Problem
Consider the poem below. Consider the use of the concept of light. How would you describe it in terms of metaphor? Is it in any way connected to the frame of LIGHT as described by Karen Sullivan?
Jan Kochanowski - Lament 10
(Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Seamus Heaney)
Sweet girl, I wish that you had either never
Been born or never died! For you to sever
All your attachments, take such early leave -
What else, what else can I do now but grieve?
You were like one of those recurrent dreams
About a crock of gold, fool's gold that gleams
And tempts out greed, but when we wake at dawn
Our hands are empty and the gleam is gone.
Dear daughter, this you did in your own way:
Your light appeared to me but would not stay.
It was as if you wanted to destroy
My very soul by robbing all its joy.
The shock of sudden death tore it in two:
One half stayed grieving, one half fled with you.
Here is your epitaph. Stonecutters, hone
The chisels sharp and cut the words in stone
"Ursula Kochanowski lies beneath,
Her father's joy that slipped his loving hands.
Learn from this grave the ways of careless Death:
The free shoot mowed down - the ripe crop stands.