George Herbert's poem "Avarice" is an ode to money. Not
only does it praise it, but it also condemns it. It both empowers it and belittles it,
and shows the positive and the negative of what money represents as well as what it can
do and what it can undo.
One thing that is salient in the
depiction of money as a source of happiness and pain is evident in the first stanza of
the poem, which reads.
Money, thou bane of bliss, and source of
woe,
Whence com'st thou, that thou art so fresh and fine?
I know
thy parentage is base and low:
Man found thee poor and dirty in a
mine.
By
describing money as something that merely serves as a bridge between having and not
having, Herbert is effective at taking away the lure and myth that many people put over
money and to see it for what it really is: A symbol, not a status. It is a token, not a
privilege. Money is just that: Money. It can be nothing else unless there is human
agency in the process. Other than that, money is worthless. We are who give money its
value.
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