It is obviously impossible to analyze with accuracy the various elements that once combined to make a phrase in the mind of a poet long dead, but for the sake of illustration here is a fanciful reconstruction of the clash of ideas that gave us Milton’s often quoted “Gadding Vine.” The words, to me, represent an encounter between the poet’s sub-personalities “B” and “C.” Says “B”:—
“What a gentle placid fruitful plant the vine is; I am thinking of putting it in one of my speeches as emblem of the kindly weakness of the Vegetables.”
C replies very tartly:—
“Gentle placid fruitful fiddle-sticks! Why, my good friend, think of the colossal explosive force required to thrust up that vast structure from a tiny seed buried inches deep in the earth; against the force of gravity too, and against very heavy winds. Placidity! Look at its leaves tossing about and its greedy tendrils swaying in search of something to attack. Vegetable indeed! It’s mobile, it’s vicious, it’s more like a swarm of gad-flies.” B continues obstinate, saying “I never heard such nonsense. A vine is still a vine, in spite of your paradoxes.”
“Anyhow, the juice of the vine makes you gad about pretty lively, sometimes,” says C.
“Grapes are the conventional fruit for the sick-room,” retorts B.
“Well, what did the Greeks think about it?” pursues C. “Wasn’t Dionysos the god of the Vine? He didn’t stop rooted all his life in some miserable little Greek valley. He went gadding off to India and brought back tigers.”
“If you are going to appeal to the poets,” returns B, “you can’t disregard the position of the vine in decorative art. It has been conventionalized into the most static design you can find, after the lotus. When I say Vine, that’s quite enough for me, just V for vegetable.”
They are interrupted by A the master spirit who says with authority:—
“Silence, the two of you! I rule a compromise. Call it a “gadding vine” and have done with it.”