Mumford & Sons - The Cave

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How they fit together is a tough question I'm not going to try and answer, but this song makes 3 very clear literary references. And no, Plato's allegory isn't one of them. I don't know how that's still the prevailing theory. The first is the most obvious- Homer's The Odyssey "So tie me to a post and block my ears" "So make your siren's call And sing all you want I will not hear what you have to say" This is a reference to where Odysseus and his men leave Circe's island and pass the Sirens, creatures that call sailors to their death with beautiful songs. "Then every ear I barr'd against the strain, And from access of frenzy lock'd the brain. Now round the masts my mates the fetters roll'd, And bound me limb by limb with fold on fold. … While to the shore the rapid vessel flies, Our swift approach the Siren choir descries; Celestial music warbles from their tongue, And thus the sweet deluders tune the song: ... Thus the sweet charmers warbled o'er the main; My soul takes wing to meet the heavenly strain; I give the sign, and struggle to be free; Swift row my mates, and shoot along the sea; New chains they add, and rapid urge the way Till, dying off, the distant sounds decay;" The second is the often confused one, but it's a pretty clear reference to G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi. "So come out of your cave walking on your hands And see the world hanging upside down You can understand dependence When you know the maker's hand" The reference is from where Chesterton describes Francis's conversion. "The man who went into the cave was not the man who came out again; in that sense he was almost as different as if he were dead, as if he were a ghost or a blessed spirit. And the effects of this on his attitude towards the actual world were really as extravagant as any parallel can make them. He looked at the world as differently from other men as if he had come out of that dark hole walking on his hands… If a man saw the world upside down, with all the trees and towers hanging head downwards as in a pool, one effect would be to emphasise the idea of dependence. There is a Latin and literal connection; for the very word dependence only means hanging. It would make vivid the Scriptural text which says that God has hung the world upon nothing. If Saint Francis had seen, in one of his strange dreams, the town of Assisi upside down, it need not have differed in a single detail from itself except in being entirely the other way round. But the point is this: that whereas to the normal eye the large masonry of its walls or the massive foundations of its watchtowers and its high citadel would make it seem safer and more permanent, the moment it was turned over the very same weight would make it seem more helpless and more in peril. It is but a symbol; but it happens to fit the psychological fact. Saint Francis might love his little town as much as before, or more than before; but the nature of the love would be altered even in being increased. He might see and love every tile on the steep roofs or every bird on the battlements; but he would see them all in a new and divine light of eternal danger and dependence. Instead of being merely proud of his strong city because it could not be moved, he would be thankful to God Almighty that it had not been dropped; he would be thankful to God for not dropping the whole cosmos like a vast crystal to be shattered into falling stars." The whole thing is here, but the cave part is in chapter 5: catholic-forum.com/saints/… The third is from the book of James. "I can see widows and orphans through my tears I know my call despite my faults And despite my growing fears" It references a well know verse on what true religion looks like. Caring for the "widow and the fatherless" is a common theme through the Old Testament. "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world." Read more at LINK

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