Tell Me a Story
tell me a story
Robert Penn Warren
Translator: pksunking
[A]
Long ago, in Kentucky, I a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.
Long ago, in Kentucky, night fell
I, a boy, stand by the muddy road
Hear, geese sing north
I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.
I just hear but don't see them coming and going
That night the stars were sparse, the moon was dark
I did not know what was happening in my heart.
I don't know what's flowing in my heart
It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.
I couldn't smell the elderflower then
They must be heading north
The sound was passing northward.
That voice goes north
[B]
Tell me a story.
tell me a story
In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.
In this century, in this moment, everyone is crazy
tell me a story
Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.
The story is about the vast sky and the distant stars
The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.
The name of that story will be time
But don't make a sound
Tell me a story of deep delight.
Bury the joy of that story deep
In the first episode of the third season, when the heroine appeared, she read this poem by Robert Penn Warren, and it was hard not to let One feels this is not some kind of metaphor for the subject, so the following is far-fetched gibberish:
The theme of this poem is about the passage of time and the remembrance of the past time. In the first paragraph, the geese flying north and the flowering elderberry are such images, while the second paragraph directly points out The name of the story will be Time,
If we learn a little about Warren's life, there are some interesting associations. Warren, who was born in Kentucky in the American South, has always considered himself a deep-rooted Southerner. He did not like the changes that took place in the South in the early twentieth century, and felt that traditional Southern culture had disappeared. Looking at it this way, it is not difficult to understand the repeated occurrence of the word "north" in the first paragraph. The geese flying to the north may be the "northernization" of the guide. Warren has been blind in one eye since he was a child. It is not difficult to understand why he described in detail in the first paragraph how to feel the geese flying north through other senses.
Then we opened up our brains a little bit, thinking of the setting of this play. Arkansas is also in the south, and the protagonist also has some kind of flaw, his memory has problems, and he also has a special way to perceive the world—— He has a unique ability to track (like Warren to deduce the direction of the geese by sound and the season of elderflowers). This is also a story about time, where the protagonist travels through memory fragments in three timelines. There are also certain things that have passed over time, the protagonist mentions:
The occurrence of the case caused the town to plunge into chaos and panic, no longer as peaceful as before. As for the moment of mania, it may refer to the post-Vietnam ideological trend, or it may be some kind of cult craze that will be slowly revealed this season, and the way to find the truth is great distances (a vast space) and starlight. (a long time) ). So eternity will tell us everything, but never name it (what the hell
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