Edwin Thumboo’s exposition of ‘The sin of David’:

Three verse compositions depicting an innerness of three Biblical personae

By Dilshan BOANGE

Emeritus Professor of English and Literature of the National University of Singapore Prof. Edwin Thumboo is regarded as the poet laureate of Singapore. His life and career as an exponential figure distinguished in letters has contributed much to the furtherance of the postcolonial literary identity of Asia. And it is no wonder that Sri Lanka’s own Prof. Wimal Dissanayake has praised Prof. Thumboo as “Singapore’s foremost poet.” In this article I wish to discuss some impressions relating to three poems in Prof. Thumboo’s book Still Travelling which is incidentally his sixth book of poems.

The poems are –‘David from the terrace’, ‘Uriah’ and ‘Bathsheba.’ At the very outset it may strike to the reader of the common line of imagery that resonates from the above titles. They are very strongly Biblical in their essence. And further more the poems present a subtle line of connectivity amongst their narrative lines and thus pose a line of inter-textuality between them if looked at within the scope of their thematic placement.

‘David from the terrace’

‘David from the terrace’ seems very much to be a scene from the life of King David and presents a flow of emotions running between anxiety and sadness, regret and resolve and so on, which builds a narrative of a particular moment which appears to be in the context of war. But what makes the poem in my opinion one that dwells more into the being of the speaker is its interiority in

terms of ‘what it deals with’. It is not so much a description by the poet of a moment but taking on the role of the King in that given situation and constructing a voice that speaks his emotional turbulences in an overwhelming moment. By this modality one may not be given the fullest picture in terms of the background to the situation and so on that a poem of epic proportions would have.

After all what the poet has presented us, the reader is a window in the character he has created from the world of Biblical stories and rendered his version of narrating King David’s mindset. The narrative which may qualify as an interior monologue since it is certainly not a soliloquy, speaks of a female persona that is not named and is made into a very poetically ambiguous element.

“Her walk is meant for palaces, her breath for Kings. How

her garment loosed, slipped-fell, quelling

Doubt as hesitation broke; never thus for

Me before.”

The above excerpt is but an instance where the King’s thoughts focus give allusion to the female who has preoccupied a significant part of his thoughts. “She sends three words. What now.” The very tenseness that is prinking the narrator’s emotional setup is very evident from the afore quoted line.

What could these ‘three words’ be? The poet does not make us privy to the narrator’s mindset in such terms that makes us feel distanced from the situation the speaker unravels in his stream of thoughts. In such a position one may wonder, how close are we actually allowed to be to the thoughts of the speaker? It is in this light that I feel some of the answers may manifest as one turns the pages of the book.

Bathsheba’s predicament

The poem ‘Bathsheba’ is clearly based on the wife of Uriah the Hittite who later became the wife of King David. Bathsheba’s words convey the state of a tormented heart which seeks redemption as well as punishment from the almighty. She asks for her husband –Uriah the Hittite, to be sent to her.

The Biblical story of Uriah the Hittite says that Uriah was in the battlefield when his wife Bathsheba was taken by King David to his bed and resulted in Bathsheba conceiving a child.

The poem presents the predicament of Bathsheba for being part of the sin of adultery and how her conscience troubles her.

“Daily, the sun rises on my guilt,

And sets on nights of tight contrition.”

How will you punish me, my God?

How will you end my fearful sin?”

Betwixt these two poems is “Uriah” the poem that speaks of the thoughts of Uriah the Hittite husband of Bathsheba who from the war front thinks of his wife and the duties he owes to his fellow soldiers on the battlefront to stay with them and not leave back for the kingdom as ordered by the word sent by King David who according to the story of the bible wanted Uriah to come back to his wife in the hope that a night of love between the husband and wife would shield any suspicions over the paternity of the child that has been conceived in Bathsheba by King David.

The unsuspecting Uriah

The thoughts of Uriah as crafted by the poet speak very touchingly of sincere sentiments of a loving husband about his wife whom he believes is true and faithful to him. And moreover his thoughts of his liege are respectful and show his loyalty as a soldier.

“The king is kind. He feels; wants me home.

I know Bathsheba waits, loving as Heaven.

Leonard Cohen

But the rules of war, and Rabbah still defiant.”

The word ‘Rabbah’ refers to the city of Rabbath which King David sent his armies to lay siege to in which force Uriah was a soldier.

And it is from this context that we find the mindset of Uriah who seems happy to be recalled but embattled over the situation in the war front. Reading these poems as a trio that builds a narrative that presents the states of emotions and anxieties of the three persons who are involved in the story of King David’s sin or shame gives a spectrum of how the story may be viewed from point of character confessions or thought streams.

And further some of the questions that arise when reading the poems in isolation can probably be answered when the three are looked at together. Whom is David referring to as she in the poem ‘David from the terrace’? It becomes evident when one reads the poem ‘Bathsheba’ that it is indeed the wife of Uriah the Hittite. And when the words of David say ‘She send three words. What now’ is seems very likely to be that the message that ‘Bathsheba is pregnant’.

In these three poems that are probably meant by the poet to be read as a trio that would string together the emotional states of David, Bathsheba and Uriah to present the situation they were brought into as a result of David’s sin. I further believe that Prof. Thumboo may have presented the voices of these three characters in three separate poems to depict how at such predicaments these persons could be looked as isolated and even lonely persons. Rather than presenting an account of David’s sin in a single narrative the poet offers us three poems that present the mindsets of the three persons that form the historic biblical episode.

Resonance with the lyrics of Leonard Cohen

King David

One of the most striking poetic impressions that came to me when reading these poems by Prof. Thumboo was the song Hallelujah by Leonard Cohen which revolves around the sin of David and presents in an incomparably beautiful poetic expression of that impious moment –

“Your faith was strong but you needed proof,

You saw her bathing on the roof, Her beauty in the moonlight overthrew you.”

The sin of David was caused by giving in to the desire to taste the pleasure of a woman’s physical beauty. And the poem ‘David from the Terrace’ aptly starts with –“Just when I thought the pleasure safe.”

In the aftermath of the act of adultery the king finds himself in a state of torment as does Bathsheba, yet the unsuspecting Uriah is lead to his demise according to the story in the bible due to the sin of David, but before that as he rides to heed the word of his king, and it is this intermediate state of the three persons who are yet to find themselves facing the ultimate test on their morals and resolves Prof. Edwin Thumboo crafts poetic portrayals of what their embattled minds.