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the exhausted just = the completely tired body?

 
 
Reply Mon 23 May, 2011 09:08 am

Context:

It was a hard day's run, up the Canyon, through Sheep Camp, past the Scales and the timber line, across glaciers and snowdrifts hundreds of feet deep, and over the great Chilcoot Divide, which stands between the salt water and the fresh and guards forbiddingly the sad and lonely North. They made good time down the chain of lakes which fills the craters of extinct volcanoes, and late that night pulled into the huge camp at the head of Lake Bennett, where thousands of gold-seekers were building boats against the breakup of the ice in the spring. Buck made his hole in the snow and slept the sleep of the exhausted just, but all too early was routed out in the cold darkness and harnessed with his mates to the sled.

More:

http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/CallOfTheWild/chapter2.html
 
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izzythepush
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  3  
Reply Mon 23 May, 2011 09:35 am
@oristarA,
That's about right, but you need to look at the root. There is a saying that goes, 'to sleep the sleep of the just.' This means to sleep really well. It's because in this context 'just' is a noun, meaning people who are honest, as opposed to the noun 'guilty.' People who are just, 'the just', can sleep easily at night because they're not troubled by feelings of remorse or regret. Unlike people who are guilty, 'the guilty,' who don't sleep at all well.

In this context Buck had an incredibly good night's sleep, because not only did he enjoy the 'sleep of the just,' he was exhausted as well.
McTag
 
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Reply Mon 23 May, 2011 10:03 am
@izzythepush,

Good answer.

"The unjust" might be a better opposite for "the just". Just a thought.
izzythepush
 
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Reply Mon 23 May, 2011 10:27 am
@McTag,
That's right make me look like a complete tit. I don't usually need any help doing that. Seriously though, thank you, you're right, unjust would be a better opposite.
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oristarA
 
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Reply Mon 23 May, 2011 06:39 pm
Thank you both
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izzythepush
 
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Reply Tue 24 May, 2011 07:14 am
I've been thinking about this, and there could be a slightly different interpretation, that being exhausted could have the same effect on your sleep as being just. So that Buck may not necessarily be just, but the fact that he's exhausted has the same effect.

That's the thing about phrasing, it's always open to interpretation, so it could be argued,
1) He slept exceptionally well because he was just and exhausted. or
2) He slept as well as a just man, because he was exhausted.
McTag
 
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Reply Tue 24 May, 2011 07:59 am
@izzythepush,

I liked your first answer better.

"To sleep the sleep of the just" is the root phrase, a well-known idiom. The addition of "exhausted" is just an intensifier, to me.
izzythepush
 
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Reply Tue 24 May, 2011 08:53 am
@McTag,
I agree with you, but as it could be interpreted the other way, I thought it best to give both.
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