Saxe, 'The Blind Men and the Elephant' (full poem)
John Godfrey Saxe, The Blind Men and the Elephant. A Hindoo Fable (1872)
Six men touch six parts of an elephant and each is sure he knows the whole: Saxe’s poem after the ancient Indian parable, in full.
Why it matters
Saxe’s poem retells a parable that appears in Indian sources in several forms, among them the Buddhist Udāna. Six blind men approach an elephant, each touches a different part, and each declares with confidence what the elephant is: a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, a rope. Each was partly in the right, and all were in the wrong.
The parable is usually told against dogmatism, and it is good at that. I read it also as a story about aggregation. Each man’s report is grounded: he touched what he describes. The trouble is in the step from part to whole, which none of them can make alone and which they cannot make together, because each discounts the others.
A system trained on everything people have written is in a curious position with respect to this story. It has, in a sense, the reports of all six men and many more. What it does with them is not to reconstruct the elephant from evidence but to produce the description most likely given the reports, weighted by how often each is made. Where the many partial reports converge on the truth, that works very well. Where they do not, the system will describe the elephant as confidently as the six men did, and for a reason none of them had.
The Blind Men and the Elephant: A Hindoo Fable (whole poem)
The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe (1872), pp. 259–261
I. IT was six men of Indostan To learning much inclined, Who went to see the Elephant (Though all of them were blind), That each by observation Might satisfy his mind.
II. The First approached the Elephant, And happening to fall Against his broad and sturdy side, At once began to bawl: "God bless me!—but the Elephant Is very like a wall!"
III. The Second, feeling of the tusk, Cried: "Ho!—what have we here So very round and smooth and sharp? To me 't is mighty clear This wonder of an Elephant Is very like a spear!"
IV. The Third approached the animal, And happening to take The squirming trunk within his hands, Thus boldly up and spake: "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a snake!"
V. The Fourth reached out his eager hand, And felt about the knee. "What most this wondrous beast is like Is mighty plain," quoth he; "'T is clear enough the Elephant Is very like a tree!"
VI. The Fifth, who chanced to touch the ear, Said: "E'en the blindest man Can tell what this resembles most; Deny the fact who can, This marvel of an Elephant Is very like a fan!"
VII. The Sixth no sooner had begun About the beast to grope, Than, seizing on the swinging tail That fell within his scope, "I see," quoth he, "the Elephant Is very like a rope!"
VIII. And so these men of Indostan Disputed loud and long, Each in his own opinion Exceeding stiff and strong, Though each was partly in the right, And all were in the wrong!
MORAL. So, oft in theologic wars The disputants, I ween, Rail on in utter ignorance Of what each other mean, And prate about an Elephant Not one of them has seen!
Questions for discussion
- Each blind man is right about the part he touches and wrong about the whole. Is the fault in what they perceive or in what they infer?
- Jain philosophers use the parable to illustrate anekāntavāda, the many-sidedness of reality. Does it show that every view is partly true, or only that partial views must be combined?
- Saxe ends by turning the fable on theological disputes. Who in the poem can see the whole elephant, and what does that imply about the poem's own standpoint?
The text and its source
- Edition
- The Poems of John Godfrey Saxe (Boston: J. R. Osgood, 1872), as transcribed and validated on Wikisource from the scan "The poems of John Godfrey Saxe.djvu" (index pages 279–281).
- Source
- Wikisource
- Status
- Public domain: published 1872; Saxe died 1887.
- Notes on the text
- Poem text: lines separated by single newlines, stanzas by blank lines; the stanza numerals (I.–VIII.) and the heading "MORAL." are part of the printed poem and are kept. The Wikisource pages used are marked "Validated" (proofread twice against the scan). One layout repair: stanza IV is split across a page break in the transclusion and has been rejoined (whitespace only). "IT was" reflects the printed drop-capital opening (modern form: "It was"). The alternate lines are indented in print; that indentation is not represented. Underscores mark italics (_First_ ... _Sixth_, and the last two lines of the Moral). The poem may have appeared in periodicals before 1872; the date given is that of this edition. Printed pages 259–261 = scan pages 279–281.
Questions it bears on
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Cite this page
John Godfrey Saxe. The Blind Men and the Elephant. A Hindoo Fable. In: Saxe, 'The Blind Men and the Elephant' (full poem), abhinavsaxena.in library. https://abhinavsaxena.in/library/saxe-blind-men/