Henry's Harp

(Sorry about the bad sound half way through). One of my friends recently had to have one of her dogs put down, and I couldn't help being prompted by this to think about the strangeness of the phrase 'put down'. On the one hand it sounds like the most bleak of euphemisms, as if you just laid aside something that had outlived its usefulness. On the other hand though, there is the way that the metaphor of the Down is used in, for example, Rabindranath Tagore's 'Ocean of Forms', which has the fantastic last line 'I will lay down my silent harp at the feet of the silent.' The putting down of the harp in this poem has a sadness to it for sure, but it also has poetic resonance which is miles away from the sloughing off of useless baggage.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• dog
• Rabindranath
• Tagore
• poem
• poetry
• death
• euthanasia
• pet
• down
• metaphor
• James
• Hillman

[megansspark]

a very lovely and sad examination... 'putting down' I always felt a country term of simplicity, that conveys much without many words (which is standard in my rural part of the world!) however your video has shed light a different perspective, perhaps unintended by people normally uttering the phrase; but touching when one thinks about it.