Song by Christina Rossetti

Song 

 

Christina Rossetti

 

When I am dead, my dearest,

  Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

  Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

  With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

  And if thou wilt, forget.

 

I shall not see the shadows,

  I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

  Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

  That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

  And haply may forget.

 

歌

 

我死去时， 亲爱的，

请不要悲歌伤心；

不要给我玫瑰芳邻，

也不要给我松柏成荫：

我只要绿草覆盖

雨露绵长；

如你愿意， 请把我怀念，

如你愿意， 可将我遗忘。

 

我不再见荫影，

我不再抚雨丝；

我不再听夜莺

带着伤痛，悲啼：

我伴着暮光入梦

不再等朝阳夕阳，

也许我可以怀念，

也许我可以遗忘。 

 

开始读英文诗没有多久， 不知道 “Song” 如此流行， 有徐志摩的译文， 罗大佑的歌。 忍不住翻译一下， 自娱和献丑。 附上找到的分析。 有意思的是分析中提到的 pun， 无奈 lost in translation :-(

 

Tim Jackson, ‘01 

West Chester University

An Explication of Christina Rossetti’s "Song"

 

Death, as a subject, has inspired many writers to put pen-to-paper and create works that make an attempt to shed light upon this morbid idea. Christina Rossetti was one of these writers. The majority of her poetry grappled with her constant fascination with the concept of death, however, she was also very interested in the mystery of  transition. The transition between life and death entranced Rossetti, and she embodied her preoccupations with the mystique of transition in the creation of her poem entitled "Song".

 

The poem is divided up into two, eight-line stanzas, whereas each half of a stanza contains four lines of rhymed verse. The first stanza of the poem gives the reader a set of instructions on how the speaker is to be cared for once she is deceased. For the speaker, death seems to be a place where she has the ability to start anew, because she charges her readers not to grieve: "When I am dead my dearest/Sing no sad songs for me"(NAEL, 1584). Rossetti weaves, into this first stanza, her views on how one should accept death as a part of life. These views show the reader that the speaker of the poem puts herself on a plane of existence that has no physical form but, then again, is not entirely spiritual.

 

The second stanza of "Song" is a great deal more encoded than the first. In this stanza, the speaker envisions herself deceased. She detaches herself from all earthly form which is a reinforcement of Rossetti’s concerns in regard to being between two worlds.

 

"I shall not see the shadows, 

I shall not feel the rain; 

I shall not here the nightingale 

Sing on, as if in pain: 

And dreaming through the twilight, 

That doth not rise nor set," (NAEL, 1584)

 

Further proof of Rossetti’s fixation upon being caught between two worlds is the last lines of the quoted text: "And dreaming through the twilight/That doth no rise nor set" (NAEL, 1584). These lines illustrate that the speaker is in a state that is both spiritual, and corporal. Again, Rossetti has spliced her commentary back into the work and presses her readers to contemplate her notion of transition.

 

It is also interesting to note Rossetti’s choice of a "nightingale" within this work. John Keats also used the image of a nightingale in his work "Ode to a Nightingale". Keats’ nightingale was a thing of beauty and freedom that he wanted to emulate. Rossetti’s speaker, in death, loses the ability to hear the nightingale. Her nightingale is also of sharp contrast to Keats’ in that, her nightingale sings "in pain" and his did not (NAEL, 1584).

 

Another type of transition that occurs, is that of word choice and phrasing. Rossetti creates a pun, if you will, in the last lines of the work: "Haply I may remember/And haply may forget" (NAEL, 1584). The pun occurs with the word haply. By definition, haply means perhaps; however, if one would glance over the word it may be misconstrued and read as happily. These lines could very well take on a satirical view of death, which would strengthen the assertion that the speaker makes in the first stanza that death is not as unfortunate as it seems.

 

Through imagery, word choice, and phrasing, Rossetti achieves her goal in persuading the reader to comprehend the many facets of life and death. In order to understand this multi-faceted concept, she embeds "Song" with transitions. These transitions occur through the mechanisms mentioned above. The reader is also given insight as to how Rossetti deals with her preoccupations regarding death, as well as her fixation for transition.