Literary notes about Tether (AI summary)
The word "tether" in literature has been employed in both literal and figurative senses. In its most physical usage, authors have described animals—such as the goat in mathematical puzzles ([1], [2]) or the sheep in Poe's verse ([3])—secured by a cord to a fixed point, vividly evoking restraint or limitation. In contrast, numerous writers extend this notion metaphorically; phrases like "at the end of my tether" in Ulysses ([4], [5], [6]), The House of Mirth ([7], [8]), and even Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas ([9]) illustrate a condition of being pushed to one's limits, whether emotionally, mentally, or physically. Moreover, in the works of philosophers and poets such as Goethe ([10]) and Robert Burns ([11], [12], [13]), "tether" has been used to explore the binding of opposites or to caution against over-attachment—akin to anchoring thoughts too narrowly ([14]). Thus, across a spectrum of genres and periods, "tether" becomes a versatile metaphor, symbolizing both the literal constraint of beings and the figurative constraints that challenge the human spirit.
- What should be the length of the tether (to the nearest inch) in order that the goat shall be able to eat just half the grass in the field?
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney - It is assumed that the goat can feed to the end of the tether.
— from Amusements in Mathematics by Henry Ernest Dudeney - No other sheep was near,—the lamb was all alone, And by a slender cord was-tether’d to a stone.’
— from The Works of Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven Edition by Edgar Allan Poe - And there he was at the end of his tether after having often painted the town tolerably pink without a beggarly stiver.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - Nearing the end of his tether now.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - (He worms down through a coalhole, his brown habit trailing its tether over rattling pebbles.
— from Ulysses by James Joyce - For I can't go on in this way much longer, you know—I'm nearly at the end of my tether.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - I'm desperate—I'm at the end of my tether.
— from The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton - I refuse to believe that an American is at the end of his tether."
— from Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Seas: An Underwater Tour of the World by Jules Verne - Let him find for thee the secret tether That binds the Noble and Mean together.
— from Faust [part 1]. Translated Into English in the Original Metres by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - “An' neist, my yowie, silly thing, Gude keep thee frae a tether string!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - We've been owre lang unkenn'd to ither: Now let us lay our heads thegither, In love fraternal: May envy wallop in a tether, Black fiend, infernal!
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - “Now, honest Hughoc, dinna fail, To tell my master a' my tale; An' bid him burn this cursed tether, An' for thy pains thou'se get my blather.”
— from Poems and Songs of Robert Burns by Robert Burns - It does not pay to tether one's thoughts to the post of use with too short a rope.
— from How We Think by John Dewey
