# XXXIII explained — Poetry

> Chapter companion for Poetry by Fernando Pessoa.

## What happens

The speaker explores a paradox of advancement through retreat and the nature of nothingness, arguing that seeking and finding lack still confer meaning within pure thought. He concludes that even error and falsehood have a kind of being, questioning why the world is called false if falsehood itself constitutes existence.

## Themes in this chapter

### Epistemological Uncertainty

The speaker questions the validity of worldly meaning and falsehood, suggesting truth can be found through negation.

### Self and Identity

The paradox of advancing by going back reflects a deeper inquiry into the nature of self and thought.

## Character check-ins

### Unknown

The speaker who contemplates the paradoxes of thought, nothingness, and being.

### Thought

Personified as the faculty that confers being on nothing and finds truth through negation.

## Key lines

> He that goes back does, since he goes, advance, Though he doth not advance who goeth back

One who retreats still moves forward in a sense, but one who simply does not advance is not truly retreating.

_The speaker introduces a paradox about motion and progress._

> For thinking nought does on nought being confer, As giving not is acting not to give

Thinking about nothing grants a kind of existence to nothing, just as refusing to give is still an act of not giving.

_The speaker argues that negation itself has ontological weight._

> So why call this world false, if false to be Be to be aught, and being aught Being to be?

Why label the world as false, if being false is still a form of being something, and being something is simply to exist?

_The speaker questions the condemnation of the world as false, since falsehood still entails existence._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_6_se/chapters/xxxiii
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_6_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/poetry_6_se/chapters