“Never to have lived is best, ancient writers say;

Never to have drawn the breath of life, never to have looked into the eye of day;

The second best’s a gay goodnight and quickly turn away.”

-W.B. Yeats

The above lines are from poet W. B. Yeat’s “From ‘Oedipus at Colonus’.” Yeat’s poem is a chorus from his own translation of Oedipus at Colonus by the Greek playwright Sophocles, and is from a scene, I believe, involving Oedipus and his daughters, Antigone and Ismene.

I am unfamiliar with Sophocles’ Oedipus at Colonus, and perhaps my understanding of Yeat’s poem would deepen if I had greater knowledge of the play.  That being said, however, when I first read these lines in a book of Yeat’s poetry (The Tower for those interested), I was struck by the bleakness behind the lines, wowed by its woe.

Now, I know this blog is a sort of compendium of woe, but after reading these dark verses above, I felt compelled to comment.  For those who don’t know me well (or at all), I imagine one may read this blog of mine say, “Oh, Mike, you are so woeful.  God grant you peace in your life, spare you from further woe.”  Well, I actually can’t imagine anyone thinking those exact words (that would be strange), but they might think I am some kind of deeply pessimistic or dour person to maintain, if only sporadically, a blog that focuses on mostly sad or embarrassing stories.

O, reader, I don’t think that is the case at all!  While I admire Yeats’ poetry on the whole, I cannot subscribe to the bleak nature of the lines printed above.  To twist Shakespeare’s iambs, I come not to praise Yeats’ lines but to bury them.  Woe to the person who thinks and feels that “never to have lived is best.”  To never stare into the sun, to never breathe the breath of life!  That is something I cannot imagine.

Like the title of this post, I don’t know why I felt compelled after reading Yeats’ poem to write this entry.  But I hope you understand, faithful reader, as they say, where I am coming from.

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