What’s something you’ve forgiven but haven’t forgotten?
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The following tries to recapture some of the semantic history of the two words as an answer, using the Online Etymology Dictionary resources below:
1.
forgive (v.): Middle English foryeven, from Old English forgiefan “give, grant, allow; remit (a debt), pardon (an offense),” also “give up” and “give in marriage” (past tense forgeaf, past participle forgifen); from for-, here probably “completely,” + giefan “to give” (from PIE root *ghabh- “to give or receive”). / The sense of “to give up desire or power to punish” (late Old English) is from use of such a compound as a Germanic loan-translation of Vulgar Latin *perdonare (Old Saxon fargeban, Dutch vergeven, German vergeben “to forgive,” Gothic fragiban “to grant;” and see pardon (n.)). Related: Forgave; forgiven; forgiving. (source)
2.
forget (v.): Middle English foryeten, from Old English forgietan “lose the power of recalling to the mind; fail to remember; neglect inadvertently,” from for-, used here probably with privative force, “away, amiss, opposite” + gietan “to grasp” (see get (v.)). To “un-get,” hence “to lose” from the mind. / Middle English foryeten, from Old English forgietan “lose the power of recalling to the mind; fail to remember; neglect inadvertently,” from for-, used here probably with privative force, “away, amiss, opposite” + gietan “to grasp” (see get (v.)). To “un-get,” hence “to lose” from the mind. / A common Germanic construction (compare Old Saxon fargetan, Old Frisian forjeta, Dutch vergeten, Old High German firgezzan, German vergessen “to forget”). The physical sense would be “to lose (one’s) grip on,” but that is not recorded in any historical Germanic language. In English, the figurative sense of “lose care for” is from late 13c. Related: Forgetting; forgot; forgotten. (source)
Now what I once was is a memory ,
at times I think I have power to give
old selves all they desire of latitude
to do again what they did then, being
shadows inside locked cells of branched brain.
Yet still they grasp my hand, though through cell bars
asking to be assembled back as sin
Destroying all complacence that I'm in.
If to forgive is to free from the debt
we owe to good, we'll not ever forget
till good flows in the blood we spill, or when
the gilt is rubbed from coins we purloined then.
Bye for now
Love Steven xxxxx
