All about Walt Whitman

2.5.5 Calamus, Carpus, aulos or ‘reed singers’

Going a little further to explore the multiple meanings of calamus or sweet flag, the description of the plant below shows us why it was indicated by the Lord in the Bible as a spice to make the “holy oyntment”: it is a medicinal plant. The following passage gives us an extensive and accurate description of its various uses:

Sweet flag [which grows in Europe, Asia and N. America] has a very long history of medicinal use in many herbal traditions. It is widely employed in modern herbal medicine as an aromatic stimulant and mild tonic. In Ayurveda [Hindu science of health and medicine] it is highly valued as a rejuvenator for the brain and nervous system and as a remedy for digestive disorders. […] The root is anodyne, aphrodisiac, aromatic, […] expectorant, febrifuge, hallucinogenic, hypotensive, sedative, stimulant, stomachic, mildly tonic and vermifuge. It is used internally in the treatment of digestive complaints, bronchitis, sinusitis, etc. It is said to have wonderfully tonic powers of stimulating and normalizing the appetite. In small doses it reduces stomach acidity whilst larger doses increase stomach secretions and it is, therefore, recommended in the treatment of anorexia nervosa. […] Sweet flag is also used externally to treat skin eruptions, rheumatic pains and neuralgia. An infusion of the root can bring about an abortion whilst chewing the root alleviates toothache. It is a folk remedy for arthritis, cancer, convulsions, diarrhoea, dyspepsia, epilepsy etc. Chewing the root is said to kill the taste for tobacco. […] It is used in the treatment of flatulence, dyspepsia, anorexia and disorders of the gall bladder.[1]

Although the sweet flag is present in the USA and in many other countries, especially all over Europe and Asia, in Leaves of Grass it sounds completely American given the symbolism it acquires when used by Whitman to represent comradeship as the basis for democracy[2]. The wide range of products made from calamus demonstrates its high potential for symbolic use; one type of calamus, the common reed, which grows throughout the world, is shown below in its multiplicity of purposes:

The stems are useful in the production of homogeneous boards. They can also be processed into a fine fibrous material suitable as a filler in upholstery. The stems have many uses. They are used for thatching roofs. […] The stems and leaves are also used for building dwellings, lattices [framework in crisscross pattern], fences, arrows by Indians, and for weaving mats, carrying nets, basket making, insulation, fuel, as a cork substitute etc. The stem contains over 50 percent cellulose and is useful in the manufacture of pulps for rayon and paper. The fibre from the leaves and stems is used for making paper. […] A fibre obtained from the plant is used for making string. The flowering stalks yield a fibre suitable for rope making. […] A light green dye is obtained from the flowers. Freshly cut shoots are a good green manure. […] The inflorescences are used as brooms. The plant can be used as a cork substitute. […] The plant is mixed with mud to make a plaster for walls. Pens for writing on parchment were cut and fashioned from the thin stems of this reed, whilst the stems were also used as a linear measuring device. The plant has a very vigorous and running rootstock, it is useful for binding the soil along the sides of streams etc. It is planted for flood control since it stabilizes the banks and gradually builds up soil depth, thus raising the level of the bank.[3]

Apart from all this, it is useful to explain that a “pen” made from reed is similar to a quill, which is a pen made from the shaft of a bird’s feather. Consequently, the “reed pen” is also called calamus, which is a writing instrument. This way, both words, reed and calamus, are used to describe writing tools, as both words are used to name the plant. There is still another word, calumet, which is a name for the Amerindian peace pipe or tobacco pipe, a ceremonial pipe smoked on special occasions as a token of peace, which was often made from a hollow reed. The word “calumet” comes from the word calamus. This term, known to Whitman, appears in the poem “Our Old Feuillage”, in the following lines: “In arriere [that is, in the past] the peace-talk with the Iroquois the aborigines, the calumet, the pipe of good-will, arbitration, and indorsement [sic], / The sachem[4] blowing the smoke first toward the sun and then toward the earth” (WHITMAN, 1996, p.321), to describe the old custom of the Amerindians of smoking the today famous pipe of peace. Finally, there are the reed instruments, such as clarinet or saxophone, which use reeds to produce their sound (see pan pipe below).

From all this information we can see that calamus, or reed, has many and important meanings, which define its relevant role in Leaves of Grass. This is why the poet chose it to be the “token” of manly love, as mentioned in “These, I Singing in Spring” from “Calamus”, where he sings how he drew it from the water where he “last saw him that tenderly loves me, and returns again never to separate from me, / And this, O this shall henceforth be the token of comrades, this calamus-root shall” (1996, p.273). This is the same “Root of wash’d sweet-flag!” that appears in section 24 of “Song of Myself”, where the name of the poet first appeared in the 1855 edition. This means that the reed, also called sweet-flag, is placed in its natural context as a plant. This plant, in an act of poetic creation, is used in its “ethereal sense” as the symbol of “manly attachment” and of the “athletic Democracy” that will “define America”, as the poet sings in “To Foreign Lands”, from “Inscriptions” (WHITMAN, 2002, p.5). As is told in the Greek myth, Calamus becomes a plant that has medicinal use, as stated above, and Carpus, the fruit, becomes food for living beings, as we can see in this brief account of the myth of Carpus:

The Greek mythological figure Karpos (or Carpus, literally “fruit”), was a youth renowned for his beauty. He is the son of Zephyros (the west wind) and Khloris (spring or new vegetation), forming a natural metaphor — the west wind heralds the new growth of spring, which then bears fruit.[5]

Thus, there is a natural connection between Calamus and Carpus, one being a plant by a river bank and the other being the fruit of a plant. As such, in an act of metamorphous reunion, they will remain close to each other forever, for there are environmental aspects that will always join them, such as soil, water, wind, sun, in short, Nature. Therefore, it is practically impossible to reduce all this symbolism to a mere case of homoerotic love. Actually, the more we study the significance of the reed, the more meanings we find. Each meaning leads to another, and in the end, we have a web of interconnected interpretations, all of them illuminating the poetry of Leaves of Grass, as the literal case of the medicinal use of calamus that can be used to heal the body and soul of the people, and Carpus, the fruit, as food for them.

Another example of this is the fact that Carpus, the fruit, is also the word that originates the Latin verb “carpere” (AURÉLIO, 1999, p.414), whose equivalent in Portuguese is “carpir”, which means “to weep” and “to remove weed”. “Carpere” means to pluck, to pull or pull out a plant or flower, and to remove weed; it also means to gather or to harvest, as in the Latin expression Carpe Diem, which means to seize, catch or gather the day, or, figuratively,  live for today. Similarly to “carpir” in Portuguese, there is the verb “to carp” in English, which means to say, tell, or express grief, as when someone complains about something or weeps. Moreover, there is the broader significance of Carpus, the fruit: fruit and fruition come from the Latin word “frui”, the infinitive form of the verb “fruor”, “to enjoy” (“fructus” means “enjoyment”). So, Carpe Diem can be translated as Enjoy the Day, being life and day the fruits of Time that must be enjoyed now, for in the end Time will be responsible for the decay of all living bodies moving on the face of this planet (Space). Thus, Carpus represents both the fruit and its enjoyment, without which the meaning reverses, becoming “to carp”, that is, crying or weeping over something that did not happen, or for someone who has died[6]. There is also a feminine version of Carpus, which is one of the Horae, who are the Athenian goddesses of nature, Daughters of Zeus and Themis; they are Thallo, Auxo and Carpo, who controlled the growth of plants. Thallo, Auxo and Carpo mean budding, growth and ripening (GRIMAL, 1991, p.205). They guarded the entrance to Olympus and were befriended by Pan, the god of shepherds and flocks, as we will see below. This way, Carpus, the fruit, has a feminine equivalent, Carpo, who represents ripening, the part of the natural process that makes the fruit available to be eaten.

As we mentioned before, the reed is also used to symbolize parts of musical instruments or to make them. This appears in the following lines, which describe the poet’s vision when he travels, in which we see “Where the katy-did works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree over the well;”[7] and when “the performer launches his nerve—he has pass’d his prelude on the reeds within.”[8], contexts where the reed appears as parts of a musical instrument used to describe parts of the body of an insect and of a person. Now, as a musical instrument made from reed, we can mention the reed pipe, pan pipe, or pan flute. The fact is that the

pan flute (also known as panpipes, syrinx, or quills) is an ancient musical instrument based on the principle of the stopped pipe, consisting usually of ten or more pipes of gradually increasing length (and, at times, girth). The syrinx (Greek ??????) has long been popular as a folk instrument, and is considered the ancestor of both the pipe organ and the harmonica, or mouth organ. The pan flute is named for its association with the rustic Greek god Pan. The pipes of the pan flute are typically made from bamboo or giant reed; [9]

And legend has it that Hermes was Pan’s father and also the inventor of the pan pipe. According to Grimal, there was a “Homeric Hymn” that said that Pan was:

[…] a god of shepherds and flocks. He was depicted as half-man half-animal, with a reed pipe, a shepherd’s crook and a branch of pine or a crown of pine leaves. […] a Homeric Hymn says that he was the son of Hermes by a daughter of Dryops. […] Pan’s mother was frightened by her monstrous offspring, but Hermes carried him off to Olympus. The gods were delighted with the child. […] and he was given the name Pan because he made them all feel happy (in popular etymology Pan is derived from the Greek pan, meaning ‘all’) (1991, p.324-5).

In addition, there is the aulos (Roman tibia), a single or double reed-pipe (auloi), the most important wind instrument of ancient Middle Eastern cultures, which existed until the Middle Ages. It could be made of cane (a flexible stem of bamboo or Arundo donax, the giant reed, for example), wood or metal. Its reed, the thin strip that vibrates to produce the sound on wind instruments, was made from reed as well (Encyclopedia Britannica, 1992, p.703). As in ancient times poetry and music were closely related, the calamus becomes even more important in the context of the Leaves, because it is also established as a link between a lyric/epic past and Whitman’s attempt to create a lyric/epic present, as the title of Nagy’s book indicates, “Pindar’s Homer: the lyric possession of an epic past”, which brings Nagy’s statement that “[…] instrumental accompaniment of the words of song is primary, while instrumental solo is secondary” (1990, p.34). This means that stringed instruments such as lyre, harp, kithara (Latin cithara) and wind instruments such as pipes and flutes are inherent to poetry. As we can see in this quotation from Nagy’s book: “In the same context of Panhellenic festivals, what we have been calling song or lyric poetry is being performed verbatim by kitharoidoi ‘lyre singers’ and auloidoi ‘reed singers’” (1990, p.54).

Moreover, Greek mythology teaches us that the lyre was a gift from Zeus to Apollo (his son), the god of poetry and music and inspirer of seers and poets, and an instrument Apollo acquired from Hermes in exchange for his cattle (GRIMAL, 1991, p.50). It also shows that Dionysus shares the position of god of music and poetry with Apollo; however, the instruments which are present in his festivals are the flute and the pan pipe, which Pan, the son of Hermes, plays whenever he joins the processions (1991, p.325). Besides, both gods are related to nature, for “Apollo’s love affairs with Nymphs and young people who became flowers and trees linked him intimately with plant growth and Nature” (1991, p.50) while “Dionysus, god of wine and inspiration, was worshipped with tumultuous processions in which the spirits of the earth and of fecundity appeared […]” (1991, p.129). In a way, we can say that Whitman is Apollonian as well as Dionysian, that is, he is rational and intuitive, orderly and chaotic, platonic and sensual (as described particularly in the Symposium), sharing a cosmic love with the world, limpid, solar, and dionysiac, loving the body without fear, turning what is in the world, the crude physical reality of his time into something spiritual, utopian and perfect, that is, poetic or artistic.[10] This excerpt from Specimen Days, “Thoughts Under an Oak—A Dream”, gives us a description of these two mental states, contemplation and trance, experienced by the poet and recorded by himself:

[…] Seated here in solitude [June 2, 1878] I have been musing over my life—connecting events, dates, as links of a chain, neither sadly nor cheerily, but somehow, to-day here under the oak, in the rain, in an unusually matter-of-fact spirit.

But my great oak—sturdy, vital, green—five feet thick at the butt. I sit a great deal near or under him. Then the tulip tree near by—the Apollo of the woods—tall and graceful, yet robust and sinewy, inimitable in hang of foliage and throwing-out of limb; as if the beauteous, vital, leafy creature could walk, if it only would. (I had a sort of dream-trance the other day, in which I saw my favorite trees step out and promenade up, down and around, very curiously—with a whisper from one, leaning down as he pass’d me, We do all this on the present occasion, exceptionally, just for you.) (WHITMAN, 1996, p.840)

As for the elements that appear in the myth of Pan quoted above, they are present in the Leaves too. If we consider the three objects carried or worn by Pan, we will see that they are mentioned by Whitman in his works. First, the pipe: “Was the wind piping the pipe of death under the black clouds?”, which is a line from the poem “Rise O Days from your Fathomless Deeps” from “Drum-Taps” (WHITMAN, 1996, p.427). Second, the crook, which can also be called staff, which is mentioned in this line: “My signs are a rain-proof coat, good shoes, and a staff cut from the woods,” from section 46 of “Song of Myself”, the same staff that could appear in the Bible[11], for example, or in Greek mountains carried by a shepherd like Pan. And third, the pine, as in “Limitless out of the dusk, out of the cedars and pines. // Sing on dearest brother, warble your reedy song”, from “When lilacs […]” (1996, p.463); finally, “Welcome are lands of pine and oak”, from “Song of the Broad-Axe” (1996, p.331). It is not difficult to see that there are many classic components or mythical traces spread throughout the Leaves.

However many are they, we still have more information to provide on these interconnections between poetry, myth and ancient history that mingle in Whitman’s poetry to weave this fabric of symbols and meanings. The above mentioned pan pipe, which is also known as syrinx, is actually another Greek myth and a very interesting one, closely related to Pan. It is really worth mentioning it here, because of its context which conveys a sexual intention that is overcome by sacrifice. The Syrinx was:

An Arcadian Hamadryad who was loved by Pan. The god pursued her, but just as he was about to catch her, she changed herself into a reed on the banks of the River Ladon. As the wind’s breath was making the reeds sigh, Pan had the idea of joining reeds of different lengths together with wax. He thus made a musical instrument which he called the Syrinx. (GRIMAL, 1991, p.412)

This myth is similar to the myth of Calamus in the sense that it contains a metamorphosis, and especially because the Hamadryad changed herself into a reed by a river bank just like Calamus in a moment of pain: Calamus did it out of grief for the loss of his beloved friend Carpus; the Syrinx, because she was persecuted, and preferred undergoing a transformation to being caught. Both become reeds by an act of sacrifice, for they give up their actual form of life by changing themselves into a plant. They do not simply take their own lives; they choose to live under a different life form. However, they sigh when they are blown by the wind, which is the sound of their weeping. According to myth, Pan tested whether young girls were virgins by taking them to a grotto near the River Ladon and waiting for the sound of the Syrinx, which meant virginity, for which the girls were crowned with pine; silence would indicate death. This scene reminds us of the famous section 11 of “Song of Myself” where the poet tells the tale of a “lady” who has lived “twenty eight years” of a lonesome life in a house by a river (or lake) bank where now “twenty eight young men bathe by the shore”. The lady, who is “stock still” in her room watching the boys from behind “the blinds of the window” shows some resemblance to the Syrinx in the sense that she can not have contact with the boys, in the same way that the Syrinx could not be physically touched by Pan. The only contact the Hamadryad could have with Pan was through her sighing, while the lady could at most pass “an unseen hand” on the young men’s bodies. In both situations, there is the impossibility of physical contact between male and female.

Another element in the study of this web of meanings in Leaves of Grass is the fact that Hamadryads were “Tree Nymphs who were born with the trees they protected, and shared their fate”, and whose significance is explained by Whitman in “Specimen Days” in the article titled “The Lesson of a Tree”, a magnificent expression of his love for nature, specially trees, where he describes his spiritual connection with nature when he shows how a plant is also a being:

[…] What suggestions of imperturbability and being, as against the human trait of mere seeming. Then the qualities, almost emotional, palpably artistic, heroic, of a tree; so innocent and harmless, yet so savage. It is, yet says nothing. How it rebukes by its tough and equable serenity all weathers, this gusty-temper’d little whiffet, man, that runs indoors at a mite of rain or snow. Science (or rather half-way science) scoffs at reminiscence of dryad and hamadryad, and of trees speaking. But, if they don’t, they do as well as most speaking, writing, poetry, sermons—or rather they do a great deal better. I should say indeed that those old dryad-reminiscences are quite as true as any, and profounder than most reminiscences we get. (WHITMAN, 1996, pp.813-14)

From all that has been said about the reed, we might conclude that it was carefully chosen to be one of the main symbols in the Leaves, which includes a wide range of meanings, linking, in a comprehensive term, nature, vegetation, singing, music, writing, mythology, history and unity among peoples. It is a symbol of unification, inclusion, which is one of the main aspects of the Leaves expressed by Whitman’s work toward uniting peoples, countries, continents, races, myths, histories, ancient and modern throughout the globe.

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[1] This information is available at: <http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Acorus+calamus>; accessed on 9 November 2007. The webpage is called “Plants For A Future”, “a resource center for rare and unusual plants”.

[2] In the “Notes” to Whitman, Justin Kaplan, the editor of this volume of the Library of America (College Editions), includes a “partial explanation” by Whitman about Calamus, the reed, which we quote here in full: “It is the very large & aromatic grass, or rush, growing about water-ponds in the valleys […] often called ‘sweet flag’ […] The recherché or ethereal sense of the terms, as used in my book, arises probably from the actual Calamus presenting the biggest & hardiest kind of spears of grass—and their fresh, aquatic, pungent bouquet” (1996, p.1380). The “sweet flag” naturally appears in a more sexual context in the Leaves, which is certainly indicated by its “hardiest […] spears of grass”.

[3] Information available at “Plants For A Future”: <http://www.pfaf.org/database/plants.php?Phragmites+australis>;  accessed on 9 November 2007.

[4] Member of the ruling council of the Iroquois.

[5] Information available at: <http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Karpos>;  accessed on July 30, 2007.

[6] “Carpir”: this is a grave activity and there were professional mourners who were hired to show grief at funerals, called weepers: in Brazil they are called “carpideiras”, that is, female weepers  in traditional burials in rural areas.

[7] Line from section 33 of “Song of Myself”: “Onde o gafanhoto trabalha sua cromática estridência na nogueira sobre o poço,”.

[8] Line from section 42 of “Song of Myself”: “Agora o artista mostra vigor, ele passou seus prelú­dios nas palhetas interiores.” (SARAIVA, 1995, pp. 38-48)

[9] Information available at: <http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/pan+flute>; Accessed on July 30, 2007.

[10] There is an aspect of Apollo which is especially interesting in the context of Calamus, which is his love for young men, as shown in the following passage: “Apollo loved young men. The best known are the heroes Hyacinthus and Cyparissus, whose metamorphoses (the former became a hyacinth, the second became a cypress) distressed the god very deeply” (GRIMAL, 1991, p.50). This is totally in accordance with the myth of Calamus and Carpus described in this chapter, which presents the death and transformation of the two swimmers who became plants and were used as symbols of their union by Whitman.

[11] The following passages from The Holy Bible: King James Version, portray that: Isaiah 36:6, “Lo, thou trustest in the staff of this broken reed, on Egypt; whereon if a man lean, it will go into [...]” or Ezekiel, 29:
“[...] And all the inhabitants of Egypt shall know that I am the LORD, because they have been a staff of reed to the house of Israel.”

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