprinted on the Thoreau Reader website: http:thoreau.eserver.org/Collier.html]

* * * * *

DICKINSON.

My life closed twice before its close;

It yet remains to see

If immortality unveil

A third event to me,

So huge, so hopeless to conceive

As these that twice befell.

Parting is all we know of heaven,

And all we need of hell.

[No. 1773, Undated]

KRISHNA.

Death is inevitable for those who are born; for those who are dead birth is just as certain. Therefore you must not grieve for what is inevitable.

Creatures are unmanifest in origin, manifest in the midst of life,

And unmanifest again in the end. Since this is so why do you lament.

[Ch. 2, 27-28]

NARRATOR.

The Bhagavad-Gita is a small part of a very long work. We have heard here only a few of its 700 or so short verses. Here are just a few more to suggest how the dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna comes to fruition.

ARJUNA.

If you think I can see it, reveal to me your immutable self,

Krishna, Lord of Discipline

[Ch. 11, 4]

KRISHNA.

Since you cannot see me with your own eye;

I will give you a divine eye to see the majesty of my discipline.

[Ch. 11, 8]

NARRATOR.

Saying this, we learn that Krishna, the great lord of discipline, revealed to Arjuna the true majesty of his form. Arjuna saw all the universe in its many ways and parts, standing as one in the body of the god of gods. [Ch. 11, 9 and 13, via Sanjaya]

[Here, Krishna stands up, takes a step away from Arjuna, and slowly raises his arms to shoulder level, then slowly lowers them.]

ARJUNA.

I see no beginning or middle or end to you;

Only boundless strength in your endless arms,

The moon and sun in your eyes, your mouths of consuming flames,

Your own brilliance scorching this universe.

[Ch. 11, 19]

KRISHNA. [Still standing]

I am time grown old, creating world destruction,

Set in motion to annihilate the worlds;

Even without you, all these warriors arrayed in hostile ranks

Will cease to exist.

Therefore, arise and win glory ! Conquer your foes and fulfill your kingship !

They are already killed by me. Be just my instrument, the archer at my side !

[Ch. 11, 32 and 33 Emphasis added.]

ARJUNA. [Rises and bows to Krishna]

I bow to you, I prostrate my body

I beg you to be gracious, Worshipful Lord –

As a father to a son, a friend to a friend,

A lover to a beloved, O God, bear with me.

[Ch. 11, 44]

NARRATOR. After speaking in these terms to Arjuna, we are told that Krishna revealed his intimate form; resuming his gentle body, the great spirit let the terrified hero regain his breath. [Ch. 11, 50, via Sanjaya]

[Krishna returns to his seat on the chariot.]

ARJUNA.

Seeing your gentle human form, Krishna, I recover my own nature,

And my reason is restored. [Ch. 11, 51]

KRISHNA.

Acting only for me, intent on me, free from attachment,

hostile to no creature, Arjuna,

a man of devotion comes to me. [Ch. 11, 55]

ARJUNA.

Krishna, I want to know the real essence

Of both renunciation and relinquishment.

[Ch. 18, 1]

KRISHNA.

Giving up actions based on desire, the poets know as renunciation;

Relinquishing all fruit of action, learned men call relinquishment.

[Ch. 18, 2]

If one performs prescribed action because it must be done,

Relinquishing attachment and the fruit, his relinquishment

Is a lucid act. [Ch. 18, 9]

A man burdened by his body cannot completely relinquish actions,

But a relinquisher is defined as one who can relinquish the fruits.

[Ch. 18, 11]

Arjuna, now hear about joy, the three ways of finding delight

Through practice that brings an end to suffering. [Ch. 18, 36]

Arjuna, a man should not relinquish action he is born to, even if it is flawed;

All undertakings are marred by a flaw, as fire is obscured by smoke. [Ch. 18, 48]

Freeing himself from individuality, force, pride, desire, anger, acquisitiveness;

Unpossessive, tranquil, he is at one with the infinite spirit. [Ch. 18, 53]

Beyond that, listen to my final word, the most secret of all. You have been assuredly singled out by me, so I shall speak it for your benefit. Fix your mind on me, devote yourself to me, sacrifice to me, do homage to me, and so you shall in reality come to me. I promise you: you are dear to me. [Ch. 18, 64 and 65]

ARJUNA.

Krishna, my delusion is destroyed, and by your grace I have regained memory;

I stand here my doubt dispelled, ready to act on your words. [Ch. 18, 73]

Where Krishna is lord of discipline and Arjuna is the archer,

There do fortune, victory, abundance, and morality exist, so I think.

[Ch. 18, 78]

*****************************************

[Here start again the music from the Thoreau section of Charles Ives’ “Concord Sonata” playing lightly in the background.]

NARRATOR.

Thoreau spent his last months with his family at home in Concord. He received a few visitors, attended to correspondence, and organized his papers and works in progress as best he could. His last journal entry was on November 3, 1861. It reads, rather disdainfully, with reference to some observations about a recent rainstorm: All this is perfectly distinct to an observant eye, and yet could easily pass unnoticed by most. That was the end of a 24-year journal which fills 14 volumes in print. His Aunt Louisa asked him if he had made his peace with God. He answered: I did not know we had ever quarreled, Aunt.

[Note. From Harding’s Days, 464]

An elderly abolitionist friend and former minister, Parker Pillsbury, came to visit a few days before Thoreau’s death, observing: You seem so near the brink of the dark river that I almost wonder how the opposite shore may appear to you. Henry’s response: One world at a time, Parker.

[Note. From Richardson’s biography, 389]

The funeral and burial were in Concord. Emerson spoke, praising Thoreau’s character, but suggesting that his life was focused on a limited horizon, in words he would surely recast were he alive today. Louisa May Alcott, whose family lived in Concord, and who had spent many hours on nature walks with Thoreau later wrote a poem published in the September, 1863 issue of the Atlantic Monthly titled: Thoreau’s Flute. We can suppose that Emily Dickinson may have been a subscriber to the Atlantic Monthly, and ask that she read from this piece.

DICKINSON.

[Picks up a magazine from her table, opens it and reads aloud.]

We, sighing, said, “Our Pan is dead;

His pipe hangs mute beside the river;

Around it wistful sunbeams quiver,

But Music’s airy voice is fled.

Spring mourns as for untimely frost;

The bluebird chants a requiem;

The willow-blossom waits for him: - -

The Genius of the wood is lost.

[. . . Two stanzas are omitted.]

To him no vain regrets belong,

Whose soul, that finer instrument,

Gave to the world no poor lament,

But wood-notes ever sweet and strong.

O lonely friend ! he still will be

A potent presence, though unseen, - -

Steadfast, sagacious, and serene:

Seek not for him, - - he is with thee.

[The music sound level comes way down here.]

NARRATOR.

This presentation is titled Thoreau in Love. Why? Here’s why. Thoreau learned in a fairly brief life that strong personal attachments were unreliable. He dearly loved his older brother, John, who died of an infection at age 27 in 1842, and he must also have loved the vibrant young Ellen Sewall to whom he proposed marriage by letter in 1840 (her father said “NO” !). She had already turned down an earlier proposal from Thoreau’s brother, John.

What Thoreau cherished from his very early years was the presence of and his relation to the natural world, the world of the outdoors, the seasons, the ordered growth and decay of complex organisms without any intervention by man. This is the world recorded in his journals. This world could not be taken away or diminished, unless by negligent or deliberate acts of men. The more he immersed his life and consciousness in the simple business of being alive and observant in the world of nature, the more contented he was. He had friends. He talked to people. He was not an anti-social hermit. But his involvement with issues of the day and his relationship with public authority (governments, organized religion, social movements) remained essentially contentious throughout his life. He lived in an age (and we are not out of it yet) when many viewed the natural world as something to manipulate, dominate and subject to our will, while Thoreau looked upon this world as something to simply behold, admire and respect. As Abraham Lincoln (born in 1809, eight years before Thoreau, who would live for three years after him) observed -- “ In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.”

The more I reflect on Walden, the more I see that Thoreau took refuge in his own consciousness and in his personal relationship to the natural world as a gift of incalculable value and reliability. Others might squander their lives in the pursuit of man-made and man-invented things and values. Not Thoreau. This is a kind of transcendental love, the simple love of the priceless gift of life. When he saw that his life was coming to an end, Thoreau appears to have had no regrets. He had lived in accord with his own desire and design, and as he felt was the right way for him to live and to die. He could ask for and do no more. Krishna had advised as much long before he went to Walden Pond.

[Music level comes back up as the players take their bows, etc.]

Narrator introduces and thanks the players.

END

BIBLIOGRAPHY

With commentary.

Concerning Henry David Thoreau

There are two particularly worthwhile biographies:

The first I will mention is by Walter Harding titled The Days of Henry Thoreau - A Biography, originally published in 1962 by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. The edition I used was a paperback issued by Princeton University Press, 1992. This is a largely fact-focused biography with much splendid detail and an afterward written by Harding in 1992 explaining why he “wittingly” decided in writing the original biography not to engage or dwell on speculation about Thoreau’s sexuality.

The second is by Robert D. Richardson Jr. titled Henry Thoreau: A Life of the Mind, (Berkeley, 1986). I read the University of California Press, Sixth Paperback Printing of 1998. As the ‘dean’ of Thoreau biographers, Walter Harding’s observations about Richardson’s biography are worth noting. Harding states in his Afterward to the 1992 Princeton edition of his own biography of Thoreau that Richardson’s is: “a beautifully written book that is a joy to read. I emerged from reading it with a far deeper understanding of Thoreau’s place in the intellectual currents of his day.”

There are many editions of Thoreau’s Walden. I will mention only one because it is beautifully illustrated and annotated, and contains an excellent index to the text which I found to be almost universally lacking in other editions of Walden. I speak of the 2004 edition by Yale University Press, edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. This edition is based on the original 1854 published text, with corrections noted by Thoreau during his lifetime, and other corrections warranted by Thoreau’s seven manuscript drafts, where clearly correct matter in earlier drafts became corrupted in later drafts. Of course almost any edition of Walden is sufficient for bedside or cottage perusal or in an informal library, but I would go straight to Cramer if I wanted to be as sure as possible about textual integrity.

Princeton University Press is still issuing volumes in the definitive collection of Thoreau’s written works, including his journals, with the superimposing title: Writings of Henry D. Thoreau, Elizabeth Hall Witherell, Editor-in-Chief. As of early 2008 there are some 20 volumes in this series, but most of Thoreau’s journal writings after 1854 have not yet been published by Princeton.

The secondary literature concerning Thoreau is immense and continually growing. One source worth noting are the publications of The Thoreau Society, particularly the quarterly Thoreau Society Bulletin, and The Concord Saunterer, an annual, peer-reviewed journal of Thoreau scholarship.

Concerning Emily Dickinson

There are two principal books to be mentioned, (1) a biography, and (2) a collection of Dickinson’s poetry:

The biography is by Richard B. Sewall (1908-2003), titled The Life of Emily Dickinson, originally published by Farar Strauss & Giroux in 1974 (when it won the National Book Award). It is now most readily available in a soft-cover edition by Harvard University Press, Sixth printing, 2003. At more than 800 pages, meticulously researched by the late and beloved Yale Professor, with an elaborate index, it is hard to imagine that a Dickinson biography to rival this will be forthcoming any time soon. This biography was a principal work of Sewall’s distinguished professional life.

Dickinson’s poetry is effectively collected and (so far as possible) chronologically arranged and numbered in The Poems of Emily Dickinson, Edited by R. W. Franklin, Harvard University Press (1998). The edition I consulted is the First Harvard University Press paperback edition, 2003. There is an Index of First Lines, but not a thematic or word-specific index, perhaps because the often oblique style of Dickinson’s poetry does not lend itself to categorization in such a fashion. However, specific word searches can be done on her poetry at a Brigham Young University website. The best way to access this awkwardly titled website to perform specific word searches in Dickinson’s poetry is to enter “Emily Dickinson Lexicon” in Google or a similar search engine.

Concerning the Bhagavad-Gita

I consulted three separate translations of the Gita. Two were slim paperback and largely unannotated (but inexpensive and easily obtainable) versions, and one more extensively presented and annotated with side-by-side text in: Sanskrit script, Roman alphabet transliteration of the Sanskrit, English literal translation and English thematic translation. The 18 chapters of the Gita comprise a total of about 700 lines or verses, each chapter containing an average of about 39 lines, but ranging in length from 20 to 78 lines. Thus the Gita is not a lengthy work. Because of great disparities in the meaning, denotation and connotation of words moving from Sanskrit to English, a wide latitude of English word or phraseology selection is found in the various translations. Here are the translations I used:

1. The Bhagavad-Gita, Krishna’s Counsel in Time of War. Translated with an Introduction and Afterward by Barbara Stoler Miller, Bantam Classic edition published August 1986. Until her death in 1993, Barbara Stoler Miller was a professor of Asian and Middle Eastern Cultures at Barnard College, Columbia University. This is a very straightforward and readable translation, and there are helpful notes on the principal Sanskrit words and concepts.

2. The Bhagavad Gita. Translated by W. J. Johnson, published by Oxford University Press as a World’s Classics paperback in 1994. Prof. Will Johnson is Senior Lecturer in Indian Religions, School of Religious and Theological Studies, Cardiff University, Wales, UK. He writes, with respect to Gita translation: . . . just as there can be no definitive performance of a Shakespeare play, so there can be no definitive translation of a text such as the Gita – which is one reason why so many have been attempted.

3. The Bhagavad Gita. Translated by Winthrop Sargeant (1903-1986). This translation was published in 1994 by State University of New York Press in an edition edited by Christopher Chapple, Department of Theology, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. This translation is remarkable in several respects. First, Sargeant was a largely self-taught Sanskrit scholar. Most of his career was in music and journalism. Still his translation was extensively read and favorably reviewed by other Sanskrit and Gita scholars of unquestioned quality and distinction. Second, the Sargeant translation is multifaceted in that for each verse of the Gita he provides: 1. The classic Sanskrit script as it is used today; 2. A transliteration of this Sanskrit script into the Roman alphabet, so that speakers of English can sound the words as they are would be heard to a person listening to a Sanskrit speaker; 3. A literal translation into English of the Sanskrit words, without regard to sentence structure or even completely coherent flow of the expression; and 4. A thematic translation into English in which the terms and phrasing are rendered into something approaching a smoothly flowing exposition. Also shown for each Sanskrit word is an approximate English translation, provided for each word in the text. Thus a reader in English who has any question about a word or phrase in English has ample opportunity to focus on the original form and sound of the word or expression. If that were not enough, Sargeant provides extensive notes where the correct form of translation is in doubt, or where other aspects of the Sanskrit language or the underlying cultural tradition serve to amplify the thought or expression.