We have learned to whittle the Eden Tree to the shape of a surplice-peg, We have learned to bottle our parents twain in the yolk of an addled egg,
We know that the tail must wag the dog, for the horse is drawn by the cart;
But the Devil whoops, as he whooped of old: “It’s clever, but is it Art ?”
What the heck is the second line about?
If this were written today, I’d say he’s talking about molecular genetics. However, this was written in the late 19th century, so that could not have been it.
So, what 19th century technology was Kipling referring to when he said that we have learned to “bottle” both of our parents in “an addled egg”?
Well, they may not have known about molecular genetics in the late 19th century, but they were starting to learn something about genetics (chromosomes and stuff). Meosis, for example, was first described in 1876. That could perhaps be your addled egg. Chromosomes were known to be the vectors of heredity from some time in the 1880s.
Wild Assed Guess might be something to do with a homonculus - which was made by alchemically processing stuff frequently involving putting stuff into eggs and into wombs until they hatch out into tiny little figures [wasn’t it Faust that had a little king, little queen and a little pageboy?]
The 1800s are when science was progressing to understand genetics and the biology of reproduction, so perhaps he was making some sort of allusion to the combination of sperm and egg ?
I think he’s saying “we have learned” to mess up the order of things. We have learned to put the cart before the horse, or to get the tail to wag the dog. We’ve learned to confine the creation story inside the limits of an organized church.
So “we have learned” to bottle our parents into something unsavory. I don’t think it’s genetics. I think it’s just meant to be a conundrum on the flow of time, an impossibility in cause and effect.
Yes, but if you follow the OP’s link (and then the link at the bottom of that page), you will find it was published in 1890 (and adapted from a yet earlier poem of his).
Still, as I already pointed out, even in 1890 they were far from ignorant about the cellular mechanisms of reproduction.
I do not think Mendel had been “rediscovered” yet, but there were theories about how heredity worked, and it was long since recognized that children inherit traits from both parents.
On the other hand, given the more direct reference in the previous line, it may well be that “our parents twain” is meant to evoke Adam and Eve, rather than a person’s actual, biological parents. (I am sure Kipling did not believe in the Eden story literally, but that does not mean he would not think it an important myth, and would not use it for poetic purposes.) But if that is the case, I have no idea what their being bottled in the yolk of an addled egg is all about.
The last line, referring to art, made me think of capturing (bottling) portraits in tempera paint made from egg. Raw egg which just sits out in the open and presumably addles.
An addled egg, for the technically minded, is one which was fertile but did not hatch (the embryo died); to bottle one’s parents in such a yolk conveys several metaphors. One is the “cart before the horse/tail wagging the dog” image in the next line – our parents were born before us, so how could we engage in their creation (or miscarriage thereof)? Another is the “destroying the promise of our forebears” image in previous line – our parents, once fecund and full of possibility, are now not merely sterile but stillborn. Another metaphor is one of unholy enterprise, like witchcraft or alchemy; we not merely less than our ancestors, not merely fallen from their heights, not merely destroying their works, but depraved, wicked, and foolish as well.
So, we have taken the glory of Creation and turned it into something small and mean; we have squandered the labor of our ancestors, laid waste to their dreams, and turned them to evil ends; we have ignored the natural order of things, turned it around and upside down; and in so doing, we have merely entertained the devil, for he both delights in our wickedness and laughs at our pettiness.
I was thinking it might be a reference to the process of breeding animals by artificial insemination. But the timing doesn’t work. The first experiments in artificial insemination were conducted a decade after this poem was published.
[lie]
Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain had a bit of a rivalry going on. Each was openly disdainful of the other’s politics and writing style. Their work would occasionally contain snide digs at each other. This poem is one example.
Twain, for his part, probably originated the “I don’t Kipple” joke, or at least is the earliest know use of it. [/lie]