У кости, что без мозга,
каков предел мечтам?
Ей в пищу не сгодиться
ни бедным, ни котам.
Быть костью - обязует.
Быть сущим - тот же долг.
Набор костей безмозглых
провинней всех стыдоб.
Но как созданьям цельным
роль посвежей достать?
Вновь тени Никодима
пред нами представать!
[David Preest:
Just as a marrowless ‘Bone’ has no ‘Ultimate’ use,
so the assembly of bones making up a man is more
blameworthy ‘than shame,’ if it does not have the
‘Marrow’ of rebirth or ‘function fresh’ after it
has died and is seemingly ‘finished.’ It will be a
mere ‘Phantom,’ as Nicodemus had once implied it was.
When Jesus surprised the Jewish elder Nicodemus
with the statement, ‘Except a man be born again,
he cannot see the kingdom of God,’ Nicodemus asked
in exasperation:
‘How can a man be born when he is old?’ (John 3:3-4)
The story of Nicodemus was also used in poem 140.]
*******************************************
The Bone that has no Marrow, by Emily Dickinson
The Bone that has no Marrow,
What Ultimate for that?
It is not fit for Table
For Beggar or for Cat.
A Bone has obligations --
A Being has the same --
A Marrowless Assembly
Is culpabler than shame.
But how shall finished Creatures
A function fresh obtain?
Old Nicodemus' Phantom
Confronting us again!