ON ALBERTO CAEIRO’S “THE KEEPER OF FLOCKS,”
translated by Chris Daniels
from The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro (Shearsman Books, 2007)
For Alberto Caeiro, one of Fernando Pessoa’s heteronyms, a pagan sensibility is characterized as a visual and aural sense that perceives and listens to the external world without the intervention of rational thought, this, the compulsive desire to measure or interpret the world, so characteristic of the empiricists. For Caeiro, there are no hidden meanings, no inner light to be revealed inside things. Nothing to be thought about the flowers, the wind, the sun, the moon, the grass, the very air that we breathe. To think, or attempt to describe the external world does not reveal anything, does not illuminate a secret meaning: “there’s nothing to understand…/Yes, this is what my senses learned all by themselves: - / Things don’t have meaning: they only have existence. / Things are the only hidden meaning of things.”[1] Things do not transcend themselves, or refer to some other world. They are complete in and of themselves in their simplicity. For Caeiro to look at a flower is to really see it; he gives the primacy to the visual, as the Greeks did; it is a way of knowing without thinking.
But when Caeiro speaks of thinking according to nature, that is, obeying only what he can see and hear, he is elucidating a kind of negative metaphysics in relation to God. Or rather, God is not manifest is some abstract space, in the guise of an Other. Nature itself, is a manifestation of God; it is a mystery not that we do or don’t exist, but rather that we exist at all; from this, Caeiro develops a pagan metaphysics that does not rely on reason but sensation; sensing the breeze that bends the leaves of a tall tree, or the blades of grass gilded by the bright sun, we are reminded of the Sufi idea of god as sensed or felt, when an invisible breeze plays upon a branch; there is no rational explanation that is possible; we cannot see the breeze but it can be sensed; so in one respect, we do see without seeing. Just as thinking without thinking is a kind of knowing not based on measurement but on sensation:
But when Caeiro speaks of thinking according to nature, that is, obeying only what he can see and hear, he is elucidating a kind of negative metaphysics in relation to God. Or rather, God is not manifest is some abstract space, in the guise of an Other. Nature itself, is a manifestation of God; it is a mystery not that we do or don’t exist, but rather that we exist at all; from this, Caeiro develops a pagan metaphysics that does not rely on reason but sensation; sensing the breeze that bends the leaves of a tall tree, or the blades of grass gilded by the bright sun, we are reminded of the Sufi idea of god as sensed or felt, when an invisible breeze plays upon a branch; there is no rational explanation that is possible; we cannot see the breeze but it can be sensed; so in one respect, we do see without seeing. Just as thinking without thinking is a kind of knowing not based on measurement but on sensation:
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The main thing is knowing how to see,
To know how to see without thinking. To know how to see when you see, And to not think when you see Or see when you think. |
This is not measuring the scales between what is and what is not to arrive at a balance between the visible and the invisible. There are no mysteries to unravel, everything is visible, everything can be heard.
For Caeiro, thinking about the origin of the world or God and the soul, or the nature of cause and effect, is like “shutting my eyes / and not thinking. It’s closing the curtains. / (But my window doesn’t have curtains).” To think in rational terms is to take the plunge inside the mind, to ponder the “inner constitution of things…” or the “inner meaning of the universe.” For Caeiro, this is useless and what sick poets and philosophers pride themselves in doin g, as if the mind held the secret of the world. When Caeiro senses the heat of the bright sun, he makes this observation: “Sunlight doesn’t know what it’s doing / So it’s never wrong and it’s common and good.” To see and feel the heat of the sun upon the body, is a sensual experience without reason; it is not bound by Judeo-Christian law or morality. Nature is sufficient unto itself. It need no outside intervention. Caeiro writes that like nature, his pagan god, he obeys him “by living, spontaneously,” and being attentive to the aural and visual sense.
Caiero also speaks of the difference between man-made sounds and the sounds of nature:
For Caeiro, thinking about the origin of the world or God and the soul, or the nature of cause and effect, is like “shutting my eyes / and not thinking. It’s closing the curtains. / (But my window doesn’t have curtains).” To think in rational terms is to take the plunge inside the mind, to ponder the “inner constitution of things…” or the “inner meaning of the universe.” For Caeiro, this is useless and what sick poets and philosophers pride themselves in doin g, as if the mind held the secret of the world. When Caeiro senses the heat of the bright sun, he makes this observation: “Sunlight doesn’t know what it’s doing / So it’s never wrong and it’s common and good.” To see and feel the heat of the sun upon the body, is a sensual experience without reason; it is not bound by Judeo-Christian law or morality. Nature is sufficient unto itself. It need no outside intervention. Caeiro writes that like nature, his pagan god, he obeys him “by living, spontaneously,” and being attentive to the aural and visual sense.
Caiero also speaks of the difference between man-made sounds and the sounds of nature:
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XI
That lady has a piano. It’s nice, but it’s not the running of rivers Or the murmur trees make… Who needs a piano? It’s better to have ears And love Nature. |
In Nature we are exposed to natural sounds as opposed to the largely artificial sounds of the city are. Listening is being receptive; it is open ended and requires concentration. Furthermore, Caeiro writes: “Thinking about a flower is seeing and smelling it / And eating a piece of fruit is knowing its meaning.” Meaning is not generated by thinking about something but by experiencing it sensually; the way you bite into a fruit, feel the juices and the skin in your mouth; there is an intimacy in such a relation to the natural world; there is pleasure, also, independent of any human law or morality. This relation to sensual experience largely disappeared after the major religions came to dominate the East and West and codify their laws; as a result of which, many of these pagan experiences merged with Catholic doctrine and ritual. But paganism was not a religion in the Ancient Greek world.
Caeiro lives according to natural laws, modeling his thought on nature’s terms, in opposition to the arbitrary doctrines of the State. His vision of the universe is large and comprehensive: “From my village I see as much in the Universe as you can see from the earth…In the cities life is smaller.” With this experience, Caeiro can write: “I think and write like flowers have color. / But with less perfection in my way of expressing myself.” To “think” and “write” like a flower has color, is to express oneself in alignment with the voice of Nature; the color of the flower can be said to convey one aspect of how Nature functions. We know that plants gain their coloration from the way that pigments within their cells interact with sunlight. But our human bodies are imperfect and cannot resonate in the same way with Nature; our self-expression will always be imperfect because it contains that which cannot be said. It does not give a full account in the same way that a flower has color. Caeiro writes: “I lack the divine simplicity / Of wholly being only my exterior.” Furthermore, Caeiro writes in XLI: “…thank God there’s imperfection in the World/ ….So we have a lot to see and hear / (As long as our eyes and ears aren’t shut)…” Man is complicated by his own desires. Man represents an unfinished painting, but the flower is complete, because totally externalized in the painting. There is no inner interference, or hidden meaning in the natural world; it refers to nothing but itself. And it is itself, always. Unlike man.
The word “Nature” is not sufficient to describe her: “If I talk about her like she’s a being/ It’s because talking about her I need to use the language of men/ Which gives personality to things,/ And imposes a name on things.” Naming is a way to capture things, and then qualify and codify language, and finally for man to assume control over the natural world. It is a process inherent to positivist views in contemporary philosophy. Positivism asserts that all authentic knowledge allows for verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Later in his career, the German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, Nobel laureate for pioneering work in quantum mechanics, distanced himself from positivism:
Caeiro lives according to natural laws, modeling his thought on nature’s terms, in opposition to the arbitrary doctrines of the State. His vision of the universe is large and comprehensive: “From my village I see as much in the Universe as you can see from the earth…In the cities life is smaller.” With this experience, Caeiro can write: “I think and write like flowers have color. / But with less perfection in my way of expressing myself.” To “think” and “write” like a flower has color, is to express oneself in alignment with the voice of Nature; the color of the flower can be said to convey one aspect of how Nature functions. We know that plants gain their coloration from the way that pigments within their cells interact with sunlight. But our human bodies are imperfect and cannot resonate in the same way with Nature; our self-expression will always be imperfect because it contains that which cannot be said. It does not give a full account in the same way that a flower has color. Caeiro writes: “I lack the divine simplicity / Of wholly being only my exterior.” Furthermore, Caeiro writes in XLI: “…thank God there’s imperfection in the World/ ….So we have a lot to see and hear / (As long as our eyes and ears aren’t shut)…” Man is complicated by his own desires. Man represents an unfinished painting, but the flower is complete, because totally externalized in the painting. There is no inner interference, or hidden meaning in the natural world; it refers to nothing but itself. And it is itself, always. Unlike man.
The word “Nature” is not sufficient to describe her: “If I talk about her like she’s a being/ It’s because talking about her I need to use the language of men/ Which gives personality to things,/ And imposes a name on things.” Naming is a way to capture things, and then qualify and codify language, and finally for man to assume control over the natural world. It is a process inherent to positivist views in contemporary philosophy. Positivism asserts that all authentic knowledge allows for verification and that all authentic knowledge assumes that the only valid knowledge is scientific. Later in his career, the German theoretical physicist Werner Heisenberg, Nobel laureate for pioneering work in quantum mechanics, distanced himself from positivism:
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The positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can any one conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear we would probably be left with completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies. |
Furthermore, notes found at the bottom of the page in the original manuscript for poem IX of “The Keeper of Flocks” contain the following statement about Caeiro’s poetry: “Informed of a radically absolute materialist who nevertheless possesses all the mystic’s qualities of spiritual refinement, we musn’t labor to turn our backs on that crude paradox.” He is a materialist in that he believes there is no essence in things, and the external side is the only one that there is to see; thinking about that flower will make it vanish into the abstract thinking mind. For Caeiro : “…I know I understand Nature on the outside / And I don’t understand Nature on the inside / Because Nature doesn’t have an inside; / If she did she wouldn’t be Nature.”
The ancient Greeks are credited with the idea of ocularcentrism, or privileging visual information above all else. Sight dominates because it is more than a sensation; it is a means of knowing. The literature of the Archaic period of ancient Greece (c. 750–480 bce) is typically pre-scientific in its description of sensory experiences: there is no causal reasoning, no attempt at building a theoretical system, nor does it separate out the individual sense domains. Homer’s descriptions of war, conflict, and family life tell us a lot about the various sensory impressions, without causal explanations. These and other writings that are concerned with war scenes and domestic events reveal a rich palette of colors, odors, flavors, and tactile moments: red and warm blood; noisy and physical collisions; the smell of burning wood, meat, and flesh—these all contribute to the tumultuous atmosphere and quotidian impressions of the era. Caeiro has this to say about literary metaphors when used to describe nature:
The ancient Greeks are credited with the idea of ocularcentrism, or privileging visual information above all else. Sight dominates because it is more than a sensation; it is a means of knowing. The literature of the Archaic period of ancient Greece (c. 750–480 bce) is typically pre-scientific in its description of sensory experiences: there is no causal reasoning, no attempt at building a theoretical system, nor does it separate out the individual sense domains. Homer’s descriptions of war, conflict, and family life tell us a lot about the various sensory impressions, without causal explanations. These and other writings that are concerned with war scenes and domestic events reveal a rich palette of colors, odors, flavors, and tactile moments: red and warm blood; noisy and physical collisions; the smell of burning wood, meat, and flesh—these all contribute to the tumultuous atmosphere and quotidian impressions of the era. Caeiro has this to say about literary metaphors when used to describe nature:
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Where poets say the stars are eternal brothers,
And flowers are penitent nuns who only live a day, But where stars really aren’t anything but stars, And flowers aren’t anything but flowers And that’s why they’re called stars and flowers. |
The mode of expression in the Archaic period is usually non-theoretical, even if literary metaphor allows for going beyond sensory experience.
For Caeiro, “My looking is blue as the sky, / Calm as water in the sun. It’s that way, blue and calm, / Because it doesn’t question and it doesn’t get surprised…” He exists as the natural world exists, not contrary to it. He is as Nature is. This is very different that speaking of man in relation to the natural in modernity. For Caeiro this is kind of continuum with natural world, not based on intense vision (it is no way a visionary experience) but a reasoned and calm seeing and hearing. Man is in alignment with Nature. But to speak of a man in this way is not to refer to a self in the modern sense. In an age where the “inner self” receives so much attention, whether from the point of view of a materialist or a spiritualist, and whether in popular literature or in academic journals Caeiro’s poetry offers a different viewpoint more in line with the Ancient Greeks. They had no idea of the self in the way we understand it. “Self” is a modern concept with no obvious lexical equivalent in Greek or Latin. Christopher Gill writes in the Self in Greek Literature:
For Caeiro, “My looking is blue as the sky, / Calm as water in the sun. It’s that way, blue and calm, / Because it doesn’t question and it doesn’t get surprised…” He exists as the natural world exists, not contrary to it. He is as Nature is. This is very different that speaking of man in relation to the natural in modernity. For Caeiro this is kind of continuum with natural world, not based on intense vision (it is no way a visionary experience) but a reasoned and calm seeing and hearing. Man is in alignment with Nature. But to speak of a man in this way is not to refer to a self in the modern sense. In an age where the “inner self” receives so much attention, whether from the point of view of a materialist or a spiritualist, and whether in popular literature or in academic journals Caeiro’s poetry offers a different viewpoint more in line with the Ancient Greeks. They had no idea of the self in the way we understand it. “Self” is a modern concept with no obvious lexical equivalent in Greek or Latin. Christopher Gill writes in the Self in Greek Literature:
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…in Homer and Archaic Greek poetry (and to some extent 5th-century Athenian tragedy) there is not yet a secure grasp of the notion of a unified self or person, conceived as a self-conscious and responsible agent. Instead, people are presented as complexes of semi-independent psychological (or psychophysical) entities or forces, which are subject to influence by external or quasi-external forces such as the gods, delusion, or overwhelming impulses, and (in tragedy) madness. Responsibility for actions is seen as shared between the agents themselves and other forces, such as ancestral guilt or a family curse, and gods of various kinds.
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We can only see nature a parts of the whole; the totality of existence is beyond human comprehension. But for Caeiro, this is of no concern. Seeing the natural world is a sensual experience, a way of knowing without knowing; to see is enough; to be open; to listen.
Caeiro, the shepherd, writes: “My mysticism is not wanting to know. / It’s living and not thinking about it. // I don’t know what Nature is: I sing her.” In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The Greek Lyric V (Anonymous), Fragments 936 (Inscription from the shrine of Asclepius at Epidaurus) reads:
Caeiro, the shepherd, writes: “My mysticism is not wanting to know. / It’s living and not thinking about it. // I don’t know what Nature is: I sing her.” In ancient Greek religion and mythology, Pan is the god of the wild, shepherds and flocks, nature of mountain wilds, rustic music and impromptus, and companion of the nymphs. With his homeland in rustic Arcadia, he is also recognized as the god of fields, groves, wooded glens and often affiliated with sex; because of this, Pan is connected to fertility and the season of spring. The Greek Lyric V (Anonymous), Fragments 936 (Inscription from the shrine of Asclepius at Epidaurus) reads:
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I sing of Pan, Nymphe-leader, darling of the Naiades, adornment of golden choruses, lord of winsome muse when he pours forth the god-inspired siren-song of the melodious syrinx, and stepping nimbly to the melody leaps down from shadowy caves, moving his all-shape body, fine dancer, fine of face, conspicuous with blond beard. To star-eyed Olympos goes the all-tune sound, sprinkling the company of the Olympian gods with immortal muse. All the earth and sea are mixed thanks to you, for you are the bulwark of all, oh ie Pan, Pan!
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Caeiro concludes poem XXX, with the following lines: “I live on top of a knoll / In a lonely whitewashed house, / And that’s my definition.” Caeiro is not defined by his own sense of himself; by referring to some private aesthetic, some “inner light.” He defined by reference to an external space, simply and without ornament. For Caeiro, “everything that’s real can be more or less, and except for what’s real, nothing exists.” What Caeiro sees and hears is real; and he sees it without thinking about it. A flower is before him in all its externality; there is no inner meaning in the flower and it does not refer to anything but itself; the natural world is not mysterious, holds no secrets for him; man has complicated the relationship with nature because of his attempt to dominate it; Caeiro does not attempt to assert his authority over nature.
He doesn’t live in a world that is infinite, with an entire unbounded universe out there, for our minds to try to conceive of. For Cairo, things have limits and if they were limitless, they would not exist. For him, things are what they are. The following is from “Notes for the Recollection of My Master Caeiro” by Alvaro de Campos, another of Pessoa’s heteronyms: “My master Caeiro was a temperament without philosophy; therefore, his philosophy – which he had, like all people – isn’t even susceptible to these games of intellectual journalism. There’s no doubt that, being a temperament – i.e., a poet – my master Caeiro expressed a philosophy, a conception of the universe. However, his conception of the universe is instinctive, not intellectual; it can’t be criticized as temperament, because temperament can’t be criticized.” For Alberto Caeiro, this philosophy was based on a pagan sensibility; Caeiro based it on a visual and aural sense that perceives and listens to the natural world without the compulsive desire to measure or interpret. He was a materialist who believed in a pagan view of God; an atheist with spiritual ideas. He was a paradox unto himself, and one of Pessoa’s most complex heteronyms. He was like Pessoa himself, a man not at peace with himself, but “just at peace.” Finally, in the words of another heteronym, Ricardo Reis, “Cairo’s work is truly a manifestation of a pagan mind. The order and discipline of paganism which Christianity caused us to lose, the reasoned intelligence of things, which was paganism’s most obvious attribute and no longer ours – permeate his work.”
He doesn’t live in a world that is infinite, with an entire unbounded universe out there, for our minds to try to conceive of. For Cairo, things have limits and if they were limitless, they would not exist. For him, things are what they are. The following is from “Notes for the Recollection of My Master Caeiro” by Alvaro de Campos, another of Pessoa’s heteronyms: “My master Caeiro was a temperament without philosophy; therefore, his philosophy – which he had, like all people – isn’t even susceptible to these games of intellectual journalism. There’s no doubt that, being a temperament – i.e., a poet – my master Caeiro expressed a philosophy, a conception of the universe. However, his conception of the universe is instinctive, not intellectual; it can’t be criticized as temperament, because temperament can’t be criticized.” For Alberto Caeiro, this philosophy was based on a pagan sensibility; Caeiro based it on a visual and aural sense that perceives and listens to the natural world without the compulsive desire to measure or interpret. He was a materialist who believed in a pagan view of God; an atheist with spiritual ideas. He was a paradox unto himself, and one of Pessoa’s most complex heteronyms. He was like Pessoa himself, a man not at peace with himself, but “just at peace.” Finally, in the words of another heteronym, Ricardo Reis, “Cairo’s work is truly a manifestation of a pagan mind. The order and discipline of paganism which Christianity caused us to lose, the reasoned intelligence of things, which was paganism’s most obvious attribute and no longer ours – permeate his work.”
[1] All translations are by Chris Daniels from The Collected Poems of Alberto Caeiro (Shearsman Books, 2007).