Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

In "Five Soliloquies Upon the Tomb of Uncebunke: 2," Lawrence Durrell crafts a meditation that interweaves classical allusions, religious imagery, and a reflection on mortality. The poem continues the thematic exploration of death and remembrance from the first soliloquy, presenting a ritualistic and ceremonial tone that echoes the grandeur of historical orations and the solemnity of funerary rites.

The poem opens with an invocation of the famous line from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar—"Friends, Romans, countrymen,"—immediately placing the reader in a context of classical gravitas. However, instead of addressing the public in the context of a political assassination, Durrell uses this phrase to introduce the entry of Uncebunke into his final soliloquy, his dialogue with death. The line "We come to bury Caesar, not to praise him" is directly lifted from Shakespeare, but here it is repurposed to suggest that Uncebunke, like Caesar, is a figure who must now be consigned to history, his achievements and faults left behind as he enters the final, solitary conversation with the void.

Durrell introduces a prayer-like intercession: "God will raise up his bachelor, this widow's mite / A foothold for the scientific worm." This suggests that Uncebunke, though perhaps insignificant in the grand scheme of things ("this widow's mite"), still has a role to play in the natural order, where even in death, his body serves as sustenance for the "scientific worm," a metaphor for the decomposition process that returns all life to the earth. The request for divine deliverance that follows is strikingly comprehensive, listing various forms of suffering and death from which the speaker asks to be saved: "Deliver us from evil," "the trauma of death's pupil," "the forked tongue of devil," and so on. Each line evokes a different facet of death's terror, from its physical reality ("biological silence") to its spiritual and psychological implications ("the vicar's bubonic purple," "canonical sugar," "rabbinical pose"). The repetition of "deliver us" emphasizes the desperation and inevitability of these human concerns, as if even in death, there is a need for protection and redemption.

Durrell then turns to a more personal reflection on Uncebunke, describing how "This man, my friends, / The lion and the lizard keep," connecting him to both the mighty and the lowly aspects of life. Uncebunke is mourned not by the grand or the noble, but by "cottagers on windy porches" and "the cracked hearth-stone, the calendar." These images of rural simplicity and domestic life suggest that Uncebunke's impact was felt most profoundly in the small, everyday moments, in the lives of ordinary people. The mention of the "shoe full of nails" and the "ploughboy / Whetting his axe on a bush" evokes a world of labor and toil, where the memory of the deceased is kept alive by those who continue the work of living. The line "Whom the Gods love / Is death's superlative decoy" suggests that those who are loved by the divine are especially vulnerable to being claimed by death, as if they are chosen or marked by fate.

The phrase "Numen inest" (Latin for "there is a divine presence") further emphasizes the connection between the human and the divine, implying that Uncebunke's life and death are touched by a sacred power, even as his physical remains are left to the "stone puma" and the "butter of candles." This imagery reinforces the idea that death, for all its terror, is also a passage into something beyond the merely physical, where the spirit is attended to by both religious ritual and the natural world.

The poem concludes with an "Anthem" that serves as a somber reflection on the brevity and futility of human life. "Little man's food is brief barley," suggests that human sustenance is simple and short-lived, a humble existence that is quickly overshadowed by death. "His patron is black malt" connects this sustenance to the darker, more intoxicating aspects of life, perhaps hinting at the inevitability of death as a constant companion. "Afterwards death is his matron," personifies death as a nurturing, inevitable presence that brings "musical bread," a paradoxical image that blends sustenance with mortality, as if death itself offers a final, harmonious nourishment. The refrain "God with his footwork / Bringing musical bread" suggests a divine choreography, where life and death are part of a larger, cosmic dance, and the "heart's dark salt" represents the bitter, yet essential, essence of human experience.

In "Five Soliloquies Upon the Tomb of Uncebunke: 2," Durrell masterfully blends classical references, religious motifs, and existential reflections to create a rich, layered meditation on death and the human condition. The poem's ceremonial tone, combined with its intricate imagery, invites readers to contemplate the nature of mortality, the rituals we construct to cope with it, and the ways in which memory and legacy continue to resonate even after death. Through this soliloquy, Durrell not only honors the figure of Uncebunke but also engages with the timeless questions of existence, legacy, and the divine.

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