Friday, October 24, 2025

Wordplay on "law" and "wall"

This is from Allen Mandelbaum's Chelmaxioms.

And if a gate without a wall may seem
a wounded thing, consider well the shame
of walls without a gate, and Ishmael
considered that far more lamentable.

[. . .]

But all Rav Ishmael had ever meant:
Not every letter carries strict intent --

the speech of God, the speech of man, are loose;
do not use exegesis as a noose;
no maxim, axiom, maxiom, no law
must stand as if it were a gateless wall.

The /law/, the /wall/:
more phemes of Chelm
and not ephemeral.

And this is something I wrote in the early 2000s (posted here before in "A cross between two antlers, and the Liahona spindles"), before I had read anything by Mandelbaum. Call me Ishmael, I guess.

One of Jesus' one-liners, and far from his worse,
Says the first shall be last, and the last shall be first.
In the tongue of the Angles, it means something more:
That the Law is a wall, but the Rood is a door.

2 comments:

Ephonemeral said...

Derek Lambert of MythVision Podcast consistently pronounces the word “law” as “lawl” (lol), with a southern drawl (droll). Moreover, the original phonemes of Chelm are actually Chełm: the phoneme is written with the letter “l”, but pronounced as “w”.

WanderingGondola said...

Walls without gates. Heh. Elder Scrolls Online is currently running a one-off event in which players must work together against an evil cult, whom has barred off half of an island with a giant magical wall for some devious purpose. Breaking through the wall requires amplifying the power of a crystalline artifact called a Light of Meridia.
elderscrollsonline.com/en-gb/writhingwall

Indicative <i>be</i> is in free variation with <i>are</i> in King James English

In King James English, both pirates are correct. Be  is used with all subjects in the subjunctive (e.g., with if , though , whether , lest ....