Explaining the Newest Sonnet
Now to speak of my latest Sonnet called ‘Deem me a servant to time’s misdeeds’. I fear that because the time is now 5:12 a.m. I will be rather lethargic in my explanation but I will try my best and succeed another day. The heading states that the man assumes that he is a servant to time’s bad conduct of his life.
The first line of the Sonnet (1.1) indicates that it doesn’t matter whether he is a vassal. The term vassal here can be widely depicted as this man to my story is a slave but more widely, he is a person in the service of another and is completely subject to a superior influence other than time.
The man does not care if he is a slave chained and duly servicing for his master on the very old land of earth (1.2). The use of ‘Earth’s old grime’ is referred to the earth being old and dirt ridden but it also represents the current state of the man. Tethered in chains, his seeing the earth as old and with grime shows his state of mind about his own affairs in stating he has grown old as a slave, depicted as the grime of the earth.
‘Grime’ meaning that the dirt is rubbed in deeply and thus, his life has been dirtied with slavery and the hard labor that came with it back in those days. In line (1.3) he notes that he has a manlike slave master and to him he begs that he be granted freedom (1.4) from the chains that hold him mortally captive. Line (1.4) indicates how he will still be a slave even if the slave master lets him go as time is like a supreme being that looks over him and controls his life. Thus, he is a slave to time as long as he lives with time and he implores that he would not be free if the chains were released from him.
The Second Quatrain
Starting the second quatrain he tries to make himself equal with his humanistic master who enslaves him with chains to gain supremacy. In line (1.5) he questions his captivity pledging that he is just mortally bound and he also speaks of time as a higher enslaving authority than the both of them (1.6).
The aging of both mortals in question under time’s vassalage is the actual slavery of time. No mortal can escape the aging of time but mortals can escape chains and bondage and that is what this man is trying to establish.
Line (1.7) goes on to state that time has a shaded aspect and that is the part of time that mortals dislike. In this shaded region of time is where mortals feel like they are chained and enslaved to time. With this man being a slave to another man, he must feel as if time is also cheating him and making days seem more miserable and never-ending. Thus, in time’s shade he is deemed a villain and one who also makes one feel like a slave to time.
Line (1;7) also goes on to indicate that time’s shade also has an aspect of betrayal about it depicted as ‘Judas’. Judas being the betrayer of god, being crowned by Judas in time’s shade is like being betrayed by time in the most sovereign aspect of the word. In this, the man means to say that he is being betrayed by time who keeps taking away his age and his life and helps him in no way at all. Time betrays the both of them as he states and this betrayal once again can be seen by time taking people’s youth from them with age and their happier memories with his slavery within his shadow.
The Third Quatrain
The third quatrain changes pace once again. From trying to make equals of himself as a mortal slave and his master, stating that they are both equally enslaved by time to questioning a new found truth.
Speaking compassionately, the slave asks why mortals must be slaves (1.8) if they are already both slaves to time. He asks who says that they have to be mortal slaves as it doesn’t matter to time that rules over the both of them if he is a mortal slave or not because he is already a slave to time (1.9).
The man feels as if he is bound forever to time or for the length of his existent life (1.10). He is bound like a ‘Concubine queen’. To shed light on this, he feels that he is being confined by time which takes his age, his livelihood and then time throws him away with death as there is no longer any life to age.
A concubine in proper terms is a woman who lives with a man without being legally married to him. Despite his pledge that time is enslaving humankind, time does not hear his woes (1.11). Rather, time does not even head the woes as they do not splash upon his pool and this makes this one man’s life seem inferior to time as he is deemed only a droplet in his ocean.
The word ‘Wean’ actually means to do without something or to cause one to turn away, to phase out. Thus time’s ocean of wean is seen as his uncaring nature to heed my woes. Time belittles the man’s problems of time’s slaving him to age but a deeper meaning is to say that the ocean is time itself and the man feels like a droplet in the whole of time. Thus, with time’s uncaring shadow time will accustom man to do without him, in death.
The Final Couplet
The last couplet speaks how the man cannot take being a vassal anymore and he stops in his tracks (1.13). Declaring that he has stopped for one of two reasons, he wishes either to be relinquished by releasing his chains and setting him free so that only time can carry him or, relinquished by death so that he will be set free from mortal slavery and slavery to time. Either way he will not be a mortal slave any longer and he can’t take being within time’s enslaving shadow any longer.
Bed Before Banking
Now the day has drawn longer and father than expected so I will have to get to sleep now. This afternoon I hope to wake up earlier than usual so I can head to Campbelltown and bank my money but I doubt that now. Let me just quickly mention that today Lyssa and I once again didn’t have a conversation for the whole day so she must be feeling anxious in not calling me because she feels I don’t like her anymore because of how I treated her at my house. Ralf and I are heading out to Meridian for my Friday night and then on Saturday I’m heading to Tamsen’s party.
Heartburn and Cordial
One more thing before I go. The last few days I’ve been getting heartburn but mostly after I drink my cordial. Actually, it’s not heartburn but it feels like my intestines some way down my throat are having some acidic reaction to what I’m drinking. It feels like the burning feeling I get after brushing my teeth with that toothpaste that eats away at my gums. I feel as if my intestines have been slightly eaten away and that’s what’s giving me the burning sensation.
Then again, it could be the unflavored foods I eat but usually, cordial, chicken, yogurt and a meat pie will do it to me. And the very last thing, in this very early morning I once again skipped 1000 reps and then had myself a cool and relaxing shower.
Diary Of A Mad Chaos is a daily diary written from March 1996 until today, of which individual books and book series have been created, namely “The Lost Years” an exploration of young, entwined love, the “Wubao In China (猎艳奇缘)” book series which provides an extensive comparative analysis of the cultural differences between Eastern and Western societies, and the book titled “Foreigner (华人)” an exploration of race relations in Australia.
