Page 208
By Jack Joseph Smith
By Jack Joseph Smith
Original Scan
AI Interpretation
A second "Shakespeare" passage turns child-thought, blood, fire, and river-crossing into a cosmic tragic speech where slaughter and God share the same sky.
The opening distinction between a child having thought and a child being able to think feels crucial, as if innocence and consciousness are being separated under pressure. Crossing the river "without a sword" sounds like a doomed passage anyway, so the threat is moral or fated rather than military alone. The last claim about God and the galaxies widens tragedy beyond court politics into something almost astronomical.
A second 'Shakespeare' that opens by splitting innocence from consciousness - 'do not say / the child could think' - and widens court tragedy into cosmic speech. 'Mountains and rivers change on purpose / before the sea,' 'all for the nature of man,' toward 'a kingdom's gradification,, definately,' with the handwritten 'And swine' folded in. River-crossing is fated even 'without a sword' ('I will not come back'), 'hatered will see the daughters and / the sons will see you,' and the close lifts slaughter to the scale of the heavens: 'while God does not go underground,, / God goes, "this is as the galaxy's themselves."'