The Book of Jade · Chapter
Sonnet: Be Not Cast Down My Heart, and Be Not Sad explained
The speaker consoles his own heart by reminding it that sorrow is not unique to common mortals; even the greatest gods and divine figures—Tammuz, Ashtoreth, Osiris, and Christ—experienced grief and death.
What happens
The speaker consoles his own heart by reminding it that sorrow is not unique to common mortals; even the greatest gods and divine figures—Tammuz, Ashtoreth, Osiris, and Christ—experienced grief and death. The poem elevates suffering as a mark of nobility and grandeur.
Themes in this chapter
Death and Decay
The poem dwells on the inevitability of death and sorrow, even for gods and divine figures like Tammuz, Osiris, and Christ.
Nihilism and Spiritual Emptiness
The consolation offered is that sorrow is universal and inescapable, suggesting a bleak view of existence where even the highest beings are subject to grief and death.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Be not cast down my heart, and be not sad, That thou like common men must sorrow know;”
Do not be discouraged or sorrowful, my heart, because you must experience grief just like ordinary people.
The speaker opens by addressing his own heart, urging it to accept sorrow as a common human experience.
“Not only they that live and die below, But ev’n the gods thy supreme sorrow had;”
It is not only those who live and die on earth who suffer; even the gods have experienced the greatest sorrow.
The speaker expands the scope of suffering to include divine beings, elevating sorrow to a universal condition.
“Not unto Tammuz was this fortune given, Not to know grief; whom starry Ashtoreth Sought through the seven-gated realm of death,”
Tammuz was not granted the fortune of being free from grief; the starry Ashtoreth searched for him through the seven-gated underworld.
Reference to the Mesopotamian myth of Tammuz and Ishtar (Ashtoreth), highlighting that even a beloved god experienced loss and death.
“Osiris also could not but to die; He reigneth king among the perisht dead;”
Osiris also had to die; he now rules as king among the dead who have perished.
The Egyptian god Osiris is cited as another example of a deity who died and now reigns in the afterlife.
“And Christ, when his long grief was finished, Hid his great glory in the lowly ground.”
And Christ, after his prolonged suffering ended, concealed his immense glory in the humble earth.
The poem concludes with Christ's death and burial, framing it as a final act of humility and sorrow.
“All these had sorrow, that were great and high; These also were august, these also crown’d.”
All these beings, who were great and exalted, experienced sorrow; they too were majestic and crowned.
The final lines reinforce the theme that sorrow is a mark of greatness and nobility.