R
Ruben D
Guest
...i really need help! ten points!? Answer by Bei Dao
translated by Donald Finkel
The scoundrel carries his baseness around like an ID card.
The honest man bears his honor like an epigraph.
Look--the gilded sky is swimming
with undulant reflections of the dead.
5- They say the ice age ended years ago.
Why are there icicles everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has already been found.
Why should all those sails contend on the Dead Sea?
I came into this world with nothing
10- but paper, rope, and shadow.
Now, I come to be judged,
and I've nothing to say but this:
Listen. I don't believe!
OK. You've trampled
15- a thousand enemies underfoot. Call me
a thousand and one.
I don't believe the sky is blue.
I don't believe what the thunder says.
I don't beliebe dreams aren't real,
20- that beyond death there is no reprisal.
If the sea should break through the sea-wall,
let its brackish water fill my heart.
If the land should rise from the sea again,
we'll choose again to live in the heights.
25- The earth revolves. A glittering constellation
pricks the vast defenseless sky.
Can you see it there? that ancient ideogram--
the eye of the future, gazing back.
Question: 1. (a) What inferences can you make from this poem about the people or behaviors the poet is answering? (b) Summarize the values that the poet supports.
translated by Donald Finkel
The scoundrel carries his baseness around like an ID card.
The honest man bears his honor like an epigraph.
Look--the gilded sky is swimming
with undulant reflections of the dead.
5- They say the ice age ended years ago.
Why are there icicles everywhere?
The Cape of Good Hope has already been found.
Why should all those sails contend on the Dead Sea?
I came into this world with nothing
10- but paper, rope, and shadow.
Now, I come to be judged,
and I've nothing to say but this:
Listen. I don't believe!
OK. You've trampled
15- a thousand enemies underfoot. Call me
a thousand and one.
I don't believe the sky is blue.
I don't believe what the thunder says.
I don't beliebe dreams aren't real,
20- that beyond death there is no reprisal.
If the sea should break through the sea-wall,
let its brackish water fill my heart.
If the land should rise from the sea again,
we'll choose again to live in the heights.
25- The earth revolves. A glittering constellation
pricks the vast defenseless sky.
Can you see it there? that ancient ideogram--
the eye of the future, gazing back.
Question: 1. (a) What inferences can you make from this poem about the people or behaviors the poet is answering? (b) Summarize the values that the poet supports.