The Gods of the Copybook Headings

A Poem for Our Time, with Notes, References, and Discussion

Feb 14, 2024

Rudyard Kipling’s classic poem, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, was in my favorite poetry anthology when I was a child. I glanced across its stanzas many times over the years without being able to make heads or tails of it, simply because I didn’t know what ‘copybook headings’ were. One day, a few years ago, I rectified that inadequacy with a quick web search, and have been struck ever since with what a beautiful poem it is and how pertinent its message is to our present moment in time.

copybook headings — single line proverbs, maxims, or aphorisms which often appeared at the head of the page in ‘copybooks’ used for penmanship practice by 18th and 19th Century schoolchildren.

Good nature, like a bee, collects honey from every herb.

Ill nature, like a spider, sucks poison from the flowers.

There are surprisingly few images of these sorts of copybooks to be found online. They were a disposable object and seem to exist now primarily in collections of ‘ephemera’ in various historical archives. I’m sure they are found at estate sales and auctions occasionally, too. [I contemplate, half seriously, reviving them as a tool for my own children’s education.]

It’s almost impossible to understand the poem without knowing what ‘copybook headings’ are, but many of its other obscure references can be inferred. One that might not be very easily done, if you don’t already know it, is that ‘Stilton’ is a kind of English cheese. Without further ado, let me present the poem to you, dear readers, and I’ll elaborate more about it afterwards.

                     THE GODS OF THE COPYBOOK HEADINGS

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all. 

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind. 

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome. 

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things. 

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."  

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."  

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."  

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more. 

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire; 

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

[Rudyard Kipling, 1919]

As with all poetry, it’s good to read it out loud in order to fully appreciate it. When I try to read “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” out loud, I usually choke up towards the end and get tears in my eyes. I’m not entirely sure why.

Before moving on to a general discussion of the poem, let me elaborate several of the references in the text that may not be familiar to contemporary readers.

TEXT NOTES AND REFERENCES

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

Market Place — not “marketplace” or “market-place”, which were the common spelling conventions at the time;

Copybook Headings — single line proverbs, maxims, or aphorisms which often appeared at the head of the page in ‘copybooks’ used for penmanship practice by 18th and 19th Century schoolchildren.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

Water…wet, Fire…burn — simple facts that even the most primitive pre-historic humans would understand. (But if you do a web search on “is water really wet?” you will find that a whole host of people today are eager to dispute the point.)

“Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind” seem to represent the faddish progressive ideals (and buzzwords) of the moment. I haven’t been able to find any particular reference that these words allude to, but in this 1909 article from Scientific American, for example, a scientist is lauded for “world wide travels [that] gave him additional breadth of mind and a recognition of the aspirations and achievements of other nations which was quite free from any narrow bias of nationality. …to few men has it been given to do so much to uplift their fellowmen…” .

Gorillas — In Kipling’s time, Gorillas were considered the closest related animals to human beings and were still quite exotic and mysterious. The gorilla’s relationship to man, and the possibility of it being a human ancestor, had featured prominently in a famous 1860 Oxford debate about evolution.

March of Mankind — The “March of Mankind” references the progressive idea that human society grows ever smarter, better, and more sophisticated. For example, in this 1925 essay, Winston Churchill wrote about how the “march of mankind” had raised “advanced” societies to such heights that the era of “great men” was a thing of the past (today, ironically, Churchill himself is considered one of history’s “great men”). A few decades later, Marxist theorist George Novack centered his concept of scientific socialism around “the march of mankind”.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

Stilton, as noted above, is a kind of English cheese. The Dutch are also famous for their cheeses. This line refers to the fable of a fox who mistakes the reflection of the moon for a round of cheese.

Wishes were Horses — “If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.” This old saying is probably one of the Copybook Headings that the poem alludes to.

A Pig Had Wings — A reference to the phrase, “when pigs fly”.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

Cambrian measures — The Cambrian period was a stretch of geologic time during the Paleozoic Era, approximately 542-488 million years ago. In this geologic context, “measures” refers to a layer of rock strata. Cambria is also a traditional name for Wales, hence Cambrian also means Welsh. In this case, Kipling was making oblique reference to the Welsh prime minister of Britain, Lloyd George, and the Welsh dominated “Garden Suburb” of shadow ministers that George set up during WWI. Kipling was a critic of Lloyd George and of the Treaty of Versailles that had recently been signed, which George was a chief architect of. The Treaty of Versailles was meant to demilitarize Germany and reduce the nation states in the League of Nations (which the treaty created) to a condition of minimal armament, establishing a lasting peace. As Kipling apparently feared, the ‘lasting peace’ merely set the stage for an even worse war 20 years later (WWII).

“Stick to the Devil you know.” This is one of the copybook headings that the poem is in reference to. It is more commonly known in the form, “Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

Feminian Sandstones — ‘Feminian’ is not a real word, but Kipling here is continuing to play upon the idea of geological epochs while making oblique reference to feminism.

Fuller Life — On the one hand this is a (then contemporary) buzzword/phrase that echoes back conceptually to the “Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind” line. On the other hand, it is likely an oblique reference to early feminist Margaret Fuller who died in a shipwreck at age 40 along with her infant son and Italian aristocrat husband.

“The Wages of Sin is Death.” Another one of the copybook headings, from Romans 6:23.

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, 
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; 
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, 
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Carboniferous Epoch — Another geologic period during the Paleozoic Era, from about 359-299 million years ago. This was the period when most of the world’s coal was formed and is an oblique reference to the coal mining unions prominent in England in the first half of the 20th Century, which were strongly associated with socialist movements.

Peter … Paul — “robbing Peter to pay Paul” is a phrase referring to St. Peter and St. Paul that dates to at least the late middle ages and refers generally to taking out one debt in order to pay off another. Kipling changes the common phrase by adding “selected” and “collective”, making reference to the economic ideas of socialism and Marxism.

“If you don’t work you die.” Another copybook heading, though possibly of Kipling’s own creation. It alludes to Thessalonians 3:10, “For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

tumbled — alluding to a market crash

hearts…humbled — 2 Chronicles 34:27

“All is not Gold that Glitters” — another copybook heading, more commonly known in the form, “All that glitters is not gold.” The saying is ancient, but is often attributed to Shakespeare’s play, The Merchant of Venice, where it is written, “All that glisters is not gold.”

Two and Two make Four — a simple fact, yet one that is currently under dispute by some of our contemporaries.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began. 
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, 
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

the birth of Man — a reference to Adam, but also to the evolutionary birth of humanity alluded to earlier in the poem ( i.e., Gorillas and ‘living in trees’).

Social Progress — another progressive buzzword/phrase from Kipling’s time, closely associated with the field of social science. An example for context is Kings College London professor Edward Johns Urwick’s 1905 book, A Philosophy of Social Progress, which also includes several uses of the buzzword/phrase “fuller life” mentioned earlier in the poem (pp. 54, 201, 209, 212).

the Dog returns to his Vomit — From Proverbs 26:11, likely another copybook heading, “As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly.” See also: 2 Peter 2:22.

the Sow returns to her Mire — 2 Peter 2:22

Fool’s…finger…Fire — Again referencing Proverbs 26:11. An ancient English proverb states that, “A burnt child fears the fire.” Refers back to the basic lesson taught by the Gods of the Copybook Headings in the second stanza that, “Fire would certainly burn.”

wabbling — An antiquated spelling of ‘wobbling’, perhaps used in derision.

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, 
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, 
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

brave new world — From Shakespeare’s play, The Tempest.

paid for existing — alluding to socialism/communism/Marxism, and perhaps to social welfare payments in general. Note for historical context that the Russian Revolution was ongoing at the time.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

As you can see above, the poem is densely layered with references and allusions! I’m certain that I haven’t caught them all. One mystery to me is why so many (but not all) of the nouns in the poem are capitalized. This may have been simply an authorial idiosyncrasy.

And so… What does it all mean? What’s this poem really about?

“The Gods of the Copybook Headings” was published in October 1919, in the immediate aftermath of World War I. Kipling’s son John, a second lieutenant in the British infantry, had died in combat during the war (in 1915). The loss of his son was devastating for Kipling, who was left with only one surviving child, daughter Elsie, after having lost a seven year old daughter, Josephine, years earlier.

[As an interesting aside, seven-year-old Josephine’s death from pneumonia was announced with a front page headline in the March 7, 1899 edition of The New York Times. A sub-heading reported that Kipling himself, who was also suffering from pneumonia, had not been informed! Doctors feared that knowledge of his daughter’s death would cause Kipling to relapse (although they were happy to talk to newspapers about it). They planned to inform him some days later, after he had recovered more. The 1899 reportage from The Times, compared to today, is notably fact based, succinct, and unemotional.]

The Spanish Flu also struck England in the fall and winter of 1918-1919, killing many young adults including young soldiers returning from the war (though it was less devastating in England than in most countries).

World War I devastated not only the populations and economies of Europe, it devastated people’s faith in progress and modernity. It ended the Belle Epoque, or “beautiful era”, which had been characterized by optimism, growth, peace, and prosperity. The “war to end all wars” had served no purpose and accomplished no good. No one afterwards could clearly articulate what had been fought for and why, questions that historians debate fiercely to this day.

This historical background is not necessary to understand “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, nor is it required to explain Kipling’s inspiration for the poem. Since long before World War I, Kipling’s work had promoted the quintessentially Victorian world view upon which “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” is squarely centered. It is thematically consistent with Kipling’s earlier work, such as “If” and The Jungle Book. But the immediate historical background gives additional dimension to the poem. For many people at the time (and since), World War I seemed to be an unmasking of Victorian values and a grotesque exposure of Victorian hypocrisy. The war put an end to the Victorian era in Britain as surely as to the Belle Epoque on the continent. Yet, in a different light, in the light of perspective seen in “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”, the war was a validation of the Victorian era’s stiff, unforgiving, traditional values in the face of damnable sweet lies and flights of fancy that had led down a road called ‘progress’ straight to a shrieking pit of mass destruction.

What the poem is really about is inexorable reality in the face of human deceit and wishful thinking. Our hard won, timeless wisdoms are perpetually mislaid, or waylaid, by smooth tongued wizards who have something to sell or something to gain from our loss. But we aren’t victims, we have been warned, as our ancestors were and theirs. In our willful, congratulatory foolishness we become complicit in our own destruction, even the death of our own society, from which our descendants will pick up and build with scattered pieces, and from the heights of which building their descendants will fall once again into the purchase of pleasant lies.

The ‘Gods of the Copybook Headings’ watch over truth and timeless wisdom. They are in no hurry, reality is on their side. They will still be there when we forget them, as they were in the past, and will appear again when we remember them, as they always have. Their teachings are not sweetly cooked, but are freely given. Anchored to the foundations of reality, they are unthreatened and have no reason to lie.

What are the ‘Gods of the Market Place’ gods of? What is the ‘Market Place’? It’s notable that Kipling did not choose to write ‘marketplace’, which was a common construction at the time. In 1888, in Plain Tales from the Hills, and in 1891, in The Light That Failed, Kipling (or his editors) had used the spelling, “market-place”, with a hyphen. Based on searches in Google Books, this hyphenated spelling was also a common construction for the word at the time, although less common than “marketplace”, but what was not common at all was “market place”. Most of the search results from that era for “market place” (i.e. without a hyphen) are simply street names. This odd choice of construction seems to emphasize the ‘market place’ in the poem as a broad, symbolic concept rather than some London or Wall Street trading floor (though it also encompasses those). The place where the market is, is the place where buying and selling occurs. The gods of the ‘market place’ are the gods of buying and selling. According to the poem, these gods promise things that are impossible, and things that sound appealing but are harmful. They promise a round of cheese from the reflection of the moon.

We humans want our moon cheese and our cost-free ‘fuller life’. We want action without responsibility and joy without tears. Or we think we do, or we often do, or at least many of us, or some of the time. Copybook headings were simple, quaint, modest, and ordinary. They weren’t what we wished for truth to be.

Buying or selling in the poem’s sense of ‘market’ does not reduce to capitalism, or even an economic concept per se, although the poem is clearly critical of socialism in its various guises. What Kipling is driving at is more in the nature of trading, again in a broad, symbolic sense of the word. What does humanity trade for, what kind of bargains does it strike? We want something for nothing, if we can get it — the million dollar painting bought for ten at a garage sale — and someone will always be there to tell us that somehow we can.

What do these gods want with us, after all? Why do they care?

“But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe.”

We ourselves are what is being being bought and sold in the ‘market place’. And that is because we choose to be. We choose, in the incarnation of every age, when we have the luxurious opportunity to do so, to believe in easy lies rather than hard truths. Seeking flights of fantasy, casting after wind borne things, we make ourselves available for sale. But truth bears itself out regardlessly. Whether hard or soft, it plows on across the universe, being as it is the universe, unworried and unthreatened, far more implacable than ‘progress’. We barter with each other, trading wishes and energies for lies, to whoever is clever enough to profit from them, who too in their blissful predatory iniquity will be soon enough cast back to earth. We flatter ourselves to think that we can hustle fate, though it’s clear enough that fate is hustling us and not the other way around.

Some billionaires today think that they will really be immortal soon. Only one or two more scientific breakthroughs are needed. They plan to never die. Or at least that’s what they tell the public they believe.

What will they say on their death beds? Will it simply be, “Oh, shit.”

It’s not that reality is so very awful, it’s only that it’s as awful as it is. That’s what we don’t like. We think we can fix it, make it perfect, make it better. Which is a fool’s errand, especially coming from a creature as lowly as man. It’s wonderful that water will wet us and fire will burn. Imagine if they wouldn’t? Most people can’t. But they think they could do it better. And that is where the disaster lies.

So we should try to teach our children again the timeless wisdoms handed down to us and lately scorned, we should try just as the parents of the children who filled out copybooks tried. And some of our children it will help. Some other children never could have been helped. We, in our luxury, don’t want to accept that. Smooth tongued wizards whisper from the corner that we don’t have to. Oftentimes the smooth tongued wizard is ourself.

The Gods of the Copybook Headings

A Poem for Our Time, with Notes, References, and Discussion

TEXT NOTES AND REFERENCES

GENERAL DISCUSSION

FURTHER READING

Discussion about this post