Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This poem represents the conflict Arronox has throughout the book. As a man who finds value and purpose in new discovery and knowledge, he feels the road “the road not taken” and the one that keeps him on the nautilus is more attractive. While his fellow prisoners wish to escape as soon as possible M Arronox feels like he would be giving up something special that no one else can acquire leaving him in a state of confusion.
Ibn Arabi
A garden among the flames!
My heart can take on any form:
A meadow for gazelles,
A cloister for monks,
For the idols, sacred ground,
Ka’ba for the circling pilgrim,
The tables of the Torah,
The scrolls of the Quran.
My creed is Love;
Wherever its caravan turns along the way,
That is my belief,
My faith.
This Poem by Ibn Arabi speaks about life as a journey of discovery. This fits perfectly with M Aronnax's character throughout the novel as he consistently sees his imprisonment as a trek to find unknown secrets and a path to experience amazing new things. Arabi writes that his creed is love and that he will follow it anywhere. To Aronox, his love is science and knowledge and he wants to follow it to the end of the earth.