Casino
by W. H. Auden
(Selected Poems, edited by Edward Mendelson, Faber & Faber)

Only the hands are living; to the wheel attracted,
Are moved, as deer trek desperately towards a creek
Through the dust and scrub of the desert, or gently
As sunflowers turn to the light.

And as the night takes up the cries of feverish children,
The cravings of lions in dens, the loves of dons,
Gathers them all and remains the night, the
Great room is full of their prayers.

To the last feast of isolation, self-invited,
They flock, and in the rite of disbelief are joined;
From numbers all their stars are recreated,
The enchanted, the world, the sad.

Without, the rivers flow among the wholly living,
Quite near their trysts; and the mountains part them; and the bird,
Deep in the greens and moistures of summer,
Sings towards their work.

But here no nymph comes naked to the youngest shepherd,
The fountain is deserted, the laurel will not grow;
The labyrinth is safe but endless, and broken
Is Ariadne’s thread.

As deeper in these hands is grooved their fortune: “Lucky
Were the few, and it is possible that none were loved;
And what was godlike in this generation
Was never to be born.”

(April 1936)

It is the centenary of Auden’s birth on Wednesday, but his poem about casino gamblers is as relevant now as the day he wrote it. I have never known a happy or successful gambler, but my experience is limited and, statistically speaking, they must exist in view of the fact that all the unsuccessful gamblers exist. There must be one . . . After all, a little success is necessary from time to time to convince the other hopefuls that they have a chance. To encourage delusion one must offer incentives.

I am not a gambler; I did once, however, desperately want to place a bet on Red Rum at outrageous odds; I was 15 and possessed with an overpowering instinct that the horse was going to win the Grand National. He did, but I was too young to be allowed into a betting shop. Fortunate, really, for who knows what influence that could have had on my developing psyche? I might now be stuck in front of the television instead of writing this, my finger on the interactive pulse of those TV gambling shows, losing my savings, my shirt and the sofa I sit on. It never feels like real money until you don’t have it any more.

I have only been to casinos a handful of times, and not to gamble, but to watch the gamblers. It’s fascinating to observe people who have absolutely no interest in anything but the game in front of them. They pass shoulder to shoulder and sit elbow to elbow, but their eyes are empty of anything except the hook in their brain that attaches them to their (usually) vain hope of leaving in profit. They are vacuous; they achieve nothing, learn nothing, go nowhere; they have no purpose. I feel the same way about anyone addicted to computer games, but they at least evolve; they come away with enlarged thumbs, quick reactions, repetitive strain injuries and an impaired ability to carry on a conversation with another human being. (I jest, but only slightly; someone once close to me was wholly addicted to Space Invaders.)

So, for me, this poem describes the emptiness and desperation of those who inhabit the casino: “Only the hands are living;” Auden observes, because no other part of the human being physically engages in the current pursuit. They are “to the wheel attracted,” because the roulette wheel is the sole focus of their attention. The urgency of this attraction for some is likened to “deer that trek desperately towards a creek” and, for those more measured in their movements, to sunflowers that follow the light; but they are all going in the same direction. The comparison of the desperation of the gambler to that of a thirsty deer also serves to contrast the deer’s need — as one that perpetuates life — with the gambler’s need, which is a human affliction of his or her own choosing. Gamblers do not quench their thirst; they don’t build houses or take the children to the park on a Sunday; they would never have been Michelangelo painting the Sistine Chapel, nor will they ever wonder what to spend their savings on.

And what happens after a win if the gambler is one of the very few to be so fortunate? Or (if they would have it that way) so clever. Does it make them a better human being? Does it assuage their craving so they don’t feel the need to gamble again and perhaps lose it all? Does it give them back the hours, days or weeks (years in some cases) that they have spent? Was it worth it?

The night “takes up the cries of feverish children” and “The cravings of lions in dens, the loves of dons” and “the/ Great room is full of their prayers”. Although the prayers first appear to be from the children, lions and loves of dons, I believe they originate from the gamblers, as that last line in the verse is still connected to the image of the gamblers from the first verse. And the nighttime activities of children, lions and loves of dons are being used as a backdrop for the continual daytime of the casino.

“To the last feast of isolation, self-invited,/ They flock,” Auden writes, and I want to applaud because that is exactly what gamblers do; they invite themselves; it is their decision to gamble. They flock, because they are weak-willed and many. It is the last feast because once drawn in, they cannot escape, and the feast is the fabulous choice of ways in which they can gamble away everything they own. They are isolated from each other by their focus on the game before them, and the hope that they, above all the others, will be favoured by good fortune. But, as isolated from their fellow man as they are, they are joined “in the rite of disbelief” of the reality of their chances.

Beyond the walls that contain the false atmosphere of the casino, “rivers flow among the wholly living”, reminding us that those inside the casino cannot be thought of as anything other than only partially alive. The bird “Sings towards their work” from “Deep in the greens and moistures of summer” and we know that those in the casino do not care. Neither the magic of the creative mind nor classical myth can exist in the world of the casino; no naked nymph, no youngest shepherd . . . The line “The labyrinth is safe but endless” refers to the labyrinth in Greek mythology which was commissioned by Minos, King of Crete, to house the Minotaur, a fearsome beast with the body of a man and the head of a bull who fed on human flesh. Theseus (Greek hero) killed the Minotaur and escaped the labyrinth with the aid of a thread given to him by Ariadne, daughter of Minos.

But here, the labyrinth, while owning no flesh-eating Minotaur since it is described as “safe”, is “endless” because each player’s mind makes it so. They are trapped by their own desperate craving; their own deluded conviction; their own inability to take control of their destiny and escape, hence the phrase “and broken/ Is Ariadne’s thread”. The way out is lost to them.

Auden tells us that “deeper in these hands is grooved their fortune”: and we see the gamblers eroding as their lives pass fruitlessly by, their hands withering with unfulfilled hope. “Lucky/ Were the few” — there must always be a winner somewhere, so that all the others can be persuaded to continue and lose — “and it is possible that none were loved” because there is little chance for the habitual gambler to form a relationship with anyone other than the interchangeable men and women who deal the cards or spin the wheel. “And what was godlike in this generation/ Was never to be born.” Because all that unrealised potential, all that was inventive or creative, all that might contribute to the world in which we live was wasted on the wheel or the turn of a card. Those who wish to make money will always cater to man’s greatest weaknesses, and man, being weak, loses himself and has no one but himself to blame.

frieda.hughes@thetimes.co.uk

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