L'Esprit de l'escalier

I might have been the juggler who left things up in the air
I might have flown from my trapeze and found nobody's there
I might have been the tight rope guy whose slip was Freudian
But I was just ambitious climbing one too many rungs

Cause I feel just like the big top when the hurricane hits town
And I wonder will the show go on before it's off the ground

I might have been the sad eyed clown who couldn't get a laugh
The masochist magician who sawed himself in half
Or the all too human cannonball who jumped the gun
But I was just ambitious climbing one too many rungs

I might have been a fire eater a hellish breath inside
I might have been a swollower of daggers not my pride
I might have been a tattooed man with words on tip of tongue
But I was just ambitious climbing one too many rungs

I might have been an acrobat a pretzel out of shape
I might have been Houdini who didn't quite escape
I might have left the circus and had a lot more fun
But I was just ambitious climbing one too many rungs

The Equestrian Director stopped this song and said
You might have been the lion tamer who lost his head
"It's better to be a word tamer and make a slip of the lip
Than to be a lion tamer and forget to bring your whip"

When I was a budding poet I had a summer job working in the circus with the lion tamer. My duties entailed cleaning the cage floor and putting Wintergreen Breath Mints in the lions' mouths.

It so happened that one day I neglected my duty to clean the cage floor where the lions did their routine. I had been struck by the sudden urge to write a sonnet, and neglected to clean the cage where the kions did their routune

The lion tamer came in to the cage, right in the middle of my poetic inspiration, slipped on something and soiled his bright red silk pants. He got quite upset about that and said, "Put your head in here," referring a one particular lion.. Now I've done all kinds of things to get inspirations for poetry, songs and so forth so I put my head in that lion's mouth. I didn't hesitate because the Lion Tamer had a whip and a chair in each hand and I'm not inclined to argue with someone holding a revolver to my head.

I put my head in the lion's mouth. It was at that instant I realized that I had neglected my duty of inserting Wintergreen Breath Mints. And while my head was in that lion I heard the phone ring in the distance as the lion tamer was paged.

Then I heard the pathetic sound of a whip being dragged across the sawdust as the fearless one left the cage. It turned out to be quite a long call. So I had time to think about that sonnet I had just written. I wondered, with my head still in that lion's mouth, was it worth it to risk one's life, just for the sake of literature. After all, it wasn't a very good sonnet.

Well that was the summer I learned the importance of literary criticism. What stuck in my mind most though was the esprit de l'escalier from the Equestrian Director. He was the one who pulled me out of the lions' jaws; after reading the sonnet that I had dropped on the cage floor. He said: "It is better to be a poet and make a slip of the lip than to be a lion tamer and forget to bring your wits" Or is it wit, No, it's: "forget to bring your revolver."

© 1997 Stefan des Lauriers
" The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body, setting on fire the cycle of nature, and set on fire by hell. For every kind of beast and bird, of reptile and sea creature, can be tamed and has been tamed by humankind, but no human being can tame the tongue--a restless evil, full of deadly poison. With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse men, who are made in the likeness of God." — 3 James 6

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esprit de l'escalier

(Fr.)
1. staircase wit
2. spirit of the staircase
Example:
Well that was the summer I learned the importance of literary criticism. What stuck in my mind most was the esprit de l'escalier from the Equestrian Director. He was the one who pulled me out of the lions' jaws; after reading the sonnet that I had dropped on the cage floor. "It is better to be a poet and make a slip of the lip than to be a lion tamer and forget to bring your wits" or is it wit, no, it's: "forget to bring your revolver." ("L'Esprit de l'escalier", Stefan des Lauriers)
History:
The phrase is credited to the French author and encyclopaedist Denis Diderot, in his "Paradoxe sur le Com?dien", written between 1773 and 1778 but not published until 1830. In the original it refers to that infuriating situation in which you leave a drawing room and are halfway down the stairs before you suddenly think of that devastatingly witty comment you could have made. (Architectural note: eighteenth-century grand houses had their principal public rooms on the first floor, the second floor if you're American.) More generally, it's any sparkling remark you wish you had thought of at the time but were too slow-witted to produce. Though well known in French, it seems to have begun to appear in English writing only at the beginning of the twentieth century. Apart from a reference to it by the brothers Fowler in 1906, the first recorded use in English is in "Zuleika Dobson" by Max Beerbohm (1911), but in a wittily inverted sense that shows the author expected his readers to understand and appreciate the reference: "What ought he to have said? He prayed, as he followed the victorious young woman downstairs, that "l'esprit de l'escalier" might befall him. Alas, it did not."