Why the Caged Bird Sings

No, no, no, no! Come let’s away to prison:

We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage;

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness. So we’ll live

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies, and hear poor rogues

Talk of court news; and we’ll talk with them too--

Who loses and who wins; who’s in, who’s out--

And take upon ‘s the mystery of things

As if we were God’s spies; and we’ll wear out,

In a wall’d prison, pacts and sects of great ones,

That ebb and flow by th’ moon.

—Shakespeare, King Lear V.iii.8-19

Cordelia, King Lear’s daughter, was determined to fight the injustice visited upon her father, but Lear had no fear of prison. Though confined by weakness and frailty, his spirit was free. “Let's away to prison,” he says. “We two alone will sing like birds i’ th’ cage.”

Lear is my kind of geezer: Laughing the laughter of pure delight. Chuckling over gilded butterflies and other beautiful things that God has given us out of pure love. Talking of court news—“who wins, who loses, who’s in who’s out.” Keeping up, refusing to become stodgy and isolated. Aware of the “ebb and flow of pacts and sects of poor rogues”—uncontaminated by contempt for them, but rather interceding for them.

Living, praying, singing, telling “old tales”—the ancient truths, the deep things of God. Analyzing, revealing the mystery of things present and things to come, “wearing out” those who have no truth to live by.

Though limited in strength and endurance, confined in space we can be “God’s spies,” subverting a culture that does not know the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. 

We know why the caged bird sings. 

David Roper

3.21.18