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I am analysing the following:

I will aid my disciples;
as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joy
so faster will I push them.

I grasp the general idea that "I will push them" "faster" than "as fast as they acquire".

At first, it seemed to me that the last two parts are clauses closely joined by conjunctions as and so.

But after contemplating it some more, I'm compelled to read "as fast as (something)" as a verb modifier. Is this the case? Is this fragment a verb modifier for "will push"?

If the last part is a verb modifier, then what is the function of so?

How should I parse this?

Laurel
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Pedro Lamarão
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    It looks like this is the complete text in case that helps anyone who would answer this question: http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib90.htm – RaceYouAnytime May 15 '17 at 00:06
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    so has it’s regular meaning: “in the same manner as”. If we remove the inversion it becomes: “I will push them faster than [the speed at which] they acquire this balanced power and joy.” Meaning no matter how fast they acquire BP&J, I will push them just a little bit faster. – Jim May 15 '17 at 02:00
  • Sorry for not posting a link to the full text; I am studying a printed copy. – Pedro Lamarão May 15 '17 at 20:34
  • It's a poeticalization. Don't overanalyzitate it. – Hot Licks May 21 '17 at 11:25
  • @HotLicks unfortunately "overanalyzing" this phrase is one of my current tasks. At the very least, I must find out we are seeing here two coordinate clauses or one clause plus a complicated verb modifier. – Pedro Lamarão May 23 '17 at 18:47
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    It's a poetic idiom, often used for aspirational scenarios -- "As A as B" identifies a state of affairs (current or potential), "So X will I/we/they Y" identifies a subsequent action. "So" is arguably a conjunction, but that's about as far as I'd take it. Poetic structures tend to resist rigid syntactic analysis. – Hot Licks May 23 '17 at 21:27

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This construction appears a little contrived to me, perhaps because of the attempt of the translator to strike a poetic chord. This would be an equivalent in ordinary Modern English:

I will aid my disciples

the faster they acquire this balanced power and joy,

the faster I will push them.

Or:

I will aid my disciples

I will push them as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joy.

But that would be a little mundane. Here is my attempt:

I will aid my disciples;

as fast as they acquire this balanced power and joy,

I will push them.

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fralau
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  • So, "as fast as they" functions as conjunction, and the last two clauses are related by subordination? – Pedro Lamarão May 23 '17 at 18:38
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    I haven't looked at it in detail, but I would say that "as fast" is equivalent to "the faster", and the "so faster" is also equivalent to "the faster". I wouldn't be too concerned about grammatical qualification are these are essentially idioms ("a speech form or an expression of a given language that is peculiar to itself grammatically or cannot be understood from the individual meanings of its elements", see American Heritage). But for terminology you could perhaps start from this question on stackexchange. – fralau May 23 '17 at 20:26
  • But that's not poetry. – Hot Licks May 23 '17 at 21:27
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    The distinction is not always easy to make. It follows a style of philosophical writings that are "poetically written". There were also philosophical poets like Dante. – fralau May 23 '17 at 21:37