NICOLA Sturgeon has urged people to listen to Joe Biden read out a poem by Seamus Heaney about conflict and reconciliation.
The First Minister tweeted a link to a RTE news broadcast which showed the US President elect reading out the Irish poet's The Cure of Troy in his campaign video.
Here are the words from The Cure of Troy which Biden quoted:
Human beings suffer.
They torture one another.
They get hurt and get hard.
No poem or play or song
Can fully right a wrong
Inflicted and endured.
History says, Don’t hope
On the side of the grave,’
But then, once in a lifetime
The longed for tidal wave
Of justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
So hope for a great sea-change
On the far side of revenge.
Believe that a further shore
Is reachable from here.
Believe in miracles.
And cures and healing wells.
Call miracle self-healing,
The utter self revealing
Double-take of feeling.
If there’s fire on the mountain
And lightening and storm
And a god speaks from the sky
That means someone is hearing
The outcry and the birth-cry
Of new life at its term.
It means once in a lifetime
That justice can rise up
And hope and history rhyme.
Nicola Sturgeon tweeted a link to RTE news which showed a campaign video by Biden accompanied by him reading the Heaney poem.
She tweeted: "Take a moment to listen to this..."
Take a moment to listen to this... https://t.co/DGAggrXM6j
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) November 7, 2020
Heaney’s poem is a translation of Sophocles’ Philoctetes, and Biden used it in a campaign video and turned to it during his Democratic party nomination acceptance speech in August.
Former US President Bill Clinton quoted part of the poem in his remarks to people in Derry in 1995 during the Northern Ireland Peace Process.
The poem speaks to the Troubles in Northern Ireland – where Heaney was born and grew up.
But at the time of its composition, the poet - who won the 1995 Nobel Prize for Literature - also saw its themes echoing the contemporary political situation in South Africa, as the apartheid regime fell and Nelson Mandela was released from prison.
Sophocles’ play, first performed in 409BC, is about how a bitter division was overcome between the archer Philoctetes, left on Crete with a festering wound – a snake bite – and Odysseus, who needed his help in the Trojan War.
The Greek playwright's words and Heaney's interpretation of them resonate today in the US context amid the country's deep divisions over race, inequality and Republican versus Democrat. During his campaign and since winning the election Biden has sought to give citizens a message of hope that underlined these wounds can be healed and unity and calm can be restored.
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel