The Prophet

Context Almitra asks again, and this time she calls him “master,” a respectful word for a teacher that she has not used before. The answer is brief, and it is built almost entirely of balanced pairs that turn on “but” or “yet”: fill each other’s cup, but do not drink from one cup; give bread, but do not eat from one loaf; stand together, yet not too near. This parallel style is another echo of the King James Bible. The images come from the table (the cup and the loaf), from music (the lute) and from the landscape and the temple (the oak and the cypress, the pillars). The “you” is plural throughout, so the answer speaks to both partners at once.

In plain words (our paraphrase, not the text) Almitra asks about marriage. He tells those who marry that they came into being together and will stay together always, even after death has ended their days, even in God’s silent memory. Yet within that closeness there must be room, enough for the winds of heaven to move between them. Love each other, he says, but don’t let love become a chain; let it be like a sea moving between two shores. Fill each other’s cups and share your bread, but keep your own cup and your own loaf. Celebrate together, but let each of you remain a separate self, as a lute’s strings stay apart while they sound the same music. Give your hearts, but not for the other to hold, because only Life can hold them. Stand side by side but not pressed together, as temple pillars stand apart and an oak and a cypress each grow in their own light.

Key terms master: A respectful address for a teacher. Almitra uses it for the first time here. aye: Yes, indeed. It strengthens the promise that the two will be together even in God’s memory. lute: A plucked stringed instrument, called the ʿūd in Arabic. Its strings stay separate even while they sound one music, like the two partners. cypress: A tall, narrow Mediterranean evergreen. It and the oak grow side by side without living in each other’s shadow. Life: Only “the hand of Life” can hold the partners’ hearts. Neither of them can hold the other’s.

Connections Compare On Love: On Love says love neither possesses nor would be possessed; here that becomes a way for two people to live side by side. Compare The Coming of the Ship: Almustafa leaves because staying would bind him in a mould; here love, too, must not harden into a bond.

To reflect on Think of two people you know who are close. Where do you see the space between them, and what seems to grow there?

Context For the first time, the request comes from someone other than Almitra: a woman with a baby in her arms. Many of the requests that follow will also come from ordinary townspeople. The answer names Life, capitalized, as the source of children, and it rests on balanced contrasts such as “through you but not from you,” in the King James cadence heard throughout the book. Its closing image is of an archer who bends the parent like a bow. The text writes him first as “The archer,” then as “He” and “His,” then in “the Archer’s hand”; in the last line, printed as in 1923, a lowercase “he” is followed by a capital “He.” The capitals suggest a divine figure, but the text never names him, and readers take him in different ways.

In plain words (our paraphrase, not the text) A woman holding a baby asks about children, and he answers all of them. Your children, he says, are not yours. They are born of Life’s longing for itself. They pass through you without coming from you, and they live with you without belonging to you. You can give them your love but not your ideas, because they think for themselves. You can shelter their bodies, but their souls live in a tomorrow you will never enter, not even in dreams. You may try to become more like them, but do not try to make them like you, because life only moves forward. You are the bows, and your children are living arrows shot out from you. The archer sees a target far along an endless path and bends you hard so that the arrows fly fast and far. So let yourself be bent gladly, because the archer loves the steady bow as much as the flying arrow.

Key terms Life, “Life’s”: Children are “the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself”: they come through their parents, the text says, but not from them. tarry, “tarries”: Lingers. Life does not stay behind with yesterday, so parents should not try to shape children in their own image. archer: The one who bends the parent like a bow and sees the mark far off on “the path of the infinite.” Many readers take him to be God, or Life.

Connections Compare The Coming of the Ship: Almitra hopes his words will pass to their children’s children; here children belong to a tomorrow no parent can visit. Compare On Marriage: As in marriage, love keeps its distance: parents may give their love but not their thoughts, as partners give hearts but not into keeping.

To reflect on In this image the bow’s part is to be bent and to stay steady. Think of someone who sent you out into your own life, or someone you are sending out now. What did the bending ask of them, or of you?