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Sonnet The Tibetan Buddhist monks are comprised of some of the greatest thinkers and peace bringers who have ever lived. The 14th and current Dali lame, or leader, is no exception. As the longest living Dali Lama, Tenpin Goats argues that “every human action… Depend[s] on motivation” whether it results in a positive consequence, or a negative consequence. Ghats’s awareness of the motivation of an individual suggests understanding of the actions of an individual, as well as the consequences paired with those actions.
Many a time is a decision made, or a fate decided, and it is titivated by a single choice. The argument that Goats is making is that although every action depends a motivated choice, the action should also be decided based on the consequences that it will bring. The genius of Ghats’s argument about motivational understanding directly reflects the lack of consequential in Patriarch’s sonnet 190. Patriarch is clearly motivated to find love in any way possible. He is so motivated in fact, that he loses sight of the consequences that his actions behold.
In contrast, Thomas Wyatt and Edmund Spenders, both English poets that are more odder than Patriarch, have a keen understanding of the consequences of their actions, and in turn, allow these actions to be motivated by positive understanding. Patriarch is motivated by negative desires and lacks an understanding of consequences, whereas Wyatt and Spenders both present a theme of understanding of consequences through positive motivation. Patriarch’s sonnet is characterized by a lack of understanding of the negative consequences that the deer presents.
The first symbol of this negativity that Patriarch fails to understand is that the deer appears in the “unripe season. ” (4) This mime period suggests negativity because it literally meaner that it is the wrong time to collect crops or hunt animals; however, it also represents that no good will come out of him choosing to follow the deer. Even though he is aware of this fact, he continues to pursue the deer and even “leaves all [his] labor” (6) and follows her.
When he rejects his labors, he is also rejecting everything positive in his life to chase the negativity of the deer. While Patriarch does not proclaim either of these actions to be mistakes, the first understanding of his faults is when he describes himself “as a user. ” (7) This choice of a simile suggests that he now sees himself in a negative light because of the predicament of choosing to follow the deer. Because he continues to follow the deer and be entranced by its beauty, it shows that this social negativity does not affect him in a psychological way.
Patriarch’s epiphany and true self-understanding of his consequences comes when he “[falls] into water” (14) and the deer disappears. The deer vanishing signifies punishment based on Patriarch never having realized the negative consequences of following her. Patriarch’s falling n to the water is an image of realization that what he did to follow the deer was wrong. Also, the fact that this image of realization does not happen until the last line of the poem shows that Patriarch never fully understood this negativity until the very end.
Watt’s translation of the poem represents a continuation from the end of Patriarch’s poem in which the character has a full understanding of the negative consequences of following the deer from the very start of the poem. In the first line of his poem, Wyatt “knows where [there] is a hind” (1), but he will not hunt any anger. This decision of knowing where to find the deer, but choosing not to follow it proves that he has full self-understanding of the negative consequences of chasing this animal.
Even though his mind never “[draws] from the deer” (6), Wyatt points out that he stops trying to follow the deer because it would be as if he would “seek to hold the wind [in a net]” (8). These two lines describe Watt’s understanding of two impossible things. In his mind, it is impossible to forget the deer and its beauty; however, he also realizes that Just as it is impossible to catch the wind, it is impossible to catch the deer for his own.
Through thorough self-realization, Wyatt concludes that he will stop trying to pursue the deer, but also that he will never forget her. Watt’s translation lacks an epiphany moment because the understanding and knowledge of negativity is evident from the beginning of the poem. The fact that Patriarch has an epiphany at the end of his poem, and the character in Watt’s translation has a full understanding of the negative consequences from the beginning is what connects the poems and makes them continuations of each other.