Words Per Mile

This song stands alone, representing the first circle of Hell. Also referred to as Limbo, according to Dante this circle houses “Virtuous pagans and the unbaptized” (Canto 4).

In other words, these are non-sinners who simply are unable to access the Kingdom of Heaven, and live in what Dante calls “sorrow without torment.” I think this is reflected best in the verse that Hozier apparently liked enough to put on a shirt:

To share the space with simple living things

Infinitely suffering, but fighting off like all creation

The absence of itself

(Anyway)

The lyric paints the picture of someone or something that is truly in limbo—not able to abide the life it’s leading but “fighting off…the absence of itself.” This also mirrors Hozier’s perspective of God in De Selby (Part 1), when He created…well, everything, to reduce the amount of nothingness in the world. The default state of anything is its own existence.

The overarching theme of the song is about a relationship that begins, progresses, and ends, seemingly without major fault of either party. Both suffer loss and emptiness, but not because of any sin. Rather, they stop fighting off the absence of the relationship and resign themselves (hopefully temporarily) to the liminal space between loves. We’ll see this again in a couple more circles.

Another thing we’ll see repeat—this is actually already the second time its come up—is the theme of rivers. Towards the beginning of First Time:

And the first time that you kissed me

I drank dry the River Lethe

The Liffey would have been softer on my stomach all the same

The Lethe is the fictional river of Hell that causes souls that drink from it to forget their past. Is Hozier saying that this new love causes his to forget old ones, or that for some reason he wants to forget the first kiss, either to experience it again or to spare himself pain? I lean towards the former interpretation, if only because he’s played with this idea before, but I think both are valid.

The Liffey would have been softer…does he mean the Liffey as a metaphor for life itself or the very real, too-dirty-to-swim-in Liffey? Either way, that’s a pretty severe thing to say it would have been softer on you than your love. But maybe love isn’t meant to be soft. Maybe it’s meant to drag you through Hell and back and remind you what it means to be among the living.

What do you think? Let me know your interpretation below, and come back next week for our next circle.