EZRA POUND
Source:
THE RIVER-MERCHANT'S
WIFE: A LETTER
While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead
Played I about the front gate, pulling flowers.
You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
And we went on living in the
Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
At fourteen I married My Lord you.
I never laughed, being bashful.
Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
At fifteen I stopped scowling,
I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
Forever and forever and forever.
Why should I climb the look out?
At sixteen you departed,
You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
And you have been gone five months.
The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
You dragged your feet when you went
out.
By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
Too deep to clear them away!
The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
The paired butterflies are already yellow with August
Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me. I grow older.
If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
Please let me know beforehand,
And I will come out to meet you
As far as Cho-fu-Sa.
By Rihaku (Li T'ai Po)
(
(This poem is a translation into
English by Ezra Pound)
Source: http://www.uv.es/~fores/poesia/cathay.html#letter
To
begin with, the title “The river-merchant’s wife: a letter” introduces us that
the voice of the poem belongs to a woman, known as Cho-fu-sa, and in principle,
we can imagine that she is going to talk about her life as a wife, in fact, as
a river-merchant’s wife. Thus, the poem is written in first singular person “I”
and it is aimed at her husband, “my Lord” (line 7) and “you” (line 3).
Ezra
Pound describes how the life of a river-merchant’s wife was. This woman begins
her letter relating how she met her husband, when she was only a child (“played
I about the front gate, pulling flowers. You came by on bamboo stilts, playing
horse”). At that moment, she stopped being an innocent child and became an
adult woman, and despite of being too young, she left her house and moved with
her husband to the
As
far as the structure of the poem is concerned, it is divided into five stanzas;
the first stanza with six verses; the second, the third and the fourth with
four verses and the fifth with ten verses. This division in stanzas reflects
each time of this married woman’s life. For example;
v
The first stanza deals with her
childhood, she is only a pure child, “whose hair was still cut straight across
her forehand (line 1), playing and pulling flowers (line 2)”.
v
The second stanza mentions the moment
in which she has married, but she is still young and an ignorant of life. She
shows her inferiority to her husband lowering her head and being bashful.
v
The third stanza alludes the moment in
which she stops being ignorant, starts to live and to love her husband.
v
The fourth and the fifth stanza refer
to her husband departure and she has to live without him, but she cannot and
so, she is waiting for him.
Along
the poem we observe some images or elements that express Cho-fu-sa´s attitude.
For example, to express that she was a child, Ezra writes “while my hair was
still cut straight across my forehead” (line1). Furthermore, to reflect the
state of submissiveness and inferiority, the poet uses “I never laughed, being
bashful. Lowering my head, I looked at the wall” (lines 7 and 8). And finally,
to assert that time passes, Ezra estimates “the moss is grown” (line 20); “the
leaves fall” (line 22) and “I grow older” (line 25).
To refer to the poem itself, Ezra shows us the life of a
married woman and also describes her relationship with her husband. Throughout
the poem, we can observe and be concerned with these woman´s feelings; her
anxiety, melancholy and loneliness caused by her husband’s left. Furthermore,
the fact that she writes in first poem avoids the rift between the poem and the
reader. She tries to be better understood by the reader.
Ezra translates “The river-merchant’s wife: a letter”
using a positive vocabulary from the beginning. So, this vocabulary gives us a
feeling of happiness. But from the fourth stanza, we can notice a change of
tone, here the woman starts expressing that her husband has departed and we can
perceive her anxiety in some expressions, such as “They hurt me” and “I grow
older”. Thus, we can conclude that this poem has a trajectory, from happiness
to sadness and desperation.
Personally, I like how Ezra Pound has dealt with this
pain of love from a woman’s point of view. The poet has behaved as a woman and
has described those states that a woman feels when she meets her husband and
when she starts loving him.
In my opinion, this poem has moved me, because it has
inspired me a lot. Moreover, what has impressed me a lot is that probably this
woman got married to a man without being in love with him, as it happened many
years ago, when people used to get married because of their family’s obligation
or because of money. Very few people got married because of love. But finally,
this woman loved him and she proves that her life without him is very hard.
To conclude, I consider myself as a fortunate girl
because I can choose my husband and I can decide if I want to get married or
have children. Because I do not understand how to get married to a man I do not
meet and I do not love. But I suppose that if you are married to a man that you
do not love but you have to live with him, have sex, have children… at the end,
you will think that perhaps you are in love with him, or you must love him.
Thus, she admits that she needs him and so, her life is empty because her lover
is not with her.
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Reading module 06: Ezra Pound |
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Academic year 2006 (May 2006)
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
© Ana Mª Pardillos Murillo
Universitat de València Press
mailto:aparmu@alumni.uv.es