emilym

I sound triumphal drums for the dead….I fling through

my embouchures the loudest and gayest music to them (368).

In this line, Whitman uses a word I am unfamiliar with—embouchures.
By using context clues, I figured out that it must have something to do with music because almost every word in the line refers to music in some way.  As I read Whitman, or anyone else who uses an unfamiliar word, I go straight to the OED.  The following is the definitions taken directly from the OED:

1. The mouth of a river or creek. Also transf. the opening out of a valley into a plain.

1792 Fortn. Ramble xvi. 114 We reached the embouchure of the fall. 1812Examiner 14 Sept. 580/2 Near to the embouchier of Berezina. 1830 LYELL Princ. Geol. I. 238 The city Foah..so late as the beginning of the fifteenth century, was on this embouchure. 1856 STANLEY Sinai & Pal. II. i. 71 Huge cones of white clay and sand..guarding the embouchure of the valleys. 1868 G. DUFF Pol. Surv. 100It lies..at the embouchure of several rivers.

2. Music. ‘The part of a musical instrument applied to the mouth’ (Grove).

1834 M. SOMERVILLE Connex. Phys. S. xvii. (1849) 169 The embouchure of a flute. 1873 W. LEES Acoustics I. iii. 27 The air..is made to play upon the thin edge of the pipe at the embouchure C.

3. Music. ‘The disposition of the lips, tongue and other organs necessary for producing a musical tone’ (Grove).

1760 GOLDSM. Cit. W. xc, You see..I have got the ambusheer already [on the German flute]. 1879 GROVE Dict. Mus. I. 536 The second octave is produced by a stronger pressure of wind and an alteration of embouchure.

The first definition of the word has nothing to do with music, and did nothing to illuminate the line because it doesn’t fit any of the context clues—and makes no sense in the line.  The second and third definitions, however, are perfect for the line, making the line much clearer—“By blowing through a musical instrument, or whistling, I am going to create loud and happy music.”  If we extend this line to the others in the stanza, we get a musical send off for the dead, triumphant music in spite of their failings.

Here is a picture of someone using an embouchure to create music—“the loudest and gayest” perhaps: