The Dragon
The Dragon's teeth are sown in all the places we have known* * * and never tournament will part the teeth from any dragon's heart.
Louise Louis
SourceLicence:Public domain (US, unrenewed)
The Dragon's teeth are sown in all the places we have known* * * and never tournament will part the teeth from any dragon's heart.
Four short lines, and a lot packed into them. The image comes from the old myth of dragon's teeth: when they're sown in the ground, they grow into armed warriors. Here, though, the teeth are scattered "in all the places we have known," so the danger isn't far away or ancient. It's planted in our own familiar ground, in the settings of our lives.
The second half sounds like a verdict. A tournament is a contest with rules, the kind of knightly fight that is supposed to settle things. But the speaker says no contest can separate the teeth from "any dragon's heart." Whatever the dragon stands for, it can't be beaten out of existence by a clean fight. It's part of what the dragon is.
The mood is calm but heavy, almost resigned. The speaker doesn't shout or panic, just states a hard truth: some threats are rooted too deeply to be pulled out, and the places we know best may be where they've already taken hold.