SAILING TO BYZANTIUM

W. B. Yeats, 1865 - 1939

That is no country for old men. The young

In one another’s arms, birds in the trees

—Those dying generations—at their song,

The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,

Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long

Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of un-ageing intellect.

An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,

Nor is there singing school but studying

Monuments of its own magnificence;

And therefore I have sailed the seas and come

To the holy city of Byzantium.

O sages standing in God’s holy fire

As in the gold mosaic of a wall,

Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,

And be the singing-masters of my soul.

Consume my heart away; sick with desire

And fastened to a dying animal

It knows not what it is; and gather me

Into the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never take

My bodily form from any natural thing,

But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make

Of hammered gold and gold enameling

To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;

Or set upon a golden bough to sing

To lords and ladies of Byzantium

Of what is past, or passing, or to come.

Born in Dublin, Ireland, on June 13, 1865, William Butler Yeats was the son of a well-known Irish painter, John Butler Yeats. Born into the Anglo-Irish landowning class, Yeats became involved with the Celtic Revival, a movement against the cultural influences of English rule in Ireland during the Victorian period, which sought to promote the spirit of Ireland’s native heritage.

Yeats was deeply involved in politics in Ireland, and in the twenties, despite Irish independence from England, his verse reflected a pessimism about the political situation in his country and the rest of Europe. W. B. Yeats was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1923 and died in 1939 at the age of seventy-three.

“Sailing to Byzantium” was first published in 1928 in the collection called “The Tower.” Byzantium is the old name of Constantinople or Istanbul which was once the capital of the Roman Empire. According to Yeats, the Christian Byzantium which influences the scene after the fall of Rome was an ideal place of culture and wisdom. In the poem, “Sailing to Byzantium”, the poet faces the old age and wishes to forget his decaying body and educate his soul for immortality. Yeats’ whole life has been devoted to create everlasting pieces of art and he imagines that after death his soul will be a golden bird resting in the Emperor’s palace.

Summary

“Sailing to Byzantium” is quite a short poem consisting of four stanzas, rhyming take a very old verse form: they are metered in iambic pentameter, and rhymed ABABABCC. Byzantium refers to the ancient name of Istanbul, the capital of the Byzantium Empire of the fifth and sixth centuries. But Byzantium in the poem is an imaginary city a country of the poet's mind. Yeats, in the first stanza of “Sailing to Byzantium,” refers to “birds in the trees” as “those dying generations.” It is important to note that the poem is not autobiographical; Yeats did not travel to Byzantium, but he did argue that, in the sixth century, it offered the ideal environment for the artist. The poem is about an imaginative journey, not an actual one.

The speaker, referring to the country that he has left, says that it is “no country for old men”: it is full of youth and life, with the young lying in one another’s arms, birds singing in the trees, and fish swimming in the waters. There, “all summer long” the world rings with the “sensual music” that makes the young neglect the old, whom the speaker describes as “Monuments of un-ageing intellect.”

An old man, the speaker says, he is a like a scarecrow, wearing a tattered (worn to shreds) coat upon a stick, unless his soul can clap its hands and sing; and the only way for the soul to learn how to sing is to study “monuments of its own magnificence.” Therefore, the speaker has “sailed the seas and come / to the holy city of Byzantium.” The speaker addresses the sages “standing in God’s holy fire / as in the gold mosaic of a wall,” and asks them to be his soul’s “singing-masters.” He hopes they will consume his heart away, for his heart “knows not what it is”—it is “sick with desire / and fastened to a dying animal,” and the speaker wishes to be gathered “Into the artifice of eternity.”

The speaker says that once he has been taken out of the natural world, he will no longer take his “bodily form” from any “natural thing,” but rather will fashion himself as a singing bird made of hammered gold, such as Grecian goldsmiths make “To keep a drowsy Emperor awake,” or set upon a tree of gold “to sing / To lords and ladies of Byzantium / Or what is past, or passing, or to come.”

The title suggests an escape to a distant, imaginary land where the speaker achieves mystical union with beautiful, eternal works of art. “The poet is getting old and finds Ireland, where he is presently living is not congenial to men of advanced age. The Poet is “an aged man” who comes to the realization that youth and sensual life are no longer an option for him, and he commences on a spiritual journey to the ideal world of Byzantium. The poet therefore decides to go the Byzantium which is a traditional place of art and engage himself there with the study of the treasures. The poet also called Byzantium ‘holy’ for it is the center of spiritual and intellectual activity and not a place suitable for physical and sensuous pleasures of life. As soon as the poet arrives in the Byzantium he prays to God’s saints to come down from heaven and teach him to appreciate art; he request them to help his being absorbed into the artifice of eternity that engaged in the pursuit of the spiritual.

STANZA 1:

The poet says that Ireland is not a proper place for old men because they get tangled into some sensual music which abstains them from achieving artistic ageless accomplishments of the intellect. The dying generation of birds and young lovers celebrate are against the natural cycle of death and birth. The young lovers are in each other’s arms, the birds are in the trees and the fishes and fowls all sing one same song-the song of the senses. All these at the same time, are creatures who are subjected to death.

STANZA 2:

The poet says that Ireland being a country not good for old men who are otherwise a little thing decaying along with their physical powers. The only substitute for them is to have their soul educated in a way that it starts to clap its hands and sing out loud. The newly learnt song of the soul makes it to rejoice and become louder and louder as the physical powers of the old men go bad to worse. The poet says that the only difficulty is to find such a singing school where the soul can get educated, because every singing school in the country of Ireland is concerned with studying monuments of its own significance rather than caring for monuments of un-ageing intellect. Therefore, as the poet does not find the right school to educate his soul, he travels across the seas and reaches the holy city of Byzantium.

STANZA 3:

The poet addresses the sages who were standing in god’s holy fire in Byzantium. He tells them that the way they are standing, the same way a figure stands in gold mosaic work of a wall. He asks them to climb down from their present spiritual position and become the poet’s educators of his soul so that his soul can learn the right kind of song. The first thing that the poet wants the sages to do is to purify his heart which is heavy with animal instincts and is sick with physical lusts. Once his heart has been purified, it will be easier for the poet to do what his heart most wants i.e. lead him into the artifice of eternity. The poet wants to be a part of those things which are beyond the cycle of birth and death.

STANZA 4:

In the final stanza, poet says that once he is out of the cycle of nature, (being begotten, born and dying) he will seize contact with natural things-the physical world. The poet wants to take a form that is of golden shape and has golden enameling. This can be done by the Grecian goldsmiths who will construct a golden bird who could sing to the Emperor to keep him awake. He wants to be a golden bird of eternity so that he is set on a golden bough in the court of Byzantium and he would sing songs of all times, the present, past and future to the Lords and Ladies of Byzantium. The poet’s song will be different from the sensual music of the dying generations and he will sing of the monuments of un-ageing intellect.