Emerson’s poem borrows the voice of King Mithridates, who famously made himself immune to poison by taking tiny doses. But here the hunger goes far beyond survival: the speaker craves to swallow everything the world offers, deadly or sweet. He rattles off a manic list—water, wine, opium, rose, hemlock, prussic acid—and calls all zones of earth, all creatures “kin of mine.” He wants agates for meat, venomous beetles, ivy wreathes, even the toxic upas tree to swing from. The mood is wild, greedy, and ecstatic, a revolt against a life “shut in strait and few,” fed only on dew. He wants to use the world and sift it, shift its humors as easily as spinning a cherry. In the end, he summons ghosts, goblins, virtues, and wrongdoers to flood his veins, even if it destroys him. The choice is between a silent owl and the sun-drenched Capitol—and he’d rather burn in the open than skulk in shadows. It’s a voracious, life-devouring anthem.
Mithridates — Summary
I cannot spare water or wine, Tobacco-leaf, or poppy, or rose; From the earth-poles to the Line, All between that works or grows, Every thing is kin of mine.
Give me agates for my meat, Give me cantharids to eat, From air and ocean bring me foods, From all zones and altitudes.
From all natures, sharp and slimy, Salt and basalt, wild and tame, Tree, and lichen, ape, sea-lion, Bird and reptile be my game.
Ivy for my fillet band, Blinding dogwood in my hand, Hemlock for my sherbet cull me, And the prussic juice to lull me, Swing me in the upas boughs, Vampire-fanned, when I carouse.
Too long shut in strait and few, Thinly dieted on dew, I will use the world, and sift it, To a thousand humors shift it, As you spin a cherry. O doleful ghosts, and goblins merry, O all you virtues, methods, mights; Means, appliances, delights; Reputed wrongs, and braggart rights; Smug routine, and things allowed; Minorities, things under cloud! Hither! take me, use me, fill me, Vein and artery, though ye kill me; God! I will not be an owl, But sun me in the Capitol.