WRFH/Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM - The Poetry Fix: The Benefactors
Episode Date: October 24, 2025Today, Erika Kyba reads "The Benefactors" by Rudyard Kipling. Kipling mediates on how all innovation springs from the "pinch of pain and fear" that drives man. ...
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Welcome to the Poetry Fix on Radio Free Hillsdale 101.7 FM. I'm your host, Erica Kaiba, bringing you your weekly fix of poetry from across time.
Today we're reading The Benefactors by Rudyard Kipling.
Kipling begins this poem with a clever bit of misdirection. He sets out as if he is going to describe the uselessness of art or poetry against the bare facts of nature.
But then he gets to his third stanza, which encapsulates the poem's theme. It is not learning, grace, nor gear, nor easy meat and drink,
but bitter pinch of pain and fear that makes creation think.
From there, Kipling transitions from talking about art to talking about war.
He describes the multifarious weapons that humans have invented over time
because of this bitter pinch of pain and fear.
He notes that every time men are absolutely backed into a corner
by the power of other men or a mob,
some invention springs up, born of necessity, that upsets the balance of power.
He never again explicitly returns to the theme of his introductory verses about nature and art,
but what is the link between them and the rest of the poem?
Are the first two stanzas really just misdirection?
Or are they meant to frame the way we read this poem?
Let's consider that as we dive in.
The benefactors by Redred Kipling.
Ah, what avails the classic bent and what the cultured word,
against the undaunted incident that actually occurred?
And what is art where to we press through paint and prose and rhyme?
When nature in her nakedness defeats.
us every time. It is not learning, grace nor gear, nor easy meat and drink, but bitter pinch
of pain and fear that makes creation think. When in this world's unpleasing youth our godlike race
began, the longest arm, the sharpest tooth gave man control of man. Till bruised and bitten to
the bone and taught by pain and fear, he learned to deal the far-off stone and poke the long,
safe spear. So tooth and nail were obsolete as means against a foe, till bored by uniform
defeat some genius built the bow. Then stone and javelin proved as vain as old-time tooth
and nail, till spurred anew by fear and pain, man-fashioned coats of mail. Then there was safety
for the rich and danger for the poor, till someone mixed a powder which redressed the scale
once more. Helmet and armor disappeared with sword and bow and pike, and when the smithes,
of battle cleared, all men were armed alike.
And when ten million such were slain to please one crazy king, man schooled in bulk by fear
and pain grew weary of the thing.
And at the very hour designed to enslave him past recall, his tooth-stone arrow gun-shy mind
turned and abolished all.
All power, each tyrant, every mob, whose head has grown too large, ends by destroying
his own job and works its own discharge. And man whose mere necessities move all things from his
path trembles meanwhile at their decrees and deprecates their wrath. You've been listening to
The Poetry Fix with Erica Kaiba. If you enjoyed this episode, consider following the Poetry Fix
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email your suggestions to The Poetree Fix at gmail.com.
Join me next week and we'll be reading Baudelaire's The Abyss.