“Whatever is begotten, born, and dies”: Sailing to 14x08
Ok fam! I intended, I really did, to write a nice chewy piece of speculation about “Byzantium” and what it might be referencing and how I think it ties into the “sacrifice” Castiel is likely to make. But then Tumblr went kablooey and also I have a huge series of events at work that are taking up all my time and also really wearing me out. So I’m going to push through and see what I can do! I also had some thoughts from this post I made before (which I know that @amwritingmeta added a lot of great stuff to the original post but Tumblr is being a total ass and not showing me those additions...reblog with link?)
Onto the new stuff! So, W.B. Yeats wrote a poem, “Sailing to Byzantium,” that is super famous and that you probably had to study in school. People like to use Yeats for titles so this may not even be relevant but I am a literature nerd of the highest order and I am not going to pass up an opportunity to geek out here. (Also: there is a 70s band called Byzantium that has a self-titled album and one called “Seasons Changing.” I guess that’s probably a more likely referent but idgaf I am going with this Yeats thing!]
[Fairly wild speculation based on a Yeats poem below the cut. Tl; dr is that I think Jack will die in 14x08 and that he will want to. The “sacrifice” Cas makes and the thing that Dean thinks is “unfair” is the same thing and that’s letting him make his own decision to die. But don’t worry he’ll be back.]
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Gorgeous, right? Definitely read it out loud if you can. Do it! You know Misha would want you to. I’ll wait.
Now, although this poem is uplifting it is also about dying (yeahhhhh poetry!). In fact, the phrase “sailing to Byzantium” itself can be taken as an expression that means “dying.” The famous first line, “That is no country for old men,” contrasts wherever the (aged) speaker is coming from with where he is going--Byzantium, a place that is for “old men.” It’s true that the speaker doesn’t fit in. Even as he imagines young people in the fecund richness of his native country he refers to them as “those dying generations” who forget to make “monuments of unageing intellect” (aka art) because they are so caught in sensual pleasure. But they should not forget that “Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.”
The application to TFW at this point is clear. Jack is dying. He’s young, residing in a country where he was literally just catching fish at the “salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas.” Whatever is begotten, born, and dies. We were there when Jack was begotten (with that Christ-like language) and born and now we are going to be there when he dies. And death is very much on our minds these episodes - it’s the flip side to being alive, to being human.
The next stanza, “An aged man is but a paltry thing,/ A tattered coat upon a stick, unless/ Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing/ For every tatter in its mortal dress” (a thing which, of course, is accomplished through art). This initially made me think of Cas because of the “tattered coat upon a stick,” but THEN last episode Cas put his coat on JACK in a moment that emphasized his frailty, his humanity, and his move toward death:
(gifs originally by @supernaturaldaily)
“And therefore I have sailed the seas and come/ To the holy city of Byzantium.”
Now, it’s not a perfect match, but in the show Heaven is the closest you can get to this paradise of art Yeats describes. And if Jack dies, well, that’s likely where he’ll be going. In the poem, the speaker calls upon “sages standing in God’s holy fire” and envisions them as works of art. (*nods about resonance of “holy fire”*) He also asks that they “Consume my heart away; sick with desire/ And fastened to a dying animal.” He’d rather break his soul away from earthly limitations, the “dying animal,” and he wants it so badly it makes him “sick with desire” (though you can also read that line as saying his heart is “sick with desire” because he’s full of carnal needs and desires).
Could it be that Jack will want to die?? That that is what Dean and Cas are talking about in the hallway? He seemed to be going along that path already and goodness knows it would make him into even more of a Christ figure (waves at @postmodernmulticoloredcloak‘s beautiful piece about Dean being posed with Jack like a pieta at the end of 14x06). Incidentally, the poem ends with the speaker saying that, once he’s free of his body, he will never take a natural form again but constitute himself into a work of art - either a physical object or a song. I don’t find that super relevant yet but who knows?
So, now what do we know so far about 14x08? We know that it involves the Heaven plot line and that “angel radio is playing a distress call” and that “all of heaven’s gates are open.” Yikes. And we’ve got Lily Sunder there (yaaassss) being asked to help with some kind of “miracle” involving angels which she says she can’t do. In our other promo, we have an emotional DeanCas hallway convo (sidebar: I kind of want to track all the emotional conversations in hallways these guys have like I was doing with “front seat feelings”) in which Dean talks about the unfairness of something Jack-related and Cas tells him that of course it isn’t fair but Jack needs him.
What does Jack need Dean to do? I see a two distinct possibilities. It could be contacting Michael, or letting him back in, to get another vial of archangel grace. Or it could be....letting Jack die. I certainly know which of those two options is more likely to upset Dean that much!
So this episode will involve: 1) Heaven in distress and an attempt to save it; 2) Dean having to do something difficult that isn’t fair to try to save Jack; 3) Castiel making an “enormous sacrifice.” It’s fairly clear that the “enormous sacrifice” will be related to the Heaven plot while the Jack plot is (likely) separate.
In terms of “enormous sacrifice” I think there are only a couple options for Cas. I was initially saying “his grace” and speculating that Cas would become human for Jack but then 14x07 told us so explicitly that Cas would give his grace up in a heartbeat but that it couldn’t help Jack that I now thing that option is pretty much out. The only way it could still be his grace on the off chance that it can be used to close the doors of Heaven with the spell that Metatron took it for before (for which he needed Castiel’s grace specifically).
The other option is someone in, or all of, his earthly family. If Cas has to close himself off in Heaven to save it that would be an “enormous sacrifice” that lost all of them. If Dean had to be possessed by Michael again that would be a huge loss for Cas and my Destiel heart would love it. But, honestly, I think letting Jack die is the huge sacrifice that they are ALL going to make. And it would be hugely significant, in a way, if they actually let him decide to die because that’s been a fairly major sticking point (and example of codependency) in the past.
Byzantium is the place you sail to when you die and the speaker cannot wait to get there. Context clues suggest that Jack is in the position of the speaker. I predict that Jack is going to want to die, to demand it even, and that the hardest thing they all have to do is respect his wishes and let him. It is, after all, the season of “What do you want?” so if he knows they should darn well listen!
Tagging @elizabethrobertajones @tinkdw @bluestar86 @amwritingmeta @7faerielights @naruhearts @intelligentshipper @emblue-sparks in case they have thoughts to add or just really like poetry.
I know that this is almost definitely not the meaning of the title of 14x08, “Byzantium” but my very first association is with the W.B. Yeats poem “Sailing to Byzantium: that begins, “That is no country for old men.” It feels like there’s a lot potentially happening now with ideas of succession and generations, with Jack on the scene and with the turnover of power in Heaven and Hell, with Dean’s heartbreaking daydream of a TFW beach trip with umbrella drinks, Hawaiian shirts, and toes in the sand. It’s potentially the midseason finale too (with the shorter season). Feels like it could be thematically resonant.
I’ll put the poem below, for those who don’t know it, but Yeats wrote it about the quest of the soul for enlightenment (symbolized by Byzantium) aided by art.
I
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another's arms, birds in the trees,
—Those dying generations—at their song,
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever is begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.
II
An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.
III
O sages standing in God's holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.
IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.
Prediction: The DeanCas conversation we saw in the promo comes from a scene where Dean is upset because he’s going to lose Cas for some reason (probably staying in Heaven to keep the lights on) and he can’t go with him or instead of him (as he likely offers to) because Cas thinks Jack needs him. Dean will essentially be asked--by Cas--to sacrifice Cas for Jack, which is a reason that they just spent 14x07 emphasizing how much Dean loves Jack and has come to regard himself as one of Jack’s fathers. It will legitimately be a terrible choice for him to make now.
And it may--just MAY--lead to him telling Cas what it was like for him the last time Cas was gone for good. That’s probably too much to hope, but it certainly sounded like it was building up to SOMETHING.
Hey all! I was going to write a nice, chewy spec piece about 14x08 based on my love of Yeats and the poem “Sailing to Byzantium” but then I was so exhausted by having made it through 2 weeks with my parents in residence that I just...didn’t. Still, I hope I can tomorrow!
Quick teaser...it contains these lines:
“An aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress,”
So...it’s not a stretch to say that the elevated soul in Yeats is like heavenly grace in SPN and that, without it, “an aged man” is “a tattered coat upon a stick.” Gosh...does that remind anyone of anything? Maybe something related to the coat we saw Cas putting on Jack last episode?
What does that mean for what I think about the episode, Castiel’s “sacrifice”, and his (human?) endgame? Tune in next time, friends! (I bet you will all be on the edge of your seats...)
