Saturday Rave: A Man Named Paul.

There once was a young man called Paul,

Who went to a fancy-dress ball.

He thought he would risk it

And go as a biscuit,

But a dog ate him up in the hall.

 

The name of the author of this great tragic poem is lost, though the work itself resonates down the years to our own time.

 

Paul (possibly a reference to the Apostle (the description of him as young, together with the mention of an important journey, suggests a pre-Damascene Paul)) is disguised as a biscuit (there is nothing half-baked about this young man). This wearing of someone else's clothes echoes the story of Paul's having held the coats during the stoning of Stephen, and again points us firmly in the direction of the apostle.

 

But Paul is consumed utterly. Whether this is a reference to martyrdom, or to the subjugation of self involved in religious conversion, the poet, tantalisingly, does not choose to tell us, but the dog is surely relevant, being literally a reverse form of God.
 

 

 

The very ending of the poem, though, hints at happiness because the dog is left in the hall. It cannot penetrate the party itself, and so Paul, now he has been consumed, will be safe from all danger during the ultimate and eternal festivities of heaven.

Or something.

 Word To Use Today: biscuit. This word comes from the French (pain) bescuit, twice-cooked bread, from bis, twice, plus cuire, from the Latin coquere to cook.