Three Poems about the Mountain – Analysis and Commentary

ON BEAUTY by Simonides (6th century B.C.E.)

Original language Ancient Greek

Translated by Sherod Santos

 

As the ancient stories tell us, invisible

to mortal men, beauty dwells among

the high-capped rocks near a wind gap

arduous to climb. And you must almost

wear your heart out in the struggle

required to attain its height.

 

Mount Olympus

Translation was published in Greek Lyric Poetry: A New Translation, trans. by Sherod Santos (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005), page 71.

Traditionally, the mountain is a symbol of the divine. It is the place where God dwells and the locus of encounter with God. Practically all ancient cultures and civilizations conceive of the mountain in this way. The journey up the mountain is difficult, a struggle.

This Greek poem of the Classical period envisions the mountain as the habitation of a universally attributed aspect of divine being: beauty. The exposition is lyrical, terse, enduring.

 

MOUNT LIUPAN by Mao Zhedong (1893-1976)

October 1935

Original language Chinese

 

The sky is high, the clouds are pale,

We watch the wild geese vanish southward.

If we fail to reach the Great Wall we are not men,

We who have already measured twenty thousand li

High on the crest of Mount Liupan.

Red banners wave freely in the west wind.

Today we hold the long cord in our hands.

When shall we bind fast the Grey Dragon?

 

Long Live the Victory of Mao Zedong Thought (1970)

 

See:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/mao/selected-works/poems/poems17.htm

—Mao Zhedong, “Mount Liupan,” Marxist Internet Archive: Mao Zhedong

Mao’s Road to Power: Revolutionary Writings: 1912-1949, Volume 5, Stuart R. Schram and Nancy J. Hodes, eds. (New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1992) contains commentary that explains the figures of speech in the poem, for example, on page 33: 

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5. Traditional legend has it that during Han Wudi’s time, an army was sent out to Southern Yue. They asked Wudi for a long cord, promising to bind up and bring back the king of Yue.

6. “Gray Dragon” stands for the planet Jupiter, which is considered an ill-omened, evil force in ancient Chinese lore. Chinese commentaries on this poem state that it refers to Chiang Kaishek, although earlier translations of the poem have indicated that it may also stand for the Japanese invaders. The editors of the Shici duilian also state that this line alludes to a ci to the tune “Congratulating the Bridegroom” by the Song dynasty poet Liu Kezbuang, which contains the line “When will the long cord come into our hands/To bind fast the military commander?”

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Mao Zhedong’s poem represents the mountain not as a symbol of the spiritual quest but rather of the victory of Communist revolution. The author is the Great Helmsman, responsible for founding the modern Communist republic of China, ending decades of wracked political turmoil, and for tens of millions of deaths under an oppressive absolutist regime. Deep irony indeed that the cause of so much carnage should be conceived of in terms of a symbol of the transcendent.

 

UP ON TOP by Olav H. Hauge (1908-1994)

Original language Norwegian

Translated by Robert Bly

 

After stumbling a long time over impossible trails

you are up on top.

Hardship didn't crush you, you trod it

down, climbed higher.

 

That's how you see it. After life has tossed you

away, and you ended up on top

like a one-legged wooden horse on a dump.

Life is merciful, it blinds and provides illusions,

and destiny takes on our burden:

foolishness and arrogance become mountains and marshy places,

hate and resentment become wounds from enemy arrows,

and the doubt always with us becomes cold dry

rocky valleys.

 

You go in the door.

The pot lies upside down in the hearth,

it sprawls with hostile black feet.

 

“Ozymandias”

See: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poem/181327

—Olav H. Hauge, “Up on Top,” transl. by Robert Bly, Poetry (April 2008)

This poem about the mountain turns the motif on its head. Mountains are “foolishness and arrogance,” you climb them to get “up on top” of a “dump.” At the summit awaits jaded disillusion, symbolized by a pot overturned: “The pot lies upside down in the hearth, / it sprawls with hostile black feet.”