Words Per Mile

This, to me, is the circle with the strongest connection between its two songs. Dante’s seventh circle, represented in Cantos 12 through 17, is for the violent, and is represented by these two songs that both draw inspiration from the Gaeilge language and it’s history.

(For those wondering how to pronounce uiscefhuarithe, according to this Reddit user, it’s “ishka-oohraha.” The word means “the feeling of coolness that comes from water,” as said in the lyrics.)

Let’s jump ahead to Butchered Tongue. In the seventh circle are those who committed violence, some of whom are described as thus:

…Tyrants are these,

Who dealt in bloodshed and pillaging.

The title of one canto also specifically mentioned “The Violent Against Their Neighbors.” Butchered Tongue feels to me like the aftermath of Foreigner’s God in that both refer to the oppression of the Gaeilge language by the British and lament the living Irish who were not and are not able to speak—or pray—in their native tongue.

Road signs in Ireland typically have both English and Gaeilge on them (hence the line “as a young man blessed to pass so many road signs”) and there is a movement to revive the language into a living one, UNESCO still lists it among the approximately 2,500 endangered languages worldwide. The other place names mentioned in the song are:

• Apalachicola, Florida (name comes from the extinct Hitchiti language)
• Hushpuckena, Mississippi (name comes from the endangered Choctaw language)
• Gweebarra (from Gaeilge)

Languages are one of the many things that colonial violence has taken from both individual communities and the world as a whole. While Foreigner’s God focuses on the acute grief of this, Butchered Tongue is the start of healing, the acknowledgement of places where languages are still preserved, and the need to begin recovery and discover what can still be preserved:

Until the distance has been shown

Between what is lost forever

And what can still be known

I think the context of this song is important to understand why To Someone From A Warm Climate (Uiscefhuarithe) is included in this circle (besides the fact that it would be a crime not to put it on the album). We know from interviews that Hozier wrote this song for someone from a warm climate, but when I saw him live he also talked about being really inspired by discovering the word uiscefhuarithe and realizing he hadn’t heard a single term for that specific feeling in any other language. The word itself is among the many things colonial violence took from people.

This song also references the torment of the violent sinners in the seventh circle. When Virgil shows Dante the shades being punished:

But fix thine eyes below; for darweth near

The river of blood, with which boiling is

Whoe’er by violence doth injure others.

I do think Hozier references this near the end of the song:

And I wish I could say

That the river of my arms have found the ocean

I wish I could say

The cold lake water of my heart

Christ, it’s boiling over

However, in this case, he frames the boiling as a positive thing, a desirable. It could be connected to feeling love for the person the song is about, or it could be that he wants to see the violent boiled, wants some retribution for the violence that has been committed against his and other people. I do think this is a song that has several interpretations that he doesn’t plan to share, that are personal or maybe hard to talk about. But the concept of a boiling body of water definitely seems to draw inspiration from Dante’s work.

What do you think? Let me know, and be sure to check back next week for more.