Sailing to Byzantium

by W. B. Yeats · 1928 · 1 perc olvasás · 32 sor

Röviden

“Sailing to Byzantium” by W. B. Yeats is a poem about an aging speaker’s desire to escape bodily decay through spiritual learning and lasting art. It begins in a world crowded with young lovers, singing birds, salmon, and mackerel, where the pleasures of living distract everyone from what might endure. The speaker compares an old man to a ragged coat on a stick, but imagines the soul singing more strongly as the body weakens. Having sailed to Byzantium, he calls on sages pictured in golden mosaic to teach his soul and burn away its desires. Finally, he imagines leaving natural life behind and becoming a crafted golden bird, singing to an emperor’s court about time rather than sharing nature’s cycle of birth and death.

That is no country for old men. The youngIn one another’s arms, birds in the trees,—Those dying generations—at their song,The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,Fish flesh or fowl, commend all summer longWhatever is begotten born and dies.Caught in that sensual music all neglectMonuments of unaging intellect.An aged man is but a paltry thing,A tattered coat upon a stick, unlessSoul clap its hands and sing, and louder singFor every tatter in its mortal dress,Nor is there singing school but studyingMonuments of its own magnificence;And therefore I have sailed the seas and comeTo the holy city of Byzantium.O sages standing in God’s holy fireAs in the gold mosaic of a wall,Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,And be the singing masters of my soul.Consume my heart away; sick with desireAnd fastened to a dying animalIt knows not what it is; and gather meInto the artifice of eternity.

Once out of nature I shall never takeMy bodily form from any natural thing,But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths makeOf hammered gold and gold enamellingTo keep a drowsy emperor awake;Or set upon a golden bough to singTo lords and ladies of ByzantiumOf what is past, or passing, or to come.

Mit jelent, sorról sorra?

1–8. sor: The opening presents a lively country that seems to have no place for old people. Lovers, birds, and crowded waters celebrate life, yet everything living belongs to a generation that will die. The rich sounds and crowded images make this world attractive while showing how its pleasures draw attention away from lasting works of the mind.

9–16. sor: The speaker pictures an old man as a worn coat hanging on a stick. Against that image of physical weakness, he sets a soul that can sing with increasing strength. Studying enduring achievements offers the soul its education. His voyage to Byzantium follows from this need for a life beyond the body’s decline.

17–24. sor: Addressing sages associated with sacred fire and a golden wall mosaic, the speaker asks them to become his spiritual teachers. He wants them to burn away the desires that bind his heart to his dying body. Fire becomes an image of cleansing, while the closing appeal imagines eternity as something shaped through art.

25–32. sor: The speaker imagines a future form made by goldsmiths rather than born in nature. The crafted singer, perched on a golden branch, would entertain an emperor and the court of Byzantium. Its song would concern past, present, and future. This ending replaces vulnerable flesh with lasting art, though the imagined creature still performs for human listeners.

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Három elgondolkodtató kérdés

How do the opening images make the natural world both appealing and unsuitable for the aging speaker?
What changes in the meaning of singing as the poem moves from birds to soul to golden artwork?
How does the imagined golden bird answer the speaker’s fears about his body and its desires?

3 hónapig ingyen

200 000+ klasszikus. Minden formátumban, ingyenes kezdéssel.

e-könyvek és 15 perces összefoglalók, valamint bármely könyv önköltségi áron nyomtatva, nagybetűs kiadásban is.

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