Young Moses, in this pepper pot,
This is a tower at the top of the cliff.
Thinking about God, praying,
He can't live in rushes.
When Jesus was young, the wheat straw was his cloud.
The weather is much warmer and more beautiful;
He has straw and no place to live.
When Moses was young, he was educated as an astrologer.
But it's embarrassing to use magic,
When all the other children's houses drift away,
His house is the sky of Italy.
Hungarian hussars in black cloaks,
Playing the trombone on my wave boat,
Play the trombone for the glory of Jesus!
Weave a halo for him, use your feathers.
(Luo Luo translation)
I am used to reading romantic, realistic, symbolism and other common schools of poetry. When I first read the poem Young Moses by the French cubist poet Max Jacob, people were dumbfounded and confused. The poet's favorite themes are: the inspiration of obsession, the mysterious struggle of Christianity and the comfort of religion. The poet's poetic sense full of three-dimensional sense, coupled with holding an inspirational brush like a cubist painter and scribbling on a mysterious canvas, all of these have intentionally or unintentionally cast a thick mysterious veil on this modern religious poem. "Young Moses" became "mysterious Moses".
After careful tasting, it is not difficult to find something understandable. The whole poem tells a magical religious story in a whisper. Although it can't give people plot and poetry as narrative poems leave readers, the mystery of poetry leaves people with a hazy and memorable lyric purport. With the help of vague feelings, vague language and images, and the magic of changeable poetic thoughts, poets want to embody the mysterious spirit of poetry with religious meaning and seek or awaken the forgotten truth hidden in human nature and religious essence.
Cubist poets admire the function of using language as an associative symbol, creating three-dimensional poetic scenes, three-dimensional poetic images and even three-dimensional objective images, just like the cross-sectional silhouette of a mirage montage, giving people a strong sense of three-dimensional and dynamic. There are many single images with three-dimensional sense in the poem: pepper bottle, tower, cliff roof, rush, clouds, sky, wave boat and halo. There are three groups of similar three-dimensional images: pepper bottles and towers; Juncus space, sky; Cloud, wave boat. Size depends on size, and its meaning comes from itself. What gives people a sense of movement are: drifting away from home, missing, making noise, wearing and blowing. If other components in the poem are removed and these unrelated images and actions are simply connected with a poetic thought, a three-dimensional narrative poem with strong plot jumping and poetic integrity can be formed. The three parallel sections of the poem are three three-dimensional pictures and three groups of three-dimensional emotions. "Young Moses, in this pepper pot" is a devout believer. The later "Embarrassment with Magic" reflects the struggle between Christianity and mystery. The section "Young Jesus" not only praises Jesus, but also makes fun of him. In the last section, "Hungarian hussars" played trombone on the wave boat, braided garlands, and praised the martyrdom of religious saints, revealing a little light in the obscurity of the whole poem. The poet is a calm philosopher. He meditated in deep meditation, and let the hazy poetry shine into the window leaves full of poetic dew, and the three-dimensional exquisite dew dripped, thus giving birth to "Young Moses".
Several groups of strange images in the poem add a lot of color to the whole poem. Pepper bottle-tower, roof; House-Italian sky and single image "Hungarian hussars" Understanding the profound meaning of these images is helpful to understand the whole poem. In the first set of images, the tower in the oriental architecture and the pointed roof in the western Gothic architecture not only give readers a three-dimensional sense, but also show Moses' fearless spirit when he was a child, and even hint at the confluence of eastern and western religions, because both can be religious symbols. "His home is the sky in Italy", which has always been famous for its sunny and beautiful scenery. It can be seen that Moses' mind is as broad as the sky in Italy. "Hungarian hussars" once again shows a heroic image like a tower. Therefore, the poet praised Moses as a hero.
Since poetry came into being, religion has always been a major theme in creation. The modern poet Max Jacob made cubist poetry embrace this sacred motif and wrote Young Moses, which was a bold and successful attempt. Poetry is short, but as a representative work of a poet, it carries a lot of weight.
(Kelly)