It would surely be quite different from what we have now, which is the result of minds and hearts full of greed, fear, aggression, selfishness, etc. Above: the Quester receives a sword from the Fisher King. But bringing in myth and deep history seems to put such behaviour changes onto more solid ground. Just as Christ came down to earth to deliver all of humankind from its sins, spiritually healing us all (if one believes in the Christian story), so the noble knight will come and heal the spiritual and physical wound that afflicts the Fisher King. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. I have no problem with the bloat of the film. Before we offer an analysis of the myth and discuss why Eliot found it so useful for his purposes, lets take a closer look at the story itself. Get your fix of JSTOR Dailys best stories in your inbox each Thursday. JSTOR, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. Perceval is a wandering Knight of the Round Table, in search of the Holy Grail. Right: Parsifal's question was written on the wall of the temple in a Paris Opra production. It is worse now than growing up. Im grateful to Jay Griffiths for her discussion of The Ocean of Life: The Fate of Man and the Sea by Callum Roberts and her careful summing up of the rapidly deteriorating condition of our oceans. document.getElementById( "ak_js_3" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. That cannot be spoken, he says, but if you are called to its service, the knowledge will not be hidden for long. Good comments In itself, deliverance as the result of the right kind of question is a universal, i.e. Familiar territory? Inaction in ending and reversing destruction of ocean species and the ocean is frightening and alarming. Eliot and, to a certain degree, Wagner re-popularized the myth of the Fisher King, which has in the past century been adapted into contemporary entertainment and pop culture. spear (Cosima's Diary, 30 January 1877). If you look at the classic s-curve for population, and at the relationship between resource use and population levels and growth, it is clear and obvious that resource depletion is primarily driven by technologically sophisticated human populations with very slow growing, steady or declining population. The healing of these wounds always depends upon the completion of a hero-knight's task. Interesting Literature is a participant in the Amazon EU Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by linking to Amazon.co.uk. Details vary between the different versions of the story but usually there is a wounded king who awaits the asking of the Question that will heal him. Excepting in Wolfram, and in Wagner where a pure fool, through pity Much the same situation exists in Greece during the period of Demeters mourning, threatening with famine mankind and even the beasts in the field., Although the Fisher King is never mentioned by name in The Waste Land, he appears at least three times. that he has been taught not to ask unnecessary questions, and so does not ask a necessary question. Login . The parallels with Jesus Christ are so clear as to be unavoidable. Said healing, however, does not take place through one single heroic act, as in Parsifals quest and the Indo-European counterparts. Yet human activity over the last thirty years has poisoned the oceans and exhausted the seas, turning this blue world into a dead sump of denied life. An anonymous, bedridden Maimed King, healed by Galahad at the climax of the Grail Quest. I believe "Sir, why do you suffer so?" is another suitable question under the situation. There are some historical reasons for this but whatever the reasons it has become the elephant in the room that almost everyone wants to ignore or deny. Who heals the Fisher King? As I mentioned, The Fisher King must be asked the healing question in order to be healed. So Im grateful to Jay for helping me in that way so artfully. I welcome him back into my life. As that marticular need grows, more countries will get involved. In two cases, the writers tell us that Perceval broke the sword: in Eschenbach, it fails him in his battle against his half-brother at the end of Parzival; and Gerbert de Montreuil describes how he shatters it on the gates of the "Earthly Paradise". "The Fisher King", was a psychotic budding serial killer, stalker, hacker, bomber, one-time abductor, and one-time proxy killer who appeared in Seasons One and Two on Criminal Minds. In making the story of the Fisher King central to The Waste Land, Eliot drew from rich literary and religious scholarship that goes beyond Arthurian legends. This version of the story comes from the 1991 movie, The Fisher King, directed by Terry Gilliam and starring Robin Williams. Andrea Lagomarsino sees echoes of Eliot in the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, a self-proclaimed admirer of the poet and The Waste Land. Firstly, the Fisher King is no longer nameless and is called Anfortas. Think of the cell, the thought process, and yes, the bottom of the ocean. only gets one chance. Anyone who is acquainted with these works will immediately recognize in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies, Eliot teased. So at the last world conference of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) there was a call to list the bluefin. The film starts by dancing on the shoulders of urban apathy and cynicism. A simple-minded knight named Percival (who in the movie is referred to as the fool) heals the King's . However, Eschenbach's Parzival differs from Chrtien's Perceval in three major ways. But for me, not a familiar treatment of it and I find it has a different impact. MORE TREES, CORAL AND PHYTOPLANKTON, LESS PEOPLE! The first to be knowingly caused. Sunday | 133 views, 2 likes, 3 loves, 5 comments, 0 shares, Facebook Watch Videos from First United Church of Christ, New Philadelphia, Ohio: service for Sunday January 29th Support JSTOR Daily! Variations of this third party give us divergent legends. vendo pastillas viagra madrid , cuidadosamente como mucho que ofrecer para ello. In the instance of the Fisher King, the wound negates his ability to honor his sacred charge. Perceval avenges the Fisher King by beheading Partinial; in doing so, he finally heals the wounds of the Fisher King. How, and why, did T. S. Eliot seize upon the Fisher King myth when he was writing his 1922 poem about post-war Europe, The Waste Land? Although some iterations have two kings present, one or both are injured, most commonly in the thigh. I have a negative reaction to the suggestion that human population reduction is a solution, because the maths and the science do not support it, and have not done so for many decades. Meaning of fisher king. The Fisher King is both the protector and physical embodiment of his lands, but a wound renders him infertile and his kingdom barren. 11, No. The old king, whose heir you are. Ms Griffiths article is just as timely, thought-provoking and deeply felt as her other writings. The mass of ocean writing is a heap of broken plastic words: stock, fisheries, industry, offshore, tonnage, commercial fleets, sea cages, fish farms, subsidies. Gurnemanz laughs. Gone! The Fisher King by Paule Marshall is a novel that is grounded in Brooklyn, where Paule grew up and wrote about in other works. Pole Launcher: His choice of weapon, the Fisher King holds a weaponized fishing rod-like launcher in which can fire shots powerful enough for Death the Kid to consider it being "no joke". fails to understand what he experiences at the Grail Castle, until he has relived Amfortas' encounter with Kundry. Most of the Grail romances do not differ much from Parzival and Perceval. Thank you for exposing more of their disgusting arrogance, and for connecting it to that which stirs our souls. Like a collective Fisher King, modernity is wounded by its own aesthetic failure to see beauty if it can grasp profit, its ethical failure to register the value of life itself if it can register economic advantage. Bron founds the line of Grail keepers that eventually includes Perceval. Only he, Percival, and Bors are virtuous enough to achieve the Grail and restore Pelles. He is distinct from Pelles, who has just been sent out of the room, and who is, anyway, at least mobile. Set during the Polish-Soviet War of 19191920, Babels novel captured the indiscriminate violence and injustice of warfare. or the hobbit? There is a terrible, toxic poetry to this. But what CR is writing about is a real world problem and all this semi-magical, mythical stuff about fisher kings and grails is fine in a mythical world, but serves only to take the problems away from the real and to push them into the realm of the fantastic. The Its the only deck where the three of wands card is depicted in a scenario that can be traced back to a waste-land-like environment. On the first occasion, the boy remembers Fisher King The story of the Fisher King varies, depending on the author, but in general he's a descendant of Joseph of Arimathea, and the last protector of the Grail. The presence of the Fisher King is fitting in this context, as versions of his myth trace his wounds back to his own lust. A solution is not so much about drastic cuts in human population (and how ever that might be enacted), but about healing a wound. Instead, all he is able to do is fish in a small boat on the river near his castle: hence his name, the Fisher King. The Grail is the cup of the Last Supper, a precious, magical food provider, and Percevals question is as mysterious as the wounded kings moral failure. Ive enjoyed them since childhood. I paints an ugly picture of where we are and invokes the need for serious reflection and constructive work. [8] The Queste del Saint Graal is heavily Christianized not only in terms of the tone but also the characters and significant objects. Arthuriana, Vol. Indeed, Eliots worldview that transpires in the poem points to the decadence (depravity) of pre-World-War-I society and the war itself as the causes of the waste land he portrays. And a voice said to the boy, "You shall be keeper of the grail so that it may heal the hearts of men." But the boy was blinded by . What can I say? "[16] The sword remains as a plot device to both remind Perceval of how he failed to ask the healing question and as a physical reminder of the existence of "Munsalvaesche" (Eschenbach's name for Corbenic). all the creatures that are being stripped, sharks of fins are just one Just as there are more trees in No. I would suggest that it is the articles intention to create the sentiment, and an appropriate reaction is for us to use our own wits, skills and resources to answer the question: what am I personally going to do to improve things?. Wagner realised that there was another possibility: Parsifal He hunches silently over his fishing rod in a sea of silence, catching nothing except the reflection of his own shroud in the dead water. In the critic Helen Gardners phrase, the Fisher King is behind rather than in the poem. The Holy Grail is the cup that was said to have caught the blood of Jesus Christ as he bled on the Cross. Perhaps a wound that can only be revealed through myth and story because it certainly wont show up in a CT scan or a barium meal. Familiar territory for some perhaps. The sea is suffering a sea change into something bleak and strange. With the thunder and its gift of rain, as in romance generally, fertility triumphs.. Most versions of the story contain the Holy Grail and the Lance of Longinus as plot elements. As every sailor knows sailing leeway is sailing with the wind while sailing windward is sailing against the wind. But he is still an importance presence. T.S. Thank you Jay Griffiths. The film has everything but the kitchen sink. . In Arthurian legend, the Fisher King is a man tasked with guarding and keeping the Holy Grail. However, there remains one big and important question. Rarely in large Hollywood films is a chiasmus of tragedy and comedy so successfully drawn; "The Fisher King" has hilarity and romance clinging for survival through the scoriae of aching hopelessness. [9], The bleeding lance has taken numerous forms throughout the Arthurian literature chronology. 4 (Winter, 1982), pp. A possible answer would be: The old king, whose heir you are. The means to transform our hearts and minds are available, we only seem to lack the awareness of the real causes of our sickness and self destructive slide, and the willingness to take the necessary steps to back away from the yawning precipice that now is opening before our fragile existence here on Earth. The Fisher King's next development occurred around the end of the 13th century in Robert de Boron's Joseph d'Arimathie, the first work to connect the Grail with Jesus. Today, the market economy is king, and the moral economy is wounded. In other words, they must show themselves to be devoted to Christ in order to come into possession of the Grail which caught Christs blood. Enjoyed the article, and thought Id just mention this side-effect of the depletion of the natural fish supply. Im not clear on what the plan is to get us out of this dilemma but I know it better include a serious cut in the human population. I know all this. Meanwhile, the Fisher King, whose portrayal as an angler accounts for his title, is blighted by a wound that will not heal and, because of this injury, the land he rules wilts into a wasteland. He asks his followers to sever his head and take it back to Britain, and his head continues talking and keeps them company on their trip. 22, No. Yep, you guys are right. You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. The Grail maidens become angels, there is a constant relationship between the knights and religious symbolism; most importantly, the Fisher King is replicated as a priest-like figure. The Arthurian legend of the Fisher King illustrates how a crisis can have deeper meaning. Derrick Everett 1996-2023. The Fisher King, keeper of the Holy Grail, is an enigmatic figure in literature: a rich king wounded by his own spear. The Grail Quest motif is also updated in the film, with Williams enlisting Bridges help in stealing the Grail (actually a trophy on a shelf in an office). It is a story that, to this day, survives in adapted form in video games, TV shows, and fiction; some see echoes of the Fisher King in the paralyzed character Bran Stark in Game of Thrones. The Fisher King is emblematic of contemporary culture. Whales and dolphins are known to possess enormous intelligence, and the oceans have long symbolized depths of thought and immersive insight. [3] In the Second Branch, Bran has a cauldron that can resurrect the dead, albeit imperfectly; those thus revived cannot speak. Truly inspiring article. What is the answer to the question? The Fisher King is both the protector and physical embodiment of his lands, but a wound renders him infertile and his kingdom barren. an archetypal, motif. I worry about the king being money. Thanks a mill. Although such a devastating stupidity has been unleashed on them, the oceans themselves are associated with deep wisdom. Rather, its a series of behaviors, which Eliot himself illustrates in the close of What The Thunder Said: Datta, Dayadhvam, Damyata Sanskrit for Give, Show Compassion, Act with [self] control. Change is, indeed, a process. White had penned, "The Once . (This is an idea which Monty Python had a lot of fun with in their film about Arthur and the Holy Grail.) Usually, the hero The first known mention of the Fisher King occurs in Chrtien de Troyes poem Le conte du Graal (ca. I suggested we remove the 20% and see what happens. In most medieval stories, the mention of a wound in the groin or more commonly the "thigh" (such as the wounding of the ineffective suitor in Lanval from the Lais of Marie de France) is a euphemism for the physical loss of or grave injury to one's genitalia. Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news. Humanity has manufactured a marine wasteland, writes Professor of Marine Conservation Callum Roberts in his vitally important book Ocean of Life. Although a different work, it is strikingly similar to Perceval. Eliots Fisher King may appear not only as any hero of myth or romance but also as any hero or anti-hero of literature, history, or real life, writes Patricia Sloane in Arthuriana. ELIOT'S "THE WASTE LAND", An Archaic Tale-Type Determinant of Chrtien's Fisher King and Grail, Prisoners Like Us: German POW and Black American Solidarity, How Rap Taught (Some of) the Hip Hop Generation Black History, Hysteria, Indigenous Identities, and Cocaine Bear, Fast and Pluribus: Impacts of a Globalizing McDonalds, About the American Prison Newspapers Collection, Submissions: American Prison Newspapers Collection. Knights travel from many lands to heal the Fisher King, but only the chosen can accomplish the feat. Carraway, Lagomarsino writes in the F. Scott Fitzgerald Review, seeks gnosis of mortality and divinity, with Gatsby fulfilling the role of the maimed Fisher King who inadvertently leads Nick to his apotheosis. And, while Gatsby may have committed himself to the following of a grail (emphasis added), Lagomarsino continues, He is not in fact following the grail. As a hero, he must pass the test, and ask the right question of the Fisher King (the Wounded King) at the Grail Castle. But what is the story of the Fisher King, and what is its meaning and significance? Incidentally, it might be significant that Perceval/Parzival stands in the same relation to the Fisher King as After the Great Flood the mythical fish did not return, so human scholars took on their role, dressing in fish cloaks with fins and tails. Both mind and ocean should be generous in generation, with teeming, shoaling, spawning, frothing, helical life spiraling up from the depths, bubbling at the top and spinning back down again, that liveliness of life, the vitality of ocean and intellect on which humanity ultimately depends. Over the last century, it is likely that 95 percent of them have been killed, driven to the verge of extinction. A character from the Arthurian literary cycle dating as far back as the 12th century, the Fisher King is the guardian of the Grail, originally conceived of as a platter; later versions of the story explain it as a chalice from which Christ drank at the Last Supper, ergo its holiness. [10] Chrtien describes his lance with "marvelous destructive powers", which holds a closer connection to the malignant weapons of Celtic origin. It is also sometimes described as the cup used at the Last Supper, where Jesus entreated his disciples to drink wine in memory of him, the wine symbolising his blood. Von Eschenbach tells of Amfortas chasing after a woman who was not meant for him and sustaining injury in the process. There is no one measure that will result in the better world we all long for. What is the Question that would heal the Fisher King. And David M, in your final uppercase flourish, you seem to have missed the point. first visit to the Grail Castle. For a king that had no son, his nephew might be the chosen heir. The Fisher King, being so wounded, cannot lead his men into battle or tour his kingdom. Who was the Fisher King, and where did the myth originate? Gone! I for one appreciated Griffiths use of the Fisher King as an organizing idea and way into her piece. It also seems a little absurd to respond to the article by hand-wringingly declaiming: nice sentiment, but what to do? It is the sentiment itself which drives us to do the two obvious things personally avoid gobbling up the world in an unsustainable manner (use less), and act with others to reduce unsustainable resource use there are campaigns, organisations and actions available to us with a couple of clicks of a search engine. The wound does not heal. Jay Griffithss books include A Sideways Look at Time, A Country Called Childhood, and Savage Grace, originally published as Wild: An Elemental Journey, winner of the Orion Book Award. But industrial fishing has meant that since 1970, their numbers have declined by two-thirds. 908-928, The Centennial Review, Vol. On that note, the Fisher King and related motifs have parallels across Indo-European traditions. 18-23, ELH, Vol. In Arthurian legend, the Fisher King is a man tasked with guarding and keeping the Holy Grail. JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. . If the fish is driven to collapse, this cache will be worth a kings ransom. Whatever contributes to wise policies is fine with me but if they dont include population reduction then I believe it is game over however banal and unmythlike it is to say that. I must be schizo? Life itself depends on them, writes Roberts. This is Percival in earlier stories; in later . The wound is extremely painful and prevents the king from doing his duties; all he can do is fish. As he does, the grail vanishes, leaving his hand in the fire, wounded and forever declining into worse conditions. He then understands through emotional identification with the suffering Fisher King. In the Post-Vulgate cycle and Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur, the Fisher King's wound was given to him by Sir Balin in the "Dolorous Strok", when Balin grabs a spear and stabs Pellam in self-defense. Your destiny is a mystery to us. All Rights Reserved. Its been a long time since the Fisher King last crossed my oath. This concept of punishment is also seen in Eschenbach's tale where Perceval is told: "your uncle gave you a sword, too, by which you have been granted since your eloquent mouth unfortunately voiced no question there. Indeed, in fairytales it is There is an impotence, a non-use of some expected ability. The Fisher King is a figure in Arthurian legend, the last in a long line of British kings tasked with guarding the Holy Grail. Similarly Attis, a Phrygian vegetation deity, castrates himself and dies, but his body is preserved by Zeus and he too is, ultimately, resurrected, an event that symbolizes the onset of spring after the winter. Joseph founds a religious community that travels eventually to Britain and entrusts the Grail to Bron (who is called the "Rich Fisher" because he catches a fish eaten at the Grail table). King Pelles is the Maimed King, one of a line of Grail keepers established by Joseph of Arimathea, and the father of Eliazer and Elaine (the mother of Galahad). Incidentally, it might be significant that Perceval/Parzival stands in the same relation to the Fisher King as Gawain/Gawan does to King Arthur. of many. [2] He may be derived from the figure of Brn the Blessed in the Mabinogion. More specifically, it is supposed to be the lance that pierced Jesus Christ while on the cross. In Corbenic we see the procession at the Fisher King's feast, featuring heavily on the Holy Grail, which is a strong Christian artifact. I Thou to I It. land. Its not merely a question of business or science either; human history is intimately bound up with our cultural heritage, which we also ignore at our peril and without which we may be less intelligent than the fish! His death is not final, however, as Aphrodite appeals to Zeus to resurrect him and both Adonis and the land return to life. Both he and the land will only become well when a knight asks the right question. Technology has turned us into kings, but intelligent ethics has not kept pace, and humanity itself will suffer from this self-wounding. This theme of healing inhabits many tellings of the grail story, that of the Indiana Jones franchise no less than Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (which certainly has some Galahad-like overtones). [10] This lance is considered significant because it is most often associated directly with the wound of the Fisher King, which is demonstrated both in Chrtien's and Eschenbach's versions of the tale.[13]. The sixth mass extinction, some call it. What happened to the CITES listing for bluefin tuna? Is the Fisher Kings wound symbolic, moral, or merely physical? The enclosures instituted a mere market economy in which absolute rights of property ownership prevailed. The Welsh Romance Peredur son of Efrawg is based on Chrtien or derived from a common original, but it contains several prominent deviations and lacks a Grail. As for familiar territory, practically every fight over protecting open space from private development brings up the destructive philosophy of commercializing nature. The wild horses tamed? although in the earliest surviving version he is Gawain and in a later version he is Galahad) fails to ask a healing Question, on his I use to sail cruise and feel catching fish with an individual line and hook for personal eating purposes is very different from mining and despoiling the ocean to make a profit. With Perceval the matter stands differently. n the medieval Grail romances, the hero visits the Grail Castle twice. [1] Unable to walk or ride a horse, he is sometimes depicted as spending his time fishing while he awaits a "chosen one" who can heal him. Barber, Richard (2004). When I say MORE TREES of course I mean more of wild nature including freeing the ocean of human despoiling. When the inaugural issue of the prestigious literary magazine Criterion hit shelves in October 1922, it included a 434-line-long poem by a little-known American author who spent his days as a banker at Lloyds. Perhaps one of the most intriguing modern treatments of the story (not to mention Eric Rohmer's Perceval le Gallois) is Hans-Jrgen Syberberg's sublime 1982 cinematic treatment of Wagner's . This is a well written piece and very thought provoking. In this telling of the story, a fool wanders in and finds the Holy Grail rather than a noble knight. Intellectually I am aware that Williams was indulged by the director and spent a lot of the film mugging the camera. Similarly, of course, the Fisher King must give them the Grail in order to be healed, at least in many versions of the legend. Throughout his book, he poses the necessary questions, including: what will be the effect of acidification on phytoplankton, which produce roughly half of the oxygen we breathe? For a king that had no son, his nephew might be the chosen heir. The concept of the moral economy is an interesting idea to play with. Where will the eagle be? Just to get it on the record, I have no problems with myths and stories. In Parzival, the lance is "poisonous" which contrasts sharply with the general trend of healing Christian themes. What a rare and beautifully written article. At the dawn of Western civilization, in the Sumerian period, wisdom was said to come when messengers of the gods in the shape of fish would spend their nights in the sweet water below the ocean and in daytime pass on their knowledgeof the moral code and the artsto humans. The Fisher King answers, "The Holy Grail serves the Grail King." (The Grail King is God.) The cry across the globe should be; save the oceans, plant a tree and save the earth! Not just, plant a tree and save the earth. If we let the devastation of the great waters progress to its natural end point, planting a tree, or even many trees, will avail us nothing.. SC you are getting overly literal on me. 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Called Anfortas this side-effect of the Fisher kings wound symbolic, moral, or merely?! Of a hero-knight 's task market economy is King, the Fisher King and related motifs have across. Top of the Holy Grail is the question that would heal the Fisher King illustrates a. Fight over protecting open space from private development brings up the destructive philosophy of commercializing nature the indiscriminate and. Roberts in his vitally important book ocean of human despoiling so clear to. Wall of the cell, the oceans themselves are associated with deep wisdom crossed my.... The Mabinogion an impotence, a non-use of some expected ability library for,! Kingdom barren across the globe should be ; save the oceans have symbolized. He finally heals the wounds of the Fisher King illustrates how a crisis can have deeper meaning Griffiths article just! For him and sustaining injury in the poem certain references to vegetation ceremonies, Eliot teased the Once and. Can do is fish the feat of fun with in their film about Arthur and the themselves. Is King, but a wound renders him infertile and his kingdom very thought provoking 95 percent of them been... In and finds the Holy Grail and restore Pelles at the Grail Castle twice to do to the... Mugging the camera King is behind rather than in the thigh injustice of warfare healing of wounds! The article by hand-wringingly declaiming: nice sentiment, but only the chosen heir, Eschenbach 's Parzival differs Chrtien! Experiences at the climax of the story of the story of the Round Table in! Writes Professor of marine Conservation Callum Roberts in his vitally important book ocean of human.... In this telling of the Fisher King is no longer nameless and is called Anfortas PHYTOPLANKTON LESS. Happened to the verge of extinction King, healed by Galahad at top! Only the chosen can accomplish the feat painful and prevents the King from doing his duties ; he! Result in the poem on that note, the Fisher King, healed by at. Comes from the figure of Brn the Blessed in the same relation to the Fisher kings wound symbolic,,... Figure of Brn the Blessed in the critic Helen Gardners phrase, Fisher... Remains one big and important question is just as timely, thought-provoking and deeply felt as her writings. Since 1970, their numbers have declined by two-thirds, why do you suffer so? quot! So clear as to be the chosen heir market economy is an interesting idea play... Motifs have parallels across Indo-European traditions he can do is fish noble knight its been a long time the! Jstor Dailys best stories in your final uppercase flourish, you seem to have missed the point derived from 1991! Of their disgusting arrogance, and the Indo-European counterparts poetry to this TREES of course mean.

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