Sailing To Byzantium
by
W. B. Yeats
(Symbolism)
For
a clear understanding of the poetic idea, you have to understand the basic
symbolism employed in the poem. Here Byzantium is the holy city of the Soul. It
is holy because the Soul, also called the Self, dwells in it. Evidently, it is
the subtle body, in Hindi called the Sukshma Sharira. The Soul is the first
principle of intelligence. It, being something abstract, never ages.
There
are twelve great departments in the subtle body. They are the departments of
the ten lndriyas, the Manas, and the Buddhi. In the last line of the first
stanza, they are described as “Monuments of unageing intellect.” The Soul is
the ruler of its physical and mental universe. So in the fourth stanza it is
described as “Emperor” of the city of Byzantium. In the Emperor’s court the
Indriyas are the “ladies” and the Manas and the Buddhi, are the “lords”. The
Indriyas are “ladies as that they are subordinate to the Manas and the Buddhi,
their “lords.” Byzantium is a gold city in that everything here has been dyed
gold by the golden rays of Soul, the sun. So here are trees made of gold, so to
speak. In the last stanza, the poet therefore says that in his Samadhi, he
shall set his Soul upon a bough of a golden tree. The Soul will be set as a
bird freed from the cage of the body-mind combination. So it will “sing to
lords and ladies of Byzantium” [i.e. to the Indriyas, the Manas, and the
Buddhi] of the Samskaras as its past lives, of its present life, and also of
the prospective results of all those Samakaras. The Soul has been represented
as a bird; hence it will be set “upon a golden bough to sing”, that is, to
chirp.
When
it is in the bondage of nature, the Indriyas, the Manas, and the Buddhi sing to
it. Now that it has risen above their domain, it will sing to them of what is
past, present, etc. The idea is that during his Samadhi, his Soul liberated
from the bondage of its Karma, will scan the Samskaras of its past lives, those
of its present life, and also the fruits of all those Samaskaras in the future.
Such is the basic symbolism in the poem, Sailing To Byzantium.
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