The River Merchant's Wife-FK

This poem is a love poem that is written in the perspective of a female author. This interested me because I looked up the original author of this poem and he was a male. Another important thing to know about this poem is that it was translated from Japanese, so this may mean that some meaning is lost in translation.

The first stanza of this poem starts out during the author’s childhood. This stanza talks about how the author and her love interest were friends when they were younger. The stanza really illustrates how fun and happy childhood is by using words like "playing." At the end of the stanza the author talks about how she married her love interest at the age of fourteen. She specifically uses the word "Lord" when referring her love interest. This makes me think that the authors love interest may belong to an important family.

The second stanza starts to show the coming of age of the two lovers and talks about their life when the author was fifteen. The author really illustrates how she wants to be with her husband by using the word "forever" three times to show how long she wants the relationship to last.

In the third stanza the author is now sixteen and she talks about how her husband had to leave. Her husband had to leave down the river, going by the name of the title I assume that it was to do his job as a river merchant. I looked up the word eddies which mean currents. The author shows how important her husband is by saying that the monkeys started to make sorrowful noises after five months of hi absence.

The last stanza continues to illustrate how sad the author is without her husband. The first line of this stanza shows how sad the author’s husband was sad when he left because he was "dragging his feet." The author talks about how she "grows old" and how it is now August. She ends by saying when her husband comes back she would like to know beforehand so she could greet him.

Overall this poem starts of happy and eventually leads to sorrow. It also illustrates a coming of age of the author and her love interest.