the boat responded
The third DA is for Damyata (control yourself).
Eliot, a keen sailor in his youth, illustrates the concept of control with the image of a boat: the captain steers the craft by adjustments to the tiller and the sails, just as the conscious mind should control the actions of the body. The comparison is reinforced with a pun on beating, which could refer to the heart, or to the technique employed to sail a boat against the direction of the wind*. By careful control of the boat, we may avoid death by water, the fate of Phlebas. The use of the conditional your heart would have responded... introduces a sense of doubt as to whether or not the correct course has been taken, however.
*F Scott Fitzgerald, who was a self-confessed "worshipper" of Eliot, concluded The Great Gatsby with a similar image: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
Eliot, a keen sailor in his youth, illustrates the concept of control with the image of a boat: the captain steers the craft by adjustments to the tiller and the sails, just as the conscious mind should control the actions of the body. The comparison is reinforced with a pun on beating, which could refer to the heart, or to the technique employed to sail a boat against the direction of the wind*. By careful control of the boat, we may avoid death by water, the fate of Phlebas. The use of the conditional your heart would have responded... introduces a sense of doubt as to whether or not the correct course has been taken, however.
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| Eliot sailing |
*F Scott Fitzgerald, who was a self-confessed "worshipper" of Eliot, concluded The Great Gatsby with a similar image: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
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