Can anybody help to praphrase these words?

[princehamlet]

whereon kings die, and our ignoble lives become the stakes God plays for.
what is the meaning of "the stakes God plays for"?

[Pompey Bum]

-------

[Melanie]

The stakes God "plays for" is the make-up of our "ignoble lives". The make-up that makes the "life of man" ignoble consists of things like being mean, dishonorable, and unworthy for eternal life in God's eyes. These are the unfavorable things considered by God as to where and how man spends eternity man's spiritual life after physical death). According to God, in this quote's opinion, kings who are esteemed by man are humbled at their time of their physical death because God does not consider the same things man considers to deem kings honorable (like material wealth or power). God is looking at righteousness, morality, obedience, and how they treat their fellow man etc.

[princehamlet]

Dear Melanie,
Thanks for your creative response. You described the "stakes" , "make-up" and what is ignoble in the eye's of God.' but i couldn't find anything about the "play God do for stakes". WHAT DOES DO GOD TO OUR IGNOBLE LIVES".

[princehamlet]

Hi Pompey
!!!!??

[Melanie]

Dear Melanie,
Thanks for your creative response. You described the "stakes" , "make-up" and what is ignoble in the eye's of God.' but i couldn't find anything about the "play God do for stakes". WHAT DOES DO GOD TO OUR IGNOBLE LIVES".
"Play" is just an irreverent expression to insinuate that God is playing a game with what is at stake for man's life after death. What is at "stake" is man's punishment for his sins according to the author (sins like being mean and dishonorable and unworthy for God's kingdom).

Although the author is not being specific about what god or who's god, according to Christianity, the fact is, all men sin but are still worthy, by God's grace (and by Christ the Savior's) from sin, for eternal life if the sinner admits his sin, repents, and believes…according to Christianity.

[Pompey Bum]

Sorry, PH. I didn't intend to have a religious debate with the PAM, so I deleted my comment rather than get into it with her. But for your sake, I will be happy to offer my opinion about what Wilde meant by the words.

If you are reading A Florentine Tragedy, you know the phrase is delivered by a wool merchant who is being cuckolded by an aristocrat, and has, in effect, walked in on him with his wife. The men are speaking with a veneer of cordiality, but (as far as the aristocrat is concerned) they are actually negotiating their power relationship vis a vis the merchant's wife. In fact, the merchant is only feigning cordiality and will soon kill the aristocrat and take his wife back.

The phrase you mention comes from an exchange in which the merchant mentions that the Pope has invited the King of France to invade Italy. The aristocrat dismisses the comment and tells the merchant that he doesn't care. The merchant responds:

Is it so then? Is all this mighty world
Narrowed into the confines of this room
With but three souls for poor inhabitants?
Ay! there are times when the great universe,
Like cloth in some unskilful dyer’s vat,
Shrivels into a handbreadth, and perchance
That time is now! Well! let that time be now.
Let this mean room be as that mighty stage
Whereon kings die, and our ignoble lives
Become the stakes God plays for.

From my perspective, "Whereon kings die/and our ignoble lives/Become the stakes God plays for" means where our illusions about nobility (not only the King of France's but also the aristocrat's) cease to be relevant and we are left with "ignoble lives" whose fates and fortunes ("the stakes God plays for") are not governed by supposedly noble virtues, but by underlying realities--the aristocrats intended domination of the merchant by having sex with his wife, for example, or the merchant's plan to kill the aristocrat.

Wilde was a Utopian with some sympathies to Socialism, so the political subtext involves "this mighty world/Narrowed into the confines of this room/With but three souls for poor inhabitants." In other words, the the aristocrat, the merchant, and his wife encapsulate the underlying power structure of the dirty "real" world, at least as Wilde thought of it.

I hope that was helpful. As I said, it is just an opinion. You will certainly want to think through these issues and come to your own conclusions. Good luck! :)

[Jackson Richardson]

I prefer The Importance of Being Earnest among Wilde's plays. I'm impressed by Pompey recogising the quote.

What is the PAM?

[Pompey Bum]

Thanks, Jonathan. Wilde is a good one to read while you are also reading long books. His works are short but pack a punch. The funny ones a hilarious and the others are often very moving. A Florentine Tragedy was only a fragment, but I think there was an opera made of it.

PAM = Person above me

[Jackson Richardson]

Thanks. I guessed it was an acronym, but it couldn't be pluggable authentication module as suggested by Google.

[Jackson Richardson]

A Florentine Tragedy was only a fragment, but I think there was an opera made of it.

You're right - it is by Zemlinsky, I've seen it and I can't remember a thing. (Late romantic music isn't really my thing.)

I don't get "the stakes God plays for". (My feeling is that when Wilde wasn't ironic and witty, he was flowery and pretentious. Sorry to say.)

I wonder if Wilde was thinking of the lines near the end of Lear "As flies to idle boys are we to the gods - they kill us for their sport"?

[Melanie]

I don't get "the stakes God plays for". (My feeling is that when Wilde wasn't ironic and witty, he was flowery and pretentious. Sorry to say.)

I wonder if Wilde was thinking of the lines near the end of Lear "As flies to idle boys are we to the gods - they kill us for their sport"?
Clever observation but Wilde used the singular "God", not the plural "gods". Big difference. Apples and oranges. But he still may have been inspired by Lear.

[Pompey Bum]

You're right - it is by Zemlinsky, I've seen it and I can't remember a thing. (Late romantic music isn't really my thing.)

I don't get "the stakes God plays for". (My feeling is that when Wilde wasn't ironic and witty, he was flowery and pretentious. Sorry to say.)

I wonder if Wilde was thinking of the lines near the end of Lear "As flies to idle boys are we to the gods - they kill us for their sport"?

Perhaps. They called the same verses to mind for me, but they have a similar sound in any case.

The problem you may be having with the verse PH mentioned is that "the stakes that God plays for" is not being emphasized (in my opinion). It's:

Let this mean room be as that mighty stage
Whereon kings die, and our ignoble lives
Become the stakes God plays for.

(Emphasis mine)

So he is saying: Okay, you don't like this cordial chat? Fine, then let this room become a microcosm of the dirty world where pretenses are stripped away and our ignoble lives become what matters. It is certainly not a statement of religious faith, since it is preparatory to the merchant's strangulation of the aristocrat.

No, I didn't reckon Wilde would be your cup of tea, Jonathan. :)

[Jackson Richardson]

Funnily enough the one late romantic opera composer I keep on coming back to DID set an Oscar Wilde text - Richard Strauss' Salome so I best know the text in German, which Strauss set.

Like Melanie, I'm not very comfortable with that quote from Lear, but I suspect the difference between God and gods doesn't make much difference to the argument.

[Pompey Bum]

Yes, the comment seemed a bit off point to me, too. In any case, yes, Salome's great.

[Eiseabhal]

I do not think Wilde was doing anything but taking the mick in that fragment. It is so OTT that it reads like a mockery of the sub-genre of revenge-fueled Elizabethan tragedies. The final lines are hilarious. If you have my sense of humour that is.

[princehamlet]

Hi Pompey, thanks for your nice response, it was so useful for me. it cause the point become more clear for me. thanks a lot again

[princehamlet]

Hi Pompey, thank you so much for such a creative note on the point. it make the point clear enough for me.