AN ORIENTAL APOLOGUE by James Russell Lowell: Summary, Meaning & Analysis
Two rival holy men — one Muslim and the other Hindu — dedicate their lives to tossing curses and theological insults at each other across a river, both convinced the other is destined for hell.
The poem
Somewhere in India, upon a time, (Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,) There dwelt two saints whose privilege sublime It was to sit and watch the world grow worse, Their only care (in that delicious clime) At proper intervals to pray and curse; Pracrit the dialect each prudent brother Used for himself, Damnonian for the other. One half the time of each was spent in praying For blessings on his own unworthy head, 10 The other half in fearfully portraying Where certain folks would go when they were dead; This system of exchanges--there's no saying To what more solid barter 'twould have led, But that a river, vext with boils and swellings At rainy times, kept peace between their dwellings. So they two played at wordy battledore And kept a curse forever in the air, Flying this way or that from shore to shore; Nor other labor did this holy pair, 20 Clothed and supported from the lavish store Which crowds lanigerous brought with daily care; They toiled not, neither did they spin; their bias Was tow'rd the harder task of being pious. Each from his hut rushed six score times a day, Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed With cartridge theologic, (so to say,) Touched himself off, and then, recoiling, slammed His hovel's door behind him in away That to his foe said plainly,--_you'll_ be damned; 30 And so like Potts and Wainwright, shrill and strong The two D---- D'd each other all day long. One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan, The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist; One kept his whatd'yecallit and his Ramadan, Laughing to scorn the sacred rites and laws of his Transfluvial rival, who, in turn, called Ahmed an Old top, and, as a clincher, shook across a fist With nails six inches long, yet lifted not His eyes from off his navel's mystic knot. 40 'Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour Will go,' screamed Ahmed, 'to the evil place; May he eat dirt, and may the dog and Giaour Defile the graves of him and all his race; Allah loves faithful souls and gives them power To spin till they are purple in the face; Some folks get you know what, but he that pure is Earns Paradise and ninety thousand houris.' 'Upon the silver mountain, South by East, Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean; 30 He loves those men whose nails are still increased, Who all their lives keep ugly, foul, and lean; 'Tis of his grace that not a bird or beast Adorned with claws like mine was ever seen; The suns and stars are Brahma's thoughts divine, Even as these trees I seem to see are mine.' 'Thou seem'st to see, indeed!' roared Ahmed back; 'Were I but once across this plaguy stream, With a stout sapling in my hand, one whack On those lank ribs would rid thee of that dream! 60 Thy Brahma-blasphemy is ipecac To my soul's stomach; couldst thou grasp the scheme Of true redemption, thou wouldst know that Deity Whirls by a kind of blessed spontaneity. 'And this it is which keeps our earth here going With all the stars.'--'Oh, vile! but there's a place Prepared for such; to think of Brahma throwing Worlds like a juggler's balls up into Space! Why, not so much as a smooth lotos blowing Is e'er allowed that silence to efface 70 Which broods round Brahma, and our earth, 'tis known, Rests on a tortoise, moveless as this stone.' So they kept up their banning amoebæan, When suddenly came floating down the stream A youth whose face like an incarnate pæan Glowed, 'twas so full of grandeur and of gleam; 'If there _be_ gods, then, doubtless, this must be one,' Thought both at once, and then began to scream, 'Surely, whate'er immortals know, thou knowest, Decide between us twain before thou goest!' 80 The youth was drifting in a slim canoe Most like a huge white water-lily's petal, But neither of our theologians knew Whereof 'twas made; whether of heavenly metal Seldseen, or of a vast pearl split in two And hollowed, was a point they could not settle; 'Twas good debate-seed, though, and bore large fruit In after years of many a tart dispute. There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders. And yet he seemed so capable of rising 90 That, had he soared like thistle-down, beholders Had thought the circumstance noways surprising; Enough that he remained, and, when the scolders Hailed him as umpire in their vocal prize-ring, The painter of his boat he lightly threw Around a lotos-stem, and brought her to. The strange youth had a look as if he might Have trod far planets where the atmosphere (Of nobler temper) steeps the face with light, Just as our skins are tanned and freckled here; 100 His air was that of a cosmopolite In the wide universe from sphere to sphere; Perhaps he was (his face had such grave beauty) An officer of Saturn's guards off duty. Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile, That they might seize his ear; _fool! knave!_ and _dunce!_ Flew zigzag back and forth, like strokes of pencil In a child's fingers; voluble as duns, They jabbered like the stones on that immense hill 110 In the Arabian Nights; until the stranger Began to think his ear-drums in some danger. In general those who nothing have to say Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it; They turn and vary it in every way, Hashing it, stewing it, mincing it, _ragouting_ it; Sometimes they keep it purposely at bay, Then let it slip to be again pursuing it; They drone it, groan it, whisper it and shout it, Refute it, flout it, swear to 't, prove it, doubt it. 120 Our saints had practised for some thirty years; Their talk, beginning with a single stem, Spread like a banyan, sending down live piers, Colonies of digression, and, in them, Germs of yet new dispersion; once by the ears, They could convey damnation in a hem, And blow the pinch of premise-priming off Long syllogistic batteries, with a cough. Each had a theory that the human ear A providential tunnel was, which led 130 To a huge vacuum (and surely here They showed some knowledge of the general head,) For cant to be decanted through, a mere Auricular canal or mill-race fed All day and night, in sunshine and in shower, From their vast heads of milk-and-water-power. The present being a peculiar case, Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted, Put his spurred hobby through its every pace, 139 Pished, pshawed, poohed, horribled, bahed, jeered, sneered, flouted, Sniffed, nonsensed, infideled, fudged, with his face Looked scorn too nicely shaded to be shouted, And, with each inch of person and of vesture, Contrived to hint some most disdainful gesture. At length, when their breath's end was come about, And both could now and then just gasp 'impostor!' Holding their heads thrust menacingly out, As staggering cocks keep up their fighting posture, The stranger smiled and said, 'Beyond a doubt 'Tis fortunate, my friends, that you have lost your 150 United parts of speech, or it had been Impossible for me to get between. 'Produce! says Nature,--what have you produced? A new strait-waistcoat for the human mind; Are you not limbed, nerved, jointed, arteried, juiced, As other men? yet, faithless to your kind, Rather like noxious insects you are used To puncture life's fair fruit, beneath the rind Laying your creed-eggs, whence in time there spring Consumers new to eat and buzz and sting. 160 'Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweeten Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man; Had you been forced to earn what you have eaten, Your heaven had shown a less dyspeptic plan; At present your whole function is to eat ten And talk ten times as rapidly as you can; Were your shape true to cosmogonic laws, You would be nothing but a pair of jaws. 'Of all the useless beings in creation The earth could spare most easily you bakers 170 Of little clay gods, formed in shape and fashion Precisely in the image of their makers; Why it would almost move a saint to passion, To see these blind and deaf, the hourly breakers Of God's own image in their brother men, Set themselves up to tell the how, where, when, 'Of God's existence; one's digestion's worse-- So makes a god of vengeance and of blood; Another,--but no matter, they reverse Creation's plan, out of their own vile mud 180 Pat up a god, and burn, drown, hang, or curse Whoever worships not; each keeps his stud Of texts which wait with saddle on and bridle To hunt down atheists to their ugly idol. 'This, I perceive, has been your occupation; You should have been more usefully employed; All men are bound to earn their daily ration, Where States make not that primal contract void By cramps and limits; simple devastation Is the worm's task, and what he has destroyed 190 His monument; creating is man's work, And that, too, something more than mist and murk.' So having said, the youth was seen no more, And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher, Cried, 'That was aimed at thee, thou endless bore, Idle and useless as the growth of moss over A rotting tree-trunk!' 'I would square that score Full soon,' replied the Dervise, 'could I cross over And catch thee by the beard. Thy nails I'd trim And make thee work, as was advised by him. 200 'Work? Am I not at work from morn till night Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical Which for man's guidance never come to light, With all their various aptitudes, until I call?' 'And I, do I not twirl from left to right For conscience' sake? Is that no work? Thou silly gull, He had thee in his eye; 'twas Gabriel Sent to reward my faith, I know him well.' 'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!' and so The good old quarrel was begun anew; 210 One would have sworn the sky was black as sloe, Had but the other dared to call it blue; Nor were the followers who fed them slow To treat each other with their curses, too, Each hating t'other (moves it tears or laughter?) Because he thought him sure of hell hereafter. At last some genius built a bridge of boats Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filed Across, upon a mission to (cut throats And) spread religion pure and undefiled; 220 They sowed the propagandist's wildest oats, Cutting off all, down to the smallest child, And came back, giving thanks for such fat mercies, To find their harvest gone past prayers or curses. All gone except their saint's religious hops, Which he kept up with more than common flourish; But these, however satisfying crops For the inner man, were not enough to nourish The body politic, which quickly drops Reserve in such sad junctures, and turns currish; 230 So Ahmed soon got cursed for all the famine Where'er the popular voice could edge a damn in. At first he pledged a miracle quite boldly. And, for a day or two, they growled and waited; But, finding that this kind of manna coldly Sat on their stomachs, they erelong berated The saint for still persisting in that old lie, Till soon the whole machine of saintship grated, Ran slow, creaked, stopped, and, wishing him in Tophet, They gathered strength enough to stone the prophet. 240 Some stronger ones contrived (by eatting leather, Their weaker friends, and one thing or another) The winter months of scarcity to weather; Among these was the late saint's younger brother, Who, in the spring, collecting them together, Persuaded them that Ahmed's holy pother Had wrought in their behalf, and that the place Of Saint should be continued to his race. Accordingly, 'twas settled on the spot That Allah favored that peculiar breed; 250 Beside, as all were satisfied, 'twould not Be quite respectable to have the need Of public spiritual food forgot; And so the tribe, with proper forms, decreed That he, and, failing him, his next of kin, Forever for the people's good should spin.
Two rival holy men — one Muslim and the other Hindu — dedicate their lives to tossing curses and theological insults at each other across a river, both convinced the other is destined for hell. A radiant, godlike stranger floats by, hears their nonsense, and scolds them: stop creating little clay gods in your own image and get to work. They completely disregard him and return to their argument, which ultimately spirals into a holy war, a famine, and the establishment of a new hereditary priesthood — because, naturally, that’s how it goes.
Line-by-line
Somewhere in India, upon a time, / (Read it not Injah, or you spoil the verse,)
One half the time of each was spent in praying / For blessings on his own unworthy head,
So they two played at wordy battledore / And kept a curse forever in the air,
Each from his hut rushed six score times a day, / Like a great canon of the Church full-rammed
One was a dancing Dervise, a Mohammedan, / The other was a Hindoo, a gymnosophist;
'Who whirls not round six thousand times an hour / Will go,' screamed Ahmed, 'to the evil place;
'Upon the silver mountain, South by East, / Sits Brahma fed upon the sacred bean;
'Thou seem'st to see, indeed!' roared Ahmed back; / 'Were I but once across this plaguy stream,
'And this it is which keeps our earth here going / With all the stars.'--'Oh, vile! but there's a place
So they kept up their banning amoebæan, / When suddenly came floating down the stream
The youth was drifting in a slim canoe / Most like a huge white water-lily's petal,
There were no wings upon the stranger's shoulders. / And yet he seemed so capable of rising
Both saints began to unfold their tales at once, / Both wished their tales, like simial ones, prehensile,
In general those who nothing have to say / Contrive to spend the longest time in doing it;
Each had a theory that the human ear / A providential tunnel was, which led
The present being a peculiar case, / Each with unwonted zeal the other scouted,
At length, when their breath's end was come about, / And both could now and then just gasp 'impostor!'
'Produce! says Nature,--what have you produced? / A new strait-waistcoat for the human mind;
'Work! you have no conception how 'twill sweeten / Your views of Life and Nature, God and Man;
'Of all the useless beings in creation / The earth could spare most easily you bakers
'This, I perceive, has been your occupation; / You should have been more usefully employed;
So having said, the youth was seen no more, / And straightway our sage Brahmin, the philosopher,
'Work? Am I not at work from morn till night / Sounding the deeps of oracles umbilical
'Twas Vishnu, thou vile whirligig!' and so / The good old quarrel was begun anew;
At last some genius built a bridge of boats / Over the stream, and Ahmed's zealots filed
All gone except their saint's religious hops, / Which he kept up with more than common flourish;
Some stronger ones contrived (by eatting leather, / Their weaker friends, and one thing or another)
Accordingly, 'twas settled on the spot / That Allah favored that peculiar breed;
Tone & mood
The tone is comic and satirical throughout, but it packs a punch. Lowell follows the tradition of mock-heroic verse—using the elevated ottava rima stanza (borrowed from Byron's *Don Juan*) to poke fun at its subject instead of dignifying it. The humor starts off broad and pun-filled in the early stanzas, becomes sharper and more incisive in the stranger's speech, and turns genuinely dark in the final movement with the onset of holy war and famine. The voice carries no anger, which makes the critique hit harder: Lowell sounds like someone who finds religious fanaticism more absurd than scary—until the moment children start getting killed.
Symbols & metaphors
- The river — The flood-prone river separating the two saints is the only barrier keeping their abstract hatred from boiling over into physical violence. As soon as a bridge is built across it, the massacre ensues. It represents the fragile barriers — geography, law, circumstance — that stop ideological conflict from becoming deadly.
- The radiant stranger — The youth in the water-lily canoe symbolizes reason or a universal moral clarity that isn't tied to any specific belief system. He embodies beauty, calmness, and a sense of detachment that feels almost otherworldly. His message is straightforward and secular: focus on work, be creative, and stop crafting gods that mirror ourselves. The fact that both saints rush to adopt him as their own deity as soon as he departs highlights their inability to truly understand him.
- The clay gods — The stranger describes men as 'bakers of little clay gods shaped exactly like their creators,' which serves as the poem's main symbol. This concept flips the Genesis narrative — rather than God creating man in His likeness, man creates God in his own. These clay gods are tiny, local, and primarily serve the purpose of oppressing others.
- The bridge of boats — The bridge built across the river is described as the work of 'some genius,' but the irony is striking: this engineering feat that links the two communities facilitates a genocide. It shows how eliminating natural barriers between opposing ideologies leads to violence rather than understanding.
- The hereditary sainthood — The poem's final image—the tribe voting to make Ahmed's brother the permanent, hereditary saint—highlights the entrenchment of religious deception. Instead of abolishing sainthood after the disaster it brought, the community formalizes it, prioritizing the social role it plays over the need for truth.
- Whirling and navel-gazing — The unique rituals associated with each saint — the dervish's spinning and the ascetic's meditation on his own navel — are selected for their self-referential nature and their lack of outward production. They serve as ideal symbols of a faith that has turned completely inward, creating only more of its own essence.
Historical context
James Russell Lowell penned this poem in the 1840s, a time when he stood out as one of America's keenest satirical voices and a staunch abolitionist. It fits within a tradition of Orientalist fables that serve as a means to critique domestic religious practices—allowing the poet to address Christianity in a way that avoids direct confrontation. Lowell drew significant inspiration from Byron's *Don Juan*, adopting the ottava rima stanza (eight lines of iambic pentameter, rhyming ABABABCC) directly from that comedic epic style. His focus isn't on Islam or Hinduism per se—Lowell seems to lack a deep understanding of either religion's theology—but rather on the broader issue of sectarian certainty: the belief that one's own rituals represent the only true path, condemning all others. The famine and massacre depicted in the poem's final movement lend a political sharpness that aligns with Lowell's wider critique of organized religion as a means of social control and violence.
FAQ
Not really. Lowell uses two non-Christian holy men to represent religious fanaticism in a broader sense. The particular rituals he describes (whirling, navel-gazing, long nails) are picked for their comedic effect rather than their accuracy. His true targets are sectarian certainty, clerical laziness, and the violence that ensues when abstract theological hatred finds a way to manifest.
Lowell leaves him deliberately ambiguous—he could be divine or just an exceptionally wise and beautiful traveler. What truly matters is his message: stop crafting gods in your own image, get to work, and recognize that creating is humanity's real purpose. The irony is that both saints quickly claim him as their own god the moment he vanishes, showing they understood nothing at all.
An apologue is a moral fable—a story with a distinct lesson, similar to Aesop's fables. Lowell makes it clear from the start that this is a satirical parable rather than a realistic narrative. The 'Oriental' setting serves as a typical 18th- and 19th-century tool for social criticism, allowing the story to exist at a comfortably exotic distance.
The ottava rima stanza — eight lines that rhyme ABABABCC — is the structure Byron chose for *Don Juan*, his notable comic epic from the early 19th century. This choice hints to readers that they’re engaging with mock-heroic verse: the lofty form amplifies the absurdity of trivial matters, making them seem even sillier. The intricate rhyme scheme pushes Lowell to create humorous coinages like 'nonsensed' and 'infideled,' which he might not have otherwise considered.
Ahmed's followers cross the river and attack the Hindu community, killing men, women, and children. They return to discover their own harvest has been ruined, leaving them to starve. Ahmed assures them a miracle will happen, but it never does, leading to him being stoned by his own people. His brother quickly reinterprets the calamity as a sign of divine favor and secures his position as a hereditary saint. The poem concludes with religious deceit being officially recognized rather than condemned. It's a bleak ending: the system continues to thrive.
It refers to wool-bearing animals — specifically, sheep. Lowell is referring to the followers who support and care for the saints as a flock of sheep, which serves as both a common metaphor for religious groups and a sharp insult. He opts for the Latinate term instead of simply using 'sheep' to maintain the mock-elevated tone.
Almost certainly. Lowell was writing during a time of fierce Protestant sectarian conflict in America, and the poem's depiction of two men who find common ground only in their belief that the other is damned directly reflects the denominational battles between groups like Calvinists and Unitarians, or various evangelical sects. The hereditary sainthood mentioned at the end critiques established churches that conferred authority based on family or social ties instead of true spiritual merit.
He suggests that the saints haven't truly discovered God—they've created one based on their own biases, desires, and thirst for social influence. The vengeful god fits the man with a sour stomach; the ritualistic god appeals to someone who enjoys rituals. Each god is essentially a reflection of the creator. The stranger argues that this type of theology is not only ineffective but also harmful, as it transforms the crafted idol into a tool for attacking others.