Explication and commentary on a poem about Euclid

 Poem 1: Euclid Alone Has Looked on Beauty Bare by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare.

Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,

And lay them prone upon the earth and cease

To ponder on themselves, the while they stare

At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere

In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese

Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release

From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,

When first the shaft into his vision shone

Of light anatomized! Euclid alone

Has looked on Beauty bare. Fortunate they

Who, though once only and then but far away,

Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Speculation

Euclid alone saw the beauty of geometry (or geometry is the beauty) clearly (in his time). Euclid displayed the beauty he saw to the rest of the people. That made people who talked foolishly about the ‘geometry’ going silent. Geometry made people come face to face with the world they live in and not to be selfish in the old way in which they learned nothing. After passing through many different generations, many people still did not understand geometry. But those who understood geometry escaped from the dark world and came to the world in which they used geometry to build civilization and beauty.

The old days before the geometry were primitive and terrible. At the first opportunity of the beauty of geometry in details, Euclid was alone who saw it clearly.

When Euclid first understood the concept of geometry, it was him alone who saw the beauty in details and clear. The event that Euclid managed to compile a complete beauty of geometry happened once, but far away from our time. It was fortunate that people re-discovered the beauty. We have heard the great importance of geometry as a massive sandal set on stone more than 2000 years ago! (metaphor, according to wikipedia Eda was a feminist)

Poem 2: The Euclidean Domain

…Euclid alone

Has looked on beauty bare. Fortunate they

Who, though once only and then but far away,

Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

—Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sonnet

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare?

Has no one else of her seen hide or hair?

Nor heard her massive sandal set on stone?

Nor spoken with her on the telephone?

Proud poets, as you penned your paeans to Beauty,

Did you not think it was your bounden duty

(Though it were one that any might have loathed)

To tell that you have only seen her clothed?

And as you sang praise, Orpheus, of Eurydice,

Your mouth became the orifice of your idiocy!

For Beauty bare you never yet had seen,

’Twixt Hades’ depths and lofty Hippocrene.

O Beauty! Would you, for this mathematician,

Remove (if it would cause to give permission

To look on Beauty bare too great a scandal),

Once only, and then but far away, your sandal?

Speculation

Repeat the second part of the poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Is it true Euclid alone saw the beauty of geometry bare (clearly, completely)?

Has no one else seen her (geometry) hiding or even just her hair? (metaphor)

Has no one heard of the importance of geometry? Has no one heard that geometry set her sandals on stone (and sent out the loud sound wave) more than 2000 years ago?  

Has no one worked with geometry? Has no one spoken to geometry on the phone?(Sarcasm)

You (Edna) were a proud poet. You wrote your poem of praise to geometry (beauty). Did you think that it was your burden (duty) to tell that you only saw the surface of the beauty of geometry? It looked like this is something anyone was unwilling to do.

(Edna might not be trained as mathematician according to wikipedia)

As you sang the praise (Edna’s poem) - at this point David used the comparison with Orpheus mourning, praising his late wife Eurydice (both from ancient Greek mythology) - your mouth became the pipe producing your idiocy (stupidity). Because, you have never seen the bare beauty of geometry. It was between the depths of the Hades (god of the dead) and self imposed inspiration.

O beauty (geometry), would you, for this mathematician (is it David?) remove the event that ‘Euclid or someone discovered you in whole’ (which is taken as the beauty set her sandal on stone with a loud sound) into our world more than 2000 years ago? Would you (beauty) please, for once, go back in time and did not set your sandals on stone? To look at that beauty could come with a great scandal.

Notes: According to wikipedia, Euclid presented the already discovered geometries into one single logically organized work. His contribution seems to be the organization including writing axioms, and putting proofs in the collection.