ShmoopTube

00:03

Here's your shmoop du jour, brought to you by Soft Pipes. Not the greatest for indoor plumbing.

00:24

Lines 32-34 are BEST understood to mean... what?

00:28

And here are the potential answers...

00:33

Okay, so this question wants us to examine a few lines of the poem and... translate them into English.

00:38

In the words of Robert Frost, they want us to "say it worse."

00:45

Here are lines 32 through 34:

00:47

To what green altar, O mysterious priest, Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,

00:53

And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?

00:57

Okay, well we're going to an altar, so... is somebody getting married!

01:01

Shoot -- where are they registered? We need to get them something!

01:06

Alas... it doesn't appear that a wedding is one of the answer choices, so... must be some

01:09

other kind of altar...

01:12

We also have a "heifer lowing at the skies"... or... a cow mooing up a storm.

01:19

There's also a priest involved...

01:22

Ah! Sounds like this cow is about to be sacrificed... and not just because the "men and maidens"

01:29

have decided to grill out on Memorial Day.

01:32

In fact, if we look at line 31, the line directly preceding these 3, we see that it reads:

01:37

Who are these coming to the sacrifice?

01:39

Well, there we go. The author really spells it all out for us.

01:43

Clearly, it isn't a maiden being led anywhere, so D and E are out...

01:47

...there's no mention of a shepherd so C is no good...

01:50

...and the cow only wishes it were being led to pasture. A isn't it either.

01:54

No -- our answer is B: a priest is preparing for a sacrifice.

01:59

And hey -- he might also get a nice, new jacket out of the deal...

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