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Pharaoh’s Dream Redux
“And Pharaoh said unto Joseph, In my dream, behold,
I stood upon the bank of the river: And, behold, there
came up out of the river seven kine, fatfleshed and
well favoured; and they fed in a meadow: And,
behold, seven other kine came up after them, poor
and very ill favoured and leanfleshed, such as I never
saw in all the land of Egypt for badness: And the lean
and the ill favoured kine did eat up the first seven fat
kine: And when they had eaten them up, it could not
be known that they had eaten them; but they were
still ill favoured, as at the beginning. So I awoke.”
—Genesis 41:17-21
I am not claiming Joseph was off-beam,
When he elucidated Pharaoh’s dream.
I merely add a new interpretation,
More suited for the state of our great nation:
The seven fat-fleshed cows are those who work,
Who duty and vocation never shirk,
Who understand the holiness of labor,
And through productive toil become well-favored.
The seven lean-fleshed cows are those whose fate
Has been to be trapped by the Welfare State,
In Johnson’s War on Poverty enmeshed,
But after six decades are still lean-fleshed.
Productive cows may shortly be consumed;
But skinny cows to leanness still are doomed.
For, just as Margaret Thatcher once opined,
We soon run out of other people’s kine.
.
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Paul Erlandson resides in Royal Oak Michigan, and has recently retired from an automotive engineering career with Ford Motor Company. He has had poetry published in “Dome” (a publication of St. Paul’s Cathedral, London) and “The Slumbering Host”, a volume of poetry collected by Clinton Collister and Daniel Rattelle.
Paul, this is an imaginative and highly appropriate application of Jacob’s dream from the distant past to a modern corollary haunting us. LBJ’s proclamation of a “great society” is instead one of a failed social and economic experiment, communistic in nature and terrifying in results.
Thanks, Roy. I agree. Your mention of the Great Society brought to mind these words from famed music rhymester Frank Zappa (Trouble Every Day):
Don’t you know that this could start
On any street in any town
In any state if any clown
Decides that now’s the time to fight
For some ideal he thinks is right.
And if a million more agree
There ain’t no Great Society;
As it applies to you and me,
Our country isn’t free,
And the law refuse to see
If all that you can ever be
Is just a lousy janitor
Unless your uncle owns the store
You know that five in every four
Just won’t amount to nothin’ more
Than watching rats go across the floor
And making up songs about being poor.
Zappa’s poem is a perfect reflection of what has happened. Thank you for posting it here!
The Fathers find all sorts of rich meanings in Biblical texts and the true readings never contradict each other. There are meanings in the Bible saved for our time and for future times as well. This is a compelling economic take on Pharaoh’s eerie dream that explicitly doesn’t seek to replace other interpretations, such as Joseph’s inspired one: an urgent message for his time.
Also very witty: the off-rhyme ending is delightful.
Thank you very much, Monika! I agree about the Church Fathers.
I really like this poem, Paul. You’re clearly not criticising the actual people who get caught in the poverty trap but it’s often true that if you pay people to be poor you end up with a lot of poor people. Margaret Thatcher could see that.
There are many surprising things about the story of Joseph and Pharaoh but the most surprising for me is that the government not only had a fourteen-year medium-term plan but actually managed to carry it out. I don’t think that’s ever been achieved since.
Thanks for noticing that, Morrison. I was trying not to be critical. I’m sure I’m susceptible to falling into that same trap, were my circumstances different.
Good point about Joesph & Pharaoh, also!
Perfectly clear interpretation, Paul, and well rhymed in accord with the older English diction of the King James translation. I like the double conclusion of fact (about productive and skinny cows), supported by the authoritative good sense of the noble Lady Thatcher. Anyone who quotes her gets my attention!
Here’s my skinny cow story. I was doing work in a copy shop while someone explained to a middle-aged woman how to apply for community college financial aid. He said that if she qualified for one program she was certain to be eligible for two or three more, and the total income received (full support for her needs) would last 8 years if she took only a single course per term. To her, this was a miraculous shower of money from above, but as far as I could tell, the 2-year degree that might have prepared her for future work was not within her realm of vision.
Thanks, Margaret!
And thanks for the story. That would be a strong temptation for many I know. To be essentially paid to go to school? That’s the life! It is a trap, though, and the money doesn’t exactly come from above, but from those around us.
I enjoyed this poem; it is well written, and an apt commentary on the age we live in.
I liked these two lines especially:
The seven fat-fleshed cows are those who work,
Who duty and vocation never shirk,
But I was wondering — Wasn’t the seven years of famine in Exodus caused by climate change?
Thanks, Christopher!
To be honest, I don’t remember any reason for the famine being given. You’re probably correct, though. I think their agriculture depended upon the Nile River overflowing its banks every year, and perhaps that didn’t happen for a while.
In jail i read the king james and inside the whitehouse by kessler
I much like this translaltion
Kessler informed the world that johnson won as peace candidate with words such as let the asian boys fight their war then expanded it
From which i gather he just wanted to be the one who did it
“Asian boys” does sound like something LBJ would say. Thanks for your insight!
Mr. Erlandson, those last two lines about “other people’s kine” are precious, and they smack the reader in a healthy way.
Thank you, Sir!
Excellent piece, Sir. I spent years working with federally funded anti-poverty programs, and saw firsthand the dependencies and sense of entitlement that they created. Give me a fish….
Exactly. Thank you, Russel.
What an interesting application of Joseph’s interpretation of the Pharaoh’s dream to our times! The simple rhyme and meter of couplets in iambic pentameter is a nice touch.
We see signs that say, “Please do not feed the birds. Feeding creates a dependent population that is a potential health hazard and makes a costly mess.” And we wonder why we poverty is such a huge problem because we’re so heavily influenced by liberalism that we can’t see a solution that’s right there in front of us.
Thanks, Joshua!
An interesting interpretation. But one has to wonder how the fat-fleshed cows got fat. Could they be medieval churchmen, ‘enormous’ on their tithes, or Johnson’s partying Covid lockdown breakers thinking they’re above the law and taking the pee out of the British public.
Of course there are always those who take advantage of the welfare state and they should be called out too.
We may disagree on the facts of how fat cows got that way, but I hope the poem at least made clear my opinion that it was through diligent labor:
The seven fat-fleshed cows are those who work,
Who duty and vocation never shirk,
Who understand the holiness of labor,
And through productive toil become well-favored.
Your question assumes that all rich people got that way through unjust means. Some did, but those who did are beyond the scope of the poem. This is specifically about how taxes affect all indiscriminately; even those who became rich through honest means are penalized by having their money taken away and given to others, including those who abuse the welfare system. Hence the bumper sticker: “Work harder! Millions of welfare recipients depend on you.”
By the way, here’s a tip: not every comment has to be about how liberal you are. This is a well-established fact among regular readers. (I’ve made a similar mistake in liberal groups myself, so this is not intended as criticism.)
The simplest explanation for what you describe and what has been discussed comes down to two fundamental economic laws: If you tax something, you will get less of it; if you subsidize something, you will get more of it. So here we are — in our collective wisdom we have decided to subsidize poverty and tax prosperity.
Yes! You have put it simply and brilliantly.