by Coleridge · Cluster: Self-Knowledge · Immortality · Self-Reliance
Abstract
A meditative poem on the Delphic maxim ‘know thyself’, concluding that man is an unknowable fluxion and should rather strive to know God.
Connections
Themes & Concepts: Self-Knowledge, Identity, Humility, Mortality, Faith Historical References: Classical Antiquity
Testo integrale / Full text
E coelo descendit ³½ö¸¹ õ±ÅÄy½. — JUVENAL, xi. 27.
“½ö¸¹ õ±ÅÄy½! — and is this the prime
And heaven-sprung adage of the olden time! —
Say, canst thou make thyself? — Learn first that trade; —
Haply thou mayst know what thyself had made.
What hast thou, Man, that thou dar’st call thine own? — 5
What is there in thee, Man, that can be known? —
Dark fluxion, all unfixable by thought,
A phantom dim of past and future wrought,
Vain sister of the worm, — life, death, soul, clod —
Ignore thyself, and strive to know thy God! 10
1832.