Download River-Merchant`s Wife - Parma City School District

THE RIVER MERCHANT’S
WIFE: A LETTER
By
Li Po
(701-762)
STANZA 1
• Young Girl
– “While my hair was still cut straight
across my forehead” (1)
• Simple haircut suggests a young girl
STANZA 1
• Young Girl
– Childish Games
• “pulling flowers” (2)
• “You came by on bamboo stilts,
playing horse” (3)
STANZA 1
• Young Girl
– “Two small people, without dislike or
suspicion” (6)
• Natural innocence of children
• No romantic interest involved
STANZA 2
• 14 Years Old
– Diction suggests she is shy
• “never laughed” (7)
• “bashful” (8)
• “lowering my head” (9)
• “looked at the wall” (9)
• “called to, a thousand times, I never
looked back”(10)
STANZA 3
• 15 Years Old
– Diction suggests she has moved beyond
her shyness
– She is becoming a woman
• “I stopped scowling” (11)
• “I desired my dust to be mingled with
yours/ Forever and forever and
forever” (12-13)
STANZA 4
• 16 Years Old
– He departs
• Most likely to work
–Title: The River-Merchant’s Wife: A
Letter
• He goes to a dangerous place
–“You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river
of swirling eddies” (16)
»By a dangerous gorge
STANZA 4
• He Departs
– He has been gone for five months
• Most likely dead
– “You dragged your feet when you went
out” (19)
• Diction
–Why “dragged?”
»He did not want to leave
STANZA 4
• Nature Imagery
– “The monkeys make sorrowful noises
overhead” (18)
• Nature literally echoes her pain
STANZA 4
• Nature Imagery
– “By the gate now, the moss is grown,
the different mosses,/ Too deep to clear
them away!” (20-21)
• Suggests a significant length of time
has passed
• Clearing the moss would be his job
–Reflecting his absence
STANZA 4
• Nature Imagery
– “The leaves fall early this autumn” (22)
• Early Death
• Premature Death
STANZA 4
• Nature Imagery
– “The paired butterflies are already yellow with
August/ Over the grass in the West garden;
They hurt me” (23-25)
• Butterflies parallel her relationship
• Premature death
• West garden
–Death imagery
• The pair found in nature actually causes
her pain
STANZA 4
• Willing to journey a long way to meet him
– 200 miles
– This unrealistic comment regarding a journey
suggests that the River Merchant’s wife is
aware that her husband is dead