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1
Stopping by
Woods on a Snowy
Evening[
雪夜林边小驻
]
Whose woods these are I think I know,
我知道林子的主人是谁，
His house is in the village though.
虽村落是他所居之地。
He will not see me stopping here,
他不会看到我停留于此，
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
凝视他的林子雪花纷飞。
My little horse must think it queer,
我的小马一定以我为怪，
To stop without a farmhouse near,
近无房舍，为何停伫。
Between the woods and frozen lake,
况只有林子与冰湖，
The darkest evening of the year.
和一年中最黑之夜。
He gives his harness bells a shake,
他轻摇铃具
To ask if there is some mistake.
询问有错与否。
The only other sound's the sweep,
唯一的回复来自，
Of easy wind and downy flake.
软雪和清风。
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
林子很美——昏暗而幽深，
But I have promises to keep,
但我已有约定。
And miles to go before I sleep.
沉醉前还有一段路要走
And miles to go before I sleep
沉醉前还有一段路要走。
Summary:
On the surface, this poem is simplicity
itself. The speaker is stopping by some woods on a
snowy
evening.
He
or
she
takes
in
the
lovely
scene
in
near-
silence,
is
tempted
to
stay
longer,
but
acknowledges the pull of
obligations and the considerable distance yet to
be traveled before he or
she can rest
for the night.
Form:
The poem consists of
four (almost) identically constructed stanzas.
Each line is iambic, with four
stressed
syllables:
Within the four lines of
each stanza, the first, second, and fourth lines
rhyme. The third line does
not, but it
sets up the rhymes for the next stanza. For
example, in the third stanza, queer, near, and
year all rhyme, but lake rhymes with
shake, mistake, and flake in the following stanza.
The notable exception to this pattern
comes in the final stanza, where the third line
rhymes with
the previous two and is
repeated as the fourth line.
Do not be
fooled by the simple words and the easiness of the
rhymes; this is a very difficult form
to achieve in English without
debilitating a poem's content with forced rhymes.
Commentary:
This
is a poem to be marveled at and taken for granted.
Like a big stone, like a body of water, like
a strong economy, however it was forged
it seems that, once made, it has always been
there. Frost
claimed
that
he
wrote
it
in
a
single
nighttime
sitting;
it
just
came
to
him.
Perhaps
one
hot,
sustained burst is the only way to cast
such a complete object, in which form and content,
shape
and meaning, are alloyed
inextricably. One is tempted to read it, nod
quietly in recognition of its
splendor
and multivalent meaning, and just move on. But one
must write essays. Or study guides.
Like the woods it
describes, the poem is lovely but entices us with
dark depths--of interpretation,
in this
case. It stands alone and beautiful, the account
of a man stopping by woods on a snowy
evening, but gives us a come-hither
look that begs us to load it with a full inventory
of possible
meanings. We protest, we
make apologies, we point to the dangers of reading
poetry in this way,
but unlike the
speaker of the poem, we cannot resist.
The
last
two
lines
are
the
true
culprits.
They
make
a
strong
claim
to
be
the
most
celebrated
instance of
repetition in English poetry. The first
boundaries of literalness set forth by
the rest of the poem. We may suspect, as we have
up to this
point, that the poem implies
more than it says outright, but we can't insist on
it; the poem has gone
by
so
fast,
and
seemed
so
straightforward.
Then
comes
the
second
miles
to
go
before
I
sleep,
is
the
last
The
basic
conflict
in
the
poem,
resolved
in
the
last
stanza,
is
between
an
attraction
toward
the
woods and the pull of
responsibility outside of the woods. What do woods
represent? Something
good? Something
bad? Woods are sometimes a symbol for wildness,
madness, the pre-rational, the
looming
irrational.
But
these
woods
do
not
seem
particularly
wild.
They
are
someone's
woods,
someone's in particular--the owner
lives in the village. But that owner is in the
village on this, the
darkest evening of
the year--so would any sensible person be. That is
where the division seems to
lie,
between the village (or
woods (that
which is beyond the borders of the village and all
it represents). If the woods are not
particularly wicked, they still possess
the seed of the irrational; and they are, at
night, dark--with
all the varied
connotations of darkness.
Part of what is irrational about the
woods is their attraction. They are restful,
seductive, lovely,
dark,
and
deep--like
deep
sleep,
like oblivion.
Snow
falls
in
downy
flakes,
like
a
blanket
to
lie
under and
be covered by. And here is where many readers hear
dark undertones to this lyric. To
rest
too long while snow falls could be to lose one's
way, to lose the path, to freeze and die. Does
this poem express a death wish,
considered and then discarded? Do the woods sing a
siren's song?
To be lulled to sleep
could be truly dangerous. Is allowing oneself to
be lulled akin to giving up
the
struggle of prudence and self-preservation? Or
does the poem merely describe the temptation
to sit and watch beauty while
responsibilities are forgotten--to succumb to a
mood for a while?
The woods sit on the edge of
civilization; one way or another, they draw the
speaker away from it
(and
its
promises,
its
good
sense).
would
condemn
stopping
here
in
the
dark,
in
the
snow--it is ill advised.
The speaker ascribes society's reproach to the
horse, which may seem, at
first, a bit
odd. But the horse is a domesticated part of the
civilized order of things; it is the nearest
thing to society's agent at this place
and time. And having the horse reprove the speaker
(even if
only in the speaker's
imagination) helps highlight several uniquely
human features of the speaker's
dilemma. One is the regard for beauty
(often flying in the face of practical concern or
the survival
instinct); another is the
attraction to danger, the unknown, the dark
mystery; and the third--perhaps