Ivan Bunin (Russia)
I am an ordinary village girl in Gua Tian.
He is a happy fisherman.
The white sail disappeared on the bend of the river,
He has seen countless seas and rivers.
Greek girls in the Bosphorus—
Everyone praises their beauty ... but I'm thin and black.
The white sail disappeared from the sea—
He may never come back!
Whether it is good weather or bad weather, I will wait. ...
Before he could wait, I said goodbye to Guadi.
Go to the beach, throw the ring into the sea,
Hang yourself with a black braid.
1906
(translated by Ulan Khan)
Ivan Bunin, a Russian writer of critical realism, mainly writes short stories. 1933 won the Nobel Prize in Literature. After the October Revolution, Bunin went into exile in France because of his different political views, which made him fall into lifelong yearning for his motherland and depressed about reality. However, this poem was written in Russia in his early years.
Poetry tells the story of a country girl in the first person, full of loyalty and persistence to love, beautiful and moving, but full of sadness. Instead, the fisherman may have failed her. However, this poem can easily give us a misunderstanding that this is just a girl's psychological activity waiting for her sweetheart. Just like the story about Wang Fuzhi in The Legend of China, "Looking at a long river, turning to stone, and never looking back" is a kind of waiting for lovers who don't return. I don't know if my husband will come back before he turns to stone. However, in this poem, unfortunate facts have happened, which will be a tragic result. The poet has no intention of presenting a tragedy, but in such an ending, the theme of "song" becomes clear.
In the second paragraph, due to this fact, the girl changed from pride and joy in the first paragraph to inferiority and despair. However, if the psychological despair is not confirmed by the facts, it is impossible to give up for persistent love, so the girl says, "I'll wait for the weather …" But will the girl wait for her sweetheart? At the end of Border Town, Shen Congwen said, "This man may never come back. Maybe he will come back tomorrow!" We know that the latter is the answer, while the former will only aggravate our grief. Besides, the second paragraph has hinted at the fact that the fisherman can't come back, although the girl's heart will keep a glimmer of hope for herself. The result that the girl can't wait is destruction, crushed by despair, and she can't continue her life. It will disappear with the fisherman's disappearance. It is not difficult to guess that the fisherman may have changed his mind when he was constantly in contact with new people and new things from outside. The poet's title is Song, which praises such an ordinary but noble country girl who died for love. Therefore, this poem is also an elegy with a tragic ending. In contrast, the poet criticized the ungrateful people, showing that the humble fisherman is not worthy of the girl's purity and sincerity.