The poem 'The River-Merchant's Wife,' translated by Ezra Pound, has a coming of age love story feel to it. The first stanza explains how the two people have known each other since childhood. Pound writes about 'playing' and haircuts from youth 'cut straight across my forehead.' The bamboo stilts and blue plums also seem to be relics or symbols of childhood in this culture. Pound then goes on to explain that the two were married (perhaps arranged) but the wife remained extremely shy of maybe even overly obedient. In the second stanza, Pound uses metonymy when she says 'I desired my dust to be mingled with yours,' substituting dust for each person, but also expressing a change in the woman's feelings for her husband. The line reading 'why should I climb the look out' seems to be a segue into the next stanza, showing the woman's shock in her husband's departure.
By the fourth, the mood of the poem drastically changes. Pound uses personification to describe the noises made by the monkeys as sorrowful now since her partner has been gone five whole months. It is obvious that her husband did not want to leave her either since he dragged his feet along the path while leaving, and now his spouse seems to revisit the last place they saw one another noting all the different overgrown mosses. Pound uses great imagery to describe the changing o each season, first with the leaves blowing off the trees then illustrating the butterflies in summer. Pound concludes the poem by showing the woman's unconditional and everlasting love for her husband; despite the fact that he has been gone so long, she is still waiting for him and willing to travel to Cho-fu-Sa to meet him - which I'm guessing is pretty far away.
-Ryan Abbott
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