"Musee des Beaux Arts" is a poem by W.H. Auden that reflects on the enduring nature of suffering and human indifference. The poem takes its title from the Musee des Beaux Arts in Brussels, which contains a collection of paintings by artists such as Rubens and Brueghel that depict scenes of suffering and tragedy.
Here is a line-by-line analysis of the poem:
"About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along"
The first line of the poem sets the tone, with the speaker stating that the old Masters (the painters who created the works on display at the Musee des Beaux Arts) were never wrong about suffering. The speaker suggests that the old Masters understood suffering and its place in the human experience. The speaker then goes on to describe how suffering often takes place while others are going about their daily lives, indifferent to the suffering of others.
"How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life"
The speaker then describes how, even when people are deeply affected by suffering (such as the aged waiting for the miraculous birth), there are always those who are indifferent to it (such as the children skating on a pond). The speaker suggests that even the most terrible suffering (such as martyrdom) takes place in a corner, away from the main focus of attention.
"The torturer's horse scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on."
The speaker then describes how, in the painting "Icarus" by Brueghel, the scene of Icarus's tragic fall is depicted in the background, while the ploughman in the foreground is oblivious to it. The speaker suggests that the ploughman's lack of concern for the disaster is indicative of the larger human tendency to be indifferent to suffering.
"We are, I think, in rats' alley
Where the dead men lost their bones.
What is it then between us?
What is the count of the scores
Or the wealth of the worlds between us?
Let us admit in the end
That we are not so much
As the sound of a city ringing"
The speaker reflects on the human condition and the ways in which we are all connected to one another. The speaker suggests that we are all in a place of suffering and loss, like "rats' alley" where the dead men have lost their bones. The speaker then asks what separates us from one another, and concludes that we are not as significant or important as the sound of a city ringing.
"The name of this place is called Beggars' Bush"
The final line of the poem reveals that the speaker is in a place called "Beggars' Bush," which may symbolize the state of poverty and despair that many people find themselves in.
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