OPINION
John Billington** feels sure that Tibet will endure and survive despite the immense odds it faces against its marauding conqueror China, as Edwin Muir’s poem below tells us, because it embodies values the human civilization needs, as evolutionary biologist Charles Darwin has theorised.
(TibetanReview.net, Apr11’24)
The poem below encapsulates a great truth. It is also relevant to Tibet. I suggest you read it twice before looking at the Explication:
THE COMBAT
It was not meant for human eyes,
That combat on the shabby patch
Of clods and trampled turf that lies
Somewhere beneath the sodden skies
For eye of toad or adder to catch.
And having seen it I accuse
The crested animal in his pride,
Arrayed in all the royal hues
Which hide the claws he well can use
To tear the heart out of the side.
Body of leopard, eagle’s head
And whetted beak, and lion’s mane,
And frost-grey hedge of feathers spread
Behind – he seemed of all things bred.
I shall not see his like again.
As for his enemy, there came in
A soft round beast as brown as clay;
All rent and patched his wretched skin;
A battered bag he might have been,
Some old used thing to throw away.
Yet he awaited face to face
The furious beast and the swift attack.
Soon over and done. That was no place
Or time for chivalry or for grace.
The fury had him on his back.
And two small paws like hands flew out
To right and left as the trees stood by.
One would have said beyond a doubt
This was the very end of the bout,
But that the creature would not die.
For ere the death-stroke he was gone,
Writhed, whirled, huddled into his den,
Safe somehow there. The fight was done,
And he had lost who had all but won,
But oh, his deadly fury then.
A while the place lay blank, forlorn,
Drowsing as in relief from pain
The cricket chirped, the grating thorn
Stirred, and a little sound was born.
The champions took their posts again.
And all began. The stealthy paw
Slashed out and in. Could nothing save
These rags and tatters from the claw?
Nothing. And yet I never saw
A beast so helpless and so brave.
And now, while the trees stand watching, still
The unequal battle rages there.
The killing beast that cannot kill
Swells and swells in his fury till
You’d almost think it was despair.
by Edwin Muir
Explication: What does this poem mean?
Edwin Muir wrote this poem in 1949 while working for the British Council in Prague. Czechoslovakia (as it then was) had voted for democracy, but in 1948 the Czech communists, with support from Russia, gained control of the police and army and turned Czechoslovakia into a police state. The poem reflects the “combat” between a powerful aggressive state (Russia/USSR) and a small and weak state (Czechoslovakia). In 1949, in Asia, another powerful aggressive state (China) invaded and subjugated another weak neighbouring state (Tibet).
Edwin Muir was deeply interested in archetypes – the term coined by C.G.Jung for experiences that are repeated, generation after generation, by human beings. For instance: all children without exception must go through a process of breaking away from their parents and establishing independent lives of their own. The experience may be easy or difficult depending on how generous or how possessive the parents are. And we are all conscious of the eternal struggle between Good and Evil, altruism and selfishness, and the apparent disadvantage of the Good in that Evil always has the initiative. Even among a group of children playing we can see this archetype: the selfish child snatches the balloon of his kind and peaceful neighbour. It is always thus.
Combats between two protagonists have always fascinated mankind because we live in a dualistic world. God is matched with the Devil; day with night; hot with cold, good versus evil, kindness versus cruelty etc. Combats – whether in football, boxing, tennis or any other sport – are most interesting when the two combatants are evenly matched, when both parties have the chance of winning. But when there is a mis-match – when the combat is hopelessly one-sided – we lose interest, feel embarrassed and even shame. In Muir’s poem the two contestants are not equally matched.
The combat in the poem takes place away from the public eye, just as bullies thrive when no-one is watching. The ground is muddy, forlorn and trampled; the only spectators are poisonous toads and adders. The few trees watch dispassionately at the inevitable outcome – of course “the soft round beast” has no chance against the apex predator with his fearful weaponry of beak and claws. Even to watch such a one-sided piece of bullying is embarrassing and shameful.
Yet it is a human weakness to have a sneaking admiration for power. In the legions of ancient Rome and the marauding hordes of Genghis Khan’s Mongol forces we feel some pride in what human beings can achieve when united. Hence “I shall not see his like again” reflects the poet’s grudging admiration for the heraldic beast with its leopard’s body, eagle’s head and lion’s mane. But we are wrong to admire power when abused. We admire the mounted knight when he is defending the weak, but despise him when he uses his power to tyrannise the weak and defenceless.
The challenger in this mortal combat looks magnificent. His head is “crested”, his garments are of “royal hues”, his beak is sharpened (“whetted”) so that he can “tear the heart out of the side”, he is “furious” and his attack is “swift”: he is an amalgam of top predators whether bird or beast. But he is without “chivalry”(honour) or “grace” (kindness).
The defendant is no match for him. He is a “small round beast”, dull in colour and with torn and patched skin. He resembles an old and “battered bag” and his small paws are not enough to defend him. In no time “The fury had him on his back”. This is an unarmed peasant fighting an armed and mounted knight. Or a small Tibetan marmot (or pika) fighting a Chinese tiger.
And yet, the crested challenger is unable to kill the small round beast which defends itself valiantly and escapes to fight another day. There is a break in the action after the seventh stanza. And then, in the last three stanzas, it all happens again: “The champions took their posts again”. And the fight to the death continues. That is what an archetype means – a recurring event of great significance. The “unequal battle rages” throughout history between ferocious evil and peaceful good, and no deity intervenes. Chenrezig cannot intervene. The trees “stand watching”.
But things are not what they seem. As the closing stanza makes clear, “the killing beast” cannot kill its helpless opponent, and it becomes enraged with fury at its own impotence, until you would think that it is the would-be conqueror, not the victim, that is filled with “despair”.
The poem is meant to be taken as an analogy. It is entirely legitimate to see the crested attacker as a parallel for China, and the “battered bag” as a parallel for Tibet. What is re-assuring is Muir’s conclusion that powerful Evil can never defeat defenceless Good. Good will survive no matter how ferociously it is pulverised. Real heroism lies not in inflicting pain but in enduring it.
Darwin states that if a quality or characteristic has value in evolution it will survive. The best qualities of Tibet’s Buddhism – tolerance, non-violence, recognition of a moral law of cause and effect, and respect for all creatures and even the earth itself – are central to civilised living and the avoidance of mutual destruction. We need those qualities. They will survive. The diamond of the Buddha’s teaching will long outlast the chalk of Marx and Mao.
The future. As the 17th century German poet says: “Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small”. We cannot speed up the karmic process. But change will come, and retribution and shame for its appalling treatment of its weaker neighbours will haunt China for decades – possibly centuries – as shame has tainted Germany’s reputation for its treatment of Jews. It is possible that many Chinese will convert to Buddhism, both as contrition for wrongs done in their name as well as from respect for a spiritual culture that will outlast the egocentric ambitions of a materialistic one. Tibet will be changed and enriched by its fusion with external cultures and will inherit the infra-structure left behind when the Chinese tidal wave recedes. China has sought to eradicate Tibet’s separate culture and identity and to assimilate it, but it has failed. “The killing beast” has discovered that it “cannot kill” Tibet’s ideas and identity. For Tibet to win this terrible combat it simply needs to endure, to survive.
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* I would like to dedicate my words above to my Tibetan brothers and sisters, both inside and outside occupied Tibet, who continue to endure.
** John Billington is former Chairman of the Tibet Society of the UK.