Page 52 - The Irony Board
P. 52
Into the Body
When one of two forked tongues
In a three-legged race
Gets off on the wrong foot,
The other goes along
Forced to admit the truth
Couldn’t be better put.
Continuing the track and field imagery, this poem portrays an
irony of mendacity. Two liars, in order to keep their stories
consistent, must stay in step; if one of them slips and tells the truth,
the other must follow suit. Speaking with forked tongue is an
allegedly Amerindian expression for prevarication; taking it literally
creates a picture of one truthful and one lying tine. Assuming two
such organs of speech bound together as one three-tined fork, and
those three prongs used as organs of locomotion, then whichever
“foot” of truth or falsity one tongue starts out on, the other must
also use. The wrong foot for a liar is the truth; his companion in the
three-legged race must also be truthful or cause them both to
stumble and fall. Gluckman’s imagery is strained but vivid.
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