The Title: The pig was one of the twelve animals who allegedly visited Gautama Buddha on his deathbed in some Far Eastern mythologies, and is one of the twelve animal symbols of the Chinese calendar. The Pig represents an easygoing, hedonistic, fearless way of life such as is found in America.
(3, 6) the gates of the senses: "If the doors of perception were cleansed everything would appear to man as it is: infinite."— William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven And Hell.
(4) Dreams are stars:"Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands. But like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them you will reach your destiny."— Carl Schurz.
(9) Holofernes: The Book of Judith in the Apocrypha of the Bible tells how the rich widow Judith saved the Hebrew city of Bethulia from a Babylonian attack by seducing Holofernes, the commander of the Babylonian army, and beheading him as he slept. The Bethulians mounted his head above the city gate and when the sun came up and the Babylonians saw it, they ran, and the Hebrew men ran out and massacred them.
Holofernes is also the name of a pompous, pedantic, boring schoolmaster in Shakespeare's play Love's Labours Lost.
(10) the Rock: Refer to the following Bible verses:
Isaiah 32:1-3: "Behold, a king will reign in righteousness, and princes will rule in justice. Each will be like a hiding place from the wind, a covert from the tempest, like streams of water in a dry place, like the shade of a great rock in a weary land. Then the eyes of those who see will not be closed, and the ears of those who hear will hearken."
Isaiah 51:1: "Hearken to me, you who pursue deliverance, you who seek the Lord; look to the rock from which you were hewn, and to the quarry from which you were digged."
the Tree: In Norse mythology, Odin hung on the branches of the Tree of the World, Yggdrasil, in order to gain wisdom. The palm tree is a symbol of honor and loyalty, the olive tree a symbol of peace, the oak tree a symbol of strength and endurance, the acacia tree a symbol of purity; the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil from which Adam and Eve ate in Judeo-Christian mythology is sometimes said to be an apple tree; Persephone, in Greek mythology, was tied to the underworld for six months of the year through a pomegranate tree; and wood from the ash tree, the type to which Yggdrasil belonged, is used to kill vampires.
(11) Darwin: Charles Darwin put forth the idea in the nineteenth century that those life forms survived which were best able to adapt themselves to their environment.
the Scales...feather: In Egyptian mythology, the deeds and thoughts of a dead person were weighed on scales with a feather, Truth, in order to determine whether the soul of the person should be eternally blessed or eternally damned.