THE RIVER MERCHANTS WIFE: A LETTER

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THE RIVER MERCHANTS WIFE A LETTER

• By
• Li Po
• (701-762)

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STANZA 1

• Young Girl
• While my hair was still cut straight across
  my forehead (1)
• Simple haircut suggests a young girl

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STANZA 1

• Young Girl
• Childish Games
• pulling flowers (2)
• You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse (3)

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STANZA 1

• Young Girl
• Two small people, without dislike or
  suspicion (6)
• Natural innocence of children
• No romantic interest involved

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STANZA 2

• 14 Years Old
• Diction suggests she is shy
• never laughed (7)
• bashful (8)
• lowering my head (9)
• looked at the wall (9)
• called to, a thousand times, I never looked
  back(10)

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STANZA 3

• 15 Years Old
• Diction suggests she has moved beyond her shyness
• She is becoming a woman
• I stopped scowling (11)
• I desired my dust to be mingled with yours/
  Forever and forever and forever (12-13)

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STANZA 4

• 16 Years Old
• He departs
• Most likely to work
• Title The River-Merchants Wife A Letter
• He goes to a dangerous place
• You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of
  swirling eddies (16)
• By a dangerous gorge

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STANZA 4

• He Departs
• He has been gone for five months
• Most likely dead
• You dragged your feet when you went out (19)
• Diction
• Why dragged?
• He did not want to leave

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STANZA 4

• Nature Imagery
• The monkeys make sorrowful noises overhead (18)
• Nature literally echoes her pain

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STANZA 4

• Nature Imagery
• By the gate now, the moss is grown, the
  different mosses,/ Too deep to clear them away!
  (20-21)
• Suggests a significant length of time has passed
• Clearing the moss would be his job
• Reflecting his absence

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STANZA 4

• Nature Imagery
• The leaves fall early this autumn (22)
• Early Death
• Premature Death

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STANZA 4

• Nature Imagery
• The paired butterflies are already yellow with
  August/ Over the grass in the West garden They
  hurt me (23-25)
• Butterflies parallel her relationship
• Premature death
• West garden
• Death imagery
• The pair found in nature actually causes her pain

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STANZA 4

• Willing to journey a long way to meet him
• 200 miles
• This unrealistic comment regarding a journey
  suggests that the River Merchants wife is aware
  that her husband is dead