29 Tir 1405
Quatrain 40 of 75
“You know, my Friends, with what a brave Carouse
I made a Second Marriage in my house:
Divorced old barren Reason from my Bed,
And took the Daughter of the Vine to Spouse.”
Reflection · Summer 1405
The second marriage is in full effect in summer. The Daughter of the Vine is at her most generous in the long warm evenings, in the heat that loosens the mind and makes the arguments of old barren Reason seem very far away. Brave carouse — the bravery is in the divorce, not the remarriage. It is brave to leave the respectable relationship with rational certainty for the less defensible one with direct experience.
The Daughter of the Vine in summer is generous and demanding equally — she requires your full presence, your full sensory engagement, your willingness to be here in the summer heat without retreating into the cool abstractions that Reason provided. She is a good spouse, but she is a present-tense spouse.