Pretty pickle
Tragedy
I wear it now
as a halo
Can't you see?
All that's left to do is to fake my own death
and come back to watch
the perfect end
of the imperfect poet
and the sudden acclaim
given to poems that
when living, were not given the time of day
but when dead will be grabbed at
as one more buck-making opportunity
to marinate the corpse.
I wear it now
as a halo
Can't you see?
All that's left to do is to fake my own death
and come back to watch
the perfect end
of the imperfect poet
and the sudden acclaim
given to poems that
when living, were not given the time of day
but when dead will be grabbed at
as one more buck-making opportunity
to marinate the corpse.
When the Sunday–school hour was finished, the next morning, the bell began to toll, instead of ringing in the usual way. It was a very still Sabbath, and the mournful sound seemed in keeping with the musing hush that lay upon nature. The villagers began to gather, loitering a moment in the vestibule to converse in whispers about the sad event. But there was no whispering in the house; only the funereal rustling of dresses as the women gathered to their seats disturbed the silence there. None could remember when the little church had been so full before. There was finally a waiting pause, an expectant dumbness, and then Aunt Polly entered, followed by Sid and Mary, and they by the Harper family, all in deep black, and the whole congregation, the old minister as well, rose reverently and stood until the mourners were seated in the front pew. There was another communing silence, broken at intervals by muffled sobs, and then the minister spread his hands abroad and prayed. A moving hymn was sung, and the text followed: "I am the Resurrection and the Life."
ReplyDeleteAs the service proceeded, the clergyman drew such pictures of the graces, the winning ways, and the rare promise of the lost lads that every soul there, thinking he recognized these pictures, felt a pang in remembering that he had persistently blinded himself to them always before, and had as persistently seen only faults and flaws in the poor boys. The minister related many a touching incident in the lives of the departed, too, which illustrated their sweet, generous natures, and the people could easily see, now, how noble and beautiful those episodes were, and remembered with grief that at the time they occurred they had seemed rank rascalities, well deserving of the cowhide. The congregation became more and more moved, as the pathetic tale went on, till at last the whole company broke down and joined the weeping mourners in a chorus of anguished sobs, the preacher himself giving way to his feelings, and crying in the pulpit.
There was a rustle in the gallery, which nobody noticed; a moment later the church door creaked; the minister raised his streaming eyes above his handkerchief, and stood transfixed! First one and then another pair of eyes followed the minister's, and then almost with one impulse the congregation rose and stared while the three dead boys came marching up the aisle, Tom in the lead, Joe next, and Huck, a ruin of drooping rags, sneaking sheepishly in the rear! They had been hid in the unused gallery listening to their own funeral sermon!
-- Mark Twain, "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer"
To be in in a “pretty pickle” is an idiomatic expression meaning to be in a difficult situation and not knowing what to do. The word "pickle" itself comes from the Dutch "pekel," which originally referred to a mixture of spiced, salted vinegar that was used as a preservative. It shared a root with "piquant," which ultimately derived from the same word as "pick" and "pike," meaning something pointy. It evolved in the 17th century into the word for a pickled cucumber (in American English) and into a sloppy sauce made of chopped-up, pickled vegetables (“relish” to the Americans). In 1440 in “The Morte Arthure” Thomas Malory described king Arthur's diet: “He soupes all this sesoun with seuen knaue childre, Choppid in a chargour of chalke-whytt syluer, With pekill & powdyre of precious spycez.” (He dines all season on seven rascal children, chopped, in a bowl of white silver, with pickle and precious spices.) The Dutch phrase “in de pekel zitten” means "to sit in the pickle brine," but it is a euphemism for “being pickled,” as in the punning dialogue between Alonso and Trinculo in William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” (1611): “And Trinculo is reeling ripe: where should they / Find this grand liquor that hath gilded 'em?-- /How camest thou in this pickle?” “I have been in such a pickle, since I saw you last, that, I fear me, will never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.” However, on 26 September 1660 Samuel Pepys noted in his diary that he was “At home with the workmen all the afternoon, our house being in a most sad pickle.” (“To be in a jam” is a similar idiom with a similar metaphor at its core. The adjective “pretty”first appeared in Old English as “praettig,” meaning “cunning or crafty,” based on “praett,” meaning “trick,but in the 1400s it meant “clever, skillful and able,” which led to its use as “elegantly made or done; ingenious and artful.” Applied to a person, especially a woman or child, “pretty” meant “attractive in appearance,” and in relation to a thing or place, “aesthetically pleasing.” But there was an implicit distinction in usage between “pretty” and “beautiful,” since “pretty” was often used in a depreciative sense, especially in the form “pretty little.” This “so-so” sense was probably an outgrowth of that patronizing use of “pretty” to mean “somewhat attractive,” so in the same century it also meant “fairly” or “moderately” and in an ironic sense “difficult, unwelcome, awkward.” At least as early as 1809, the phrase, “We drank hard, and returned to our employers in a pretty pickle” was in print.
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