Second Glance at Jaguar | Ted Hughes
Skinful of bowls, he bowls them,
The hip going in and out of joint, dropping the spine
With the urgency of his hurry
Like a cat going along under thrown stones, under cover,
Glancing sideways, running
Under his spine. A terrible, stump-legged waddle
Like a thick Aztec disemboweller,
Club-swinging, trying to grind some square
Socket between his hind legs round,
Carrying his head like a brazier of spilling embers,
And the black bit of his mouth, he takes it
Between his back teeth, he has to wear his skin out,
He swipes a lap at the water-trough as he turns,
Swiveling the ball of his heel on the polished spot,
Showing his belly like a butterfly
At every stride he has to turn a corner
In himself and correct it. His head
Is like the worn down stump of another whole jaguar,
His body is just the engine shoving it forward,
Lifting the air up and shoving on under,
The weight of his fangs hanging the mouth open,
Bottom jaw combing the ground. A gorged look,
Gangster, club-tail lumped along behind gracelessly,
He’s wearing himself to heavy ovals,
Muttering some mantra, some drum-song of murder
To keep his rage brightening, making his skin
Intolerable, spurred by the rosettes, the cain-brands,
Wearing the spots from the inside,
Rounding some revenge. Going like a prayer-wheel,
The head dragging forward, the body keeping up,
The hind legs lagging. He coils, he flourishes
The blackjack tail as if looking for a target,
Hurrying through the underworld, soundless.
Why do we all revisit the past?
Why do we replay ‘things’ again in our heads, altering what may have been a bold, brilliant event into some discordant jumble of cynical ‘final’ impressions?
Why did Ted Hughes rewrite his original, arresting Jaguar poem, converting the original poem into this nightmarish linguistic version above: not unlike a Hieronymus Bosch version of a jaguar!
Are we to deduce that after 10 years in captivity the brave and transcendent Jaguar has become so degraded by his imprisonment, that all the magnificence of the original creature has degenerated into mental and physical ugliness and despair?
Look how Ted Hughes is discordantly descriptive in this re visitation of the original Jaguar poem. We read and hear awkwardness and mismatching physicality, underlining the claustrophobic, burdened, bitter daily living experience endured by the jaguar. He is blighted within and without: ‘wearing the spots from the inside.’ This insight reveals the contaminating effect of zoo life. The once glorious pelt has become like a rash signifying fever and disease. His skin burns him as he cannot leave himself behind, much as he now seems to dwell in an ‘underworld’ where he is permanently estranged from his natural habitat.
He is just a spectre of ‘another whole jaguar’ who once existed in a different mental and physical state. The cage is far too small and restrictive so that all his body has to distort itself to fit within its bleak and inhumane walls.
One detail after another relentlessly emphasizes the discordant living space of the jaguar.
Make me tense just reading it as the images are so distorted, angry and grotesque: the once mesmerizing creature has become a manacled prisoner of despair.