George Herbert
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky;
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die.
Sweet rose, whose hue angry and brave,
Bids the rash gazer wipe his eye;
Thy root is ever in its grave,
And thou must die.
Sweet spring, full of sweet days and roses,
A box where sweets compacted lie;
My music shows ye have your closes,
And all must die.
Only a sweet and virtuous soul,
Like seasoned timber, never gives;
But though the whole world turn to coal,
Then chiefly lives.
1.Questions for comprehension and discussion.
1) The poem can be described as tribute to _____.
A.deathB.loveC.lifeD.immortality
2) The language of the poem can be viewed as the following except _____.
A.lyricalB.obscureC.simpleD.forceful
3) The following rhetorical devices are used except _____.
A.repetitionB.contrastC.metaphorD.hyperbole
4) According to the poem, everything dies except _____.
A.virtuous soulB.springC.dayD.rose
5) This poem has a _____ touch in it.
A.academicB.secularC.naturalD.religious
2.Summarize the poem and translate it into Chinese.
God Memnon 门农神像
Palace of Sans-Souci 无忧宫
Sphinx 狮身人面像
The Nile 尼罗河
Temple of Baalbec （黎巴嫩）巴勒贝克神庙
Notes
1. Oscar Wilde (1854-1900):He is an eminent Irish poet and dramatist whose reputation rests on his comic masterpieces Lady Windermere’s Fan(1892) and The Importance of Being Earnest(1895).Among Wilde’s other best-known works are his only novel The Picture of Dorian Gray(1891) and his fairy tales especially The Happy Prince.He was also famous for his active role in the 19th century’s Aesthetic Movement.
2. Palace of Sans-Souci:The Sans-Souci Palace was the royal residence of King Henri I of Haiti, Queen Marie-Louise and their two daughters.Its name translated from French means “carefree”.Here it is an imaginary name of a palace where the Happy Prince had once lived.
3. Temple of Baalbec (1889-1964):Baalbec or Baalbek, an archaeological site in Lebanon, was a temple of the Phoenician Sun-god Baal-Hadad, the Roman god Jupiter, the Greek god Jupiter.
4. God Memon:Memnon in Greek mythology is the son of Tithonus (son of Laomedon, legendary king of Troy) and Eos (Dawn) and king of the Ethiopians.He was a post-Homeric hero, who, after the death of the Trojan warrior Hector, went to assist his uncle Priam, the last king of Troy, against the Greeks.Here, God Memnon refers to the Colossi of Memnon, two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III across the River Nile.
5. Sphinx:A sphinx is a mythical creature with a lion’s body and a human head or a cat head.Egyptian sphinx was viewed as benevolent and was thought of as a guardian often flanking the entrances to temples.Here it refers to The Great Sphinx of Giza.It is a limestone statue of a reclining or couchant sphinx that stands on the Giza Plateau on the west bank of the Nile in Giza, Egypt.
6. Cataract:The cataracts of the Nile are shallow lengths (or white water rapids) of the Nile River, between Aswan and Khartoum, where the surface of the water is broken by many small boulders and stones protruding out of the river bed, as well as many rocky islets.In some places, these stretches are punctuated by whitewater and are perhaps well characterized as rapids, while at others the water flow is smoother, but still shallow.
7. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970):He was a British philosopher, logician, essayist and social critic best known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy.
8. George Herbert (1593-1633):Hewas a Welsh-born English poet, orator and Anglican priest.Herbert’s poetry is associated with the writings of the metaphysical poets, and he is recognized as “a pivotal figure: enormously popular, deeply and broadly influential, and arguably the most skillful and important British devotional lyricist”.
For Fun
Works to Read
1. The Nightingale and the Rose by Oscar Wilde:Another touching fairy tale by Wilde in which a nightingale sacrifices her life in order to get a red rose in a chilly winter for a scholar who fell in love with his professor’s daughter.The story is a great song for value of life, sacrifice and true love.
2. The Fly by Katherine Mansfield:It is a profound story about life and death.The boss recalls and grieves over his son’s death after his old friend Mr.Woodifield’s visit and the latter’s accounts of recent happenings.Alone in his office with grief, the boss rescues a fly from the inkpot only to torture it to death.
Movies to See
1. The Prince of Egypt (1998):It is American animated musical drama film and the first traditionally animated film produced by Dream Works Animation.It is an adaptation of the Book of Exodus and follows the life of Moses from being a prince of Egypt to his ultimate destiny to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt.It is an astonishing story of hardship, benevolence, love, faith and salvation which contains elements of Egyptian history, culture and architecture.
2. The Hours (2002):The life-pondering story focuses on three women of different generations whose lives are interconnected by the novel Mrs.Dalloway by Virginia Woolf.Among them are Clarissa Vaughan, a New Yorker preparing an award party for her AIDS-stricken long-time friend and poet, Richard in 2001; Laura Brown, a pregnant 1950s’ California housewife with a young boy and an unhappy marriage; and Virginia Woolf herself in 1920s’ England, who is struggling with depression and mental illness whilst trying to write her novel.