Meaning of "I height Don Quixote"

Question

What is the meaning/origins of a word "height" in this line of poetry (Written by Jack Parsons in 1943):

I height Don Quixote, I live on Peyote,
marihuana, morphine and cocaine.
I never knew sadness but only a madness
that burns at the heart and the brain

I am not an English native speaker, and I know only one meaning of "height" (looked also in Oxford dictionary and lingvolive.com). It looks like some sort of a verb, an errative or an idiom, but I cannot get the meaning of the first phrase.

Maybe it is a borrowing from German "Ich heiße" (My name is). Or it is "hate"? Or is he comparing his height with the Don Quixote?

P.S. Looks like "height" instead of "hight" was intentional. I haven't found an original edition or a manuscript, but almost all paper citations include "height", for example, and often include "height [sic.]", like here or here

Answer 1

This is clearly an error for hight, as Kate Bunting suggested it might be. We can be the more sure of this since both the title/headline and the URL of the linked source have it as hight.

hight (haɪt)
vb
(Poetry) (tr; used only as a past tense in the passive or as a past participle) archaic poetic to name; call: a maid hight Mary. (Collins English Dictionary)

(In 1943 the poet’s choice of such a poetic archaism is almost inevitably going to be ironic.)

The possible pun, however, on height, with reference to being “high” on such drugs as are then listed, could well be intentional despite the spelling difference.

Answer 2

Here is a website where it is spelled "hight".

I hight don Quixote, I live on peyote, marijuana, morphine and cocaine. https://www.azquotes.com/quotes/topics/sadness.html?p=12

This strengthens for me the conjecture of others that it means.

"My name's Don Quixote..."

or

"I'm called Don Quixote..."

Answer 3

The English word "height" has the same sound as the Dutch word "heet". Singular form of "heten": "be called". So it is indeed very logical that "I height Don Quixote" must be read as "I'm called Don Quixote." The German word "heisse" means also in Dutch "heet". I think there's no other option than "I am called ..."

Answer 4

I hight Don Quixote = I am called Don Quixote:

From OED:

hight, v.1 Brit. /hʌɪt/, U.S. /haɪt/

Origin: A word inherited from Germanic.

Etymology: Cognate with Old Frisian hēta (West Frisian hijtte ), Old Saxon hētan (Middle Low German hēten , heiten ), Old Dutch hētan (Middle Dutch heeten , Dutch heten ), Old High German heizan (Middle High German heizen , German heißen ),

Compare hote n., hest n., and slightly later hight n.3

Now archaic.

I. To name, to command, to promise, and related senses.

1. transitive. To call, name; to designate as. Formerly also in †his (or her) name is hight —— (obsolete). Now chiefly in past participle.

OE Acct. Voy. Ohthere & Wulfstan in tr. Orosius Hist. (Tiber.) (1980) i. i. 15 Þa deor hi hatað hranas.

1911 E. Pound Canzoni 9 That azure feldspar hight the microcline.

1926 E. R. Eddison Styrbiorn the Strong ix. 168 All they hight me in Hlymdale of old Hild the Helm'd, whoso knew me.

1999 P. Anderson War of Gods (new ed.) xxvii. 232 A man hight Tosti. He it was who broke the long peace.

Added 16:00 GMT in response to Tinfoil Hat's question:

Form history: (ii) passive forms.

This is the only verb in Old English to continue forms inherited from the inflected Germanic passive. Old English hātte formally corresponds to the Gothic 3rd singular present indicative passive haitada (one of a number of attested passive forms in that language). In Old English, the form superficially resembles a weak past tense; it functions as 1st and 3rd singular and has a plural form hātton . These forms are attested only in the sense ‘to be called’ (i.e. sense 4, corresponding to active sense 1). Probably partly because of the formal resemblance to the preterite, the forms hātte and hātton are used in Old English with reference to past tense as well as present tense. This is a factor that may have contributed (conversely) to the subsequent spread of forms of the active past stem (especially Middle English heght- , hight- , etc., but also hēt- ) to the present tense; however, this development occurs in senses which continue use of active forms (see Forms 1β. , 1γ. ) as well as in sense 4, which reflects the original passive (see Forms 4aγ. , 4aδ. ). The formal (as opposed to semantic) distinction between active and passive is lost during the Middle English period, as forms

II. intransitive. To call oneself, be called. (In Old English realized by the historically passive forms (singular) hātte, (plural) hātton).) Categories »

4. With a name, title, or appellation as complement. To call oneself, be called, be known as; to have as a name or designation. Now archaic and only in the invariable form hight.with passive sense are overwhelmingly supplied from the active system.

1897 M. Armour tr. Fall of Nibelungs 47 Once we hight warriors, and shall we perish in this country by the hand of a woman?

1960 P. Anderson High Crusade ii. xv, in Astounding Sci. Fact & Fiction Aug. 163/2 ‘Are you another star-traveling race?’ ‘We hight Englishmen,’ Sir Roger evaded.

2001 E. Kirner Lesser Kindred (new ed.) viii. 159 I hight Hadretikantishilrrar, of the line of Issdra. I beseech thee in the name of our people, speak.

Answer 5

It is poetry, and, in general, the interpretation of metaphoric poetry is off-topic here.

But I would point out that the mythical Don Quixote suffered from delusions which made him believe he was a knight, as he wandered around performing what he believed were acts of chivalry.

Saying "I height Don Quixote" implies that the writer is even "higher" (on "Peyote, marihuana, morphine and cocaine") than the delusional don.

(I'll point out that, if you Google "don quixote I live on peyote marihuana morphine and cocaine" (with quotes) you get 25 hits. 23 of those use "height", while only 2 (both hazlitt sites) use "hight".)

Aha!! The difference is associated with the spelling of the weed. "Marihuana" is mostly associated with "height", while "marijuana" mostly with "hight". Hard to say which is the "real" version

Answer 6

I'm aware Jack Parsons was an American, but I've always read this in a thick British accent, like reading James Joyce's Ulysses.

I've never read this word as height or hight at all, but a thick accented 'Hate'. The poet in me believes he hates Don Quixote. Don Quixote is famously naive, cartoonishly chivalrous, and generally just boring. This poet, however, loved to get high, do rocket science, practice witchcraft, throw regular orgies, and occasionally he even wrote a little poetry.

I absolutely love this poem. One of the few I've memorized, I recite it when it fits the mood even barely.