5. Maple / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

5. Maple / New Hampshire(1923) - Robert Frost

Her teacher's certainty it must be Mabel

Made Maple first take notice of her name.

She asked her father and he told her, "Maple―

Maple is right."

            "But teacher told the school

There's no such name."

                "Teachers don't know as much

As fathers about children, you tell teacher.

You tell her that it's M-A-P-L-E.

You ask her if she knows a maple tree.

Well, you were named after a maple tree.

Your mother named you. You and she just saw

Each other in passing in the room upstairs,

One coming this way into life, and one

Going the other out of life―you know?

So you can't have much recollection of her.

She had been having a long look at you.

She put her finger in your cheek so hard

It must have made your dimple there, and said,

'Maple.' I said it too: 'Yes, for her name.'

She nodded. So we're sure there's no mistake.

I don't know what she wanted it to mean,

But it seems like some word she left to bid you

Be a good girl―be like a maple tree.

How like a maple tree's for us to guess.

Or for a little girl to guess sometime.

Not now―at least I shouldn't try too hard now.

By and by I will tell you all I know

About the different trees, and something, too,

About your mother that perhaps may help."

Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.

Luckily all she wanted of her name then

Was to rebuke her teacher with it next day,

And give the teacher a scare as from her father.

Anything further had been wasted on her,

Or so he tried to think to avoid blame.

She would forget it. She all but forgot it.

What he sowed with her slept so long a sleep,

And came so near death in the dark of years,

That when it woke and came to life again

The flower was different from the parent seed.

It came back vaguely at the glass one day,

As she stood saying her name over aloud,

Striking it gently across her lowered eyes

To make it go well with the way she looked.

What was it about her name? Its strangeness lay

In having too much meaning. Other names,

As Lesley, Carol, Irma, Marjorie,

Signified nothing. Rose could have a meaning,

But hadn't as it went. (She knew a Rose.)

This difference from other names it was

Made people notice it―and notice her.

(They either noticed it, or got it wrong.)

Her problem was to find out what it asked

In dress or manner of the girl who bore it.

If she could form some notion of her mother―

What she had thought was lovely, and what good.

This was her mother's childhood home;

The house one story high in front, three stories

On the end it presented to the road.

(The arrangement made a pleasant sunny cellar.)

Her mother's bedroom was her father's still,

Where she could watch her mother's picture fading.

Once she found for a bookmark in the Bible

A maple leaf she thought must have been laid

In wait for her there. She read every word

Of the two pages it was pressed between,

As if it was her mother speaking to her.

But forgot to put the leaf back in closing

And lost the place never to read again.

She was sure, though, there had been nothing in it.

So she looked for herself, as everyone

Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.

And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,

fitful : 단속적인

May still have been what led her on to read,

And think a little, and get some city schooling.

She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may

Have had to do with it―she sometimes wondered.

So, till she found herself in a strange place

For the name Maple to have brought her to,

Taking dictation on a paper pad

And, in the pauses when she raised her eyes,

Watching out of a nineteenth story window

An airship laboring with unshiplike motion

And a vague all-disturbing roar above the river

Beyond the highest city built with hands.

Someone was saying in such natural tones

She almost wrote the words down on her knee,

"Do you know you remind me of a tree―

A maple tree?"

                 "Because my name is Maple?"

"Isn't it Mabel? I thought it was Mabel."

"No doubt you've heard the office call me Mabel.

I have to let them call me what they like."

They were both stirred that he should have divined

Without the name her personal mystery.

It made it seem as if there must be something

She must have missed herself. So they were married,

And took the fancy home with them to live by.

They went on pilgrimage once to her father's

(The house one story high in front, three stories

On the side it presented to the road)

To see if there was not some special tree

She might have overlooked. They could find none,

Not so much as a single tree for shade,

Let alone grove of trees for sugar orchard.

She told him of the bookmark maple leaf

In the big Bible, and all she remembered

Of the place marked with it―"Wave-offering,

wave-offering : 희생제물

Something about wave offering, it said."

"You never asked your father outright, have you?"

"I have, and been put off sometime, I think."

(This was her faded memory of the way

Once long ago her father had put himself off.)

"Because no telling but it may have been

Something between your father and your mother

Not meant for us at all."

                       "Not meant for me?

Where would the fairness be in giving me

A name to carry for life and never know

The secret of?"

                 "And then it may have been

Something a father couldn't tell a daughter

As well as could a mother. And again

It may have been their one lapse into fancy

'Twould be too bad to make him sorry for

By bringing it up to him when he was too old.

Your father feels us round him with our questing,

And holds us off unnecessarily,

As if he didn't know what little thing

Might lead us on to a discovery.

It was as personal as he could be

About the way he saw it was with you

To say your mother, had she lived, would be

As far again as from being born to bearing."

"Just one look more with what you say in mind,

And I give up"; which last look came to nothing.

But though they now gave up the search forever,

They clung to what one had seen in the other

By inspiration. It proved there was something.

They kept their thoughts away from when the maples

Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam

Of sap and snow rolled off the sugarhouse.

When they made her related to the maples,

It was the tree the autumn fire ran through

And swept of leathern leaves, but left their bark

Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.

They always took their holidays in autumn.

Once they came on a maple in a glade,

glade : 숲속의 빈터, 습지

Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,

And every leaf of foliage she'd worn

Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.

But its age kept them fro considering this one.

Twenty-five years ago at Maple's naming

It hardly could have been a two-leaved seedling

The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.

Could it have been another maple like it?

They hovered for a moment near discovery,

Figurative enough to see the symbol,

But lacking faith in anything to mean

The same at different times to different people.

Perhaps a filial diffidence partly kept them

filial : 자식의, 자식관계의

From thinking it could be a thing so bridal.

And anyway it came too late for Maple.

She used her hands to cover up her eyes.

"We would not see the secret if we could now:

We are not looking for it any more."

Thus had a name with meaning, given in death,

Made a girl's marriage, and ruled in her life.

No matter that the meaning was not clear.

A name with meaning could bring up a child,

Taking the child out of the parents' hands.

Better a meaningless name, I should say,

As leaving more to nature and happy chance.

Name children some names and see what you do.

----------

단풍나무

틀림없이 메이벌일 거라는 선생님의 말씀에

메이플은 자신의 이름에 처음으로 주목했다.

아버지에게 물었더니 그는 그녀에게 말했다.

"메이플―메이플이 맞다."

               "하지만 학교 선생님 말씀은

그런 이름은 없다고 하던데요."

                 "선생님들은 아이들에 대해

아버지들만큼 모른다고, 선생님께 말씀드려라.

그 선생님에게 메―이-플이 맞는다고 말씀드려라.

메이플 트리를 아시느냐고 여쭤봐라.

그래, 네 이름은 메이플 트리를 본떠서 지었다.

너의 엄마가 지었어. 너와 너의 엄마는

이층 방에서 서로 지나치며 만났을 뿐이다.

한 사람은 이 세상에 태어나고, 한 사람은

이 세상을 떠나고―무슨 말인지 알겠지?

그러니 너는 엄마의 기억이 별로 없을 거다.

엄마는 너를 말끄러미 바라보고 있었지.

손가락으로 네 볼을 아주 세게 누르니까

네 볼에 보조개가 생겼을 텐데, 그때 엄마가

‘메이플’이라고 말했다. 나 또한 말했다.

‘그래요, 그 애 이름을 메이플로 합시다.’

엄마가 고개를 끄덕였다. 전혀 잘못된 게 아니다.

엄마가 무슨 뜻으로 지었는지 모르지만,

네가 메이플 트리 같은―착한 소녀 되라고

당부하기 위해 유언(遺言)한 말씀 같이 보인다.

어떻게 메이플 트리 같을지는 우리가 짐작할 일이다.

아니면 어린 소녀가 언젠가 짐작할 일이다.

지금 말고―적어도 지금은 지나친 추측은 않겠다.

어쩌면 서로 다르지만 도움이 될 수 있는 나무들,

그리고 또 너의 엄마에 대한 어떤 것에 대해

내가 알고 있는 것을 모두 너에게 곧 말해주마.”

이렇게 자아를 깨우는 위험한 말의 씨가 뿌려졌다.

다행히 그 당시 그녀가 자기 이름에 대해 알고자 한 것은

다음날 이름 사건에 대해 선생님에게 따지고,

아버지가 혼내듯 선생님을 혼내는 일뿐이었다.

군더더기 정보는 그녀에게 하등 쓸모없었다.

아니 그는 탓을 듣지 않고자 머리를 쥐어짰다. 

딸은 그것을 잊을 것이다. 실제로 그녀는 거의 잊었다.

그가 뿌린 씨는 그녀와 함께 아주 긴 잠을 잤고,

세월의 어둠 속에서 거의 죽음에 다다랐기 때문에,

그 씨가 잠이 깨서 다시 살아났을 때

그 꽃은 친종자(親種子)와는 다른 꽃이었다.

그 꽃이 어느 날 거울에 희미하게 돌아왔다.

그녀는 서서 자기 이름을 크게 되풀이 발성하며,

그 꽃이 자기 모습과 서로 잘 어울리도록

눈을 내리 뜨고 조용히 거울 좌우로 흔들었다.

그녀의 이름은 과연 어떤 의미일까? 이상한 점은

의미가 너무 많다는 데 있었다. 다른 이름들,

예컨대 레슬리, 캐럴, 어마, 마저리는

아무런 의미도 없었다. 로즈는 의미가 있을 수 있지만,

실제는 없었다. (그녀는 로즈를 한 사람 알고 있었다.)

사람들이 이름을 주목하고―그녀를 주목한 것은

이렇게 이름이 다른 이름들과 다르기 때문이었다.

(사람들은 이름을 주목하거나, 또는 잘못 알아들었다.)

그녀의 문제는 그 이름을 가진 소녀에게 요구되는

옷이나 몸가짐이 무엇인지 발견하는 것이었다.

어머니가 무엇이 귀엽고, 무엇이 좋다고 생각했는지―

그녀의 생각을 일부라도 그려볼 수 있다면 좋겠다.

지금의 집은 어머니의 어린 시절의 집이었다.

그 집은 전면(前面)은 일층 높이고,

도로와 접한 끝 쪽은 삼층이었다.

(이런 배치로 양지바른 유쾌한 지하실이 있었다.)

어머니의 침실은 아직도 아버지의 침실이었고,

여기서 그녀는 퇴색하는 어머니의 사진을 볼 수 있었다.

언젠가 성경(聖經)에서 서표(書標)로 쓰인 단풍잎을

하나 발견한 그녀는 그게 거기서 그녀를 기다리고

있었음에 틀림없다고 생각했다. 그녀는 마치

그 잎이 그녀에게 말하는 어머니인 듯이 그것이

눌려있던 두 페이지의 단어를 모두 읽었지만,

덮으면서 그 잎을 제자리에 돌리기를 깜빡 잊은 통에

그 자리가 어딘지 몰라서 다시는 읽지 못했다.

그러나 그녀는 책 속에 별다른 게 없다고 믿었다.

그래서 모든 사람이 자신을 탐구하듯이, 그녀도

대강 외관으로 보기에는 그녀 자신을 탐구했다.

그리고 그녀의 자아 탐구는, 단속적이었지만,

그녀로 하여금 책을 읽고, 약간의 생각을 하고,

도시 교육도 약간 받도록 인도하였을 것이다.

속기(速記)가 자아 탐구와 무슨 상관이 있는지―

때때로 의아했지만, 그녀는 속기도 배웠다.

그러다가, 결국 그녀는 메이플이란 이름 때문에

오게 된 이상한 곳에서 그녀 자신을 발견했다.

그녀는 부전지(附箋紙)에 구술(口述)을 받아쓰다가

잠시 쉬는 동안에 눈을 들고, 19층 창밖을

내다봤다. 비행선 한 척이 배답지 않은 움직임과

온통 어지러우면서 희미한 굉음을 내면서

손으로 지은 최고 높이의 도시 너머

강의 상공을 난항(難航)하고 있었다.

누군가가 아주 자연스런 어조로 말하고 있었다.

그녀는 그 말을 자신의 무릎에 받아쓸 뻔 했다.

"나는 당신을 보면 어떤 나무가 생각나는데―

그게 메이플 트리 아닌가?"

                   "내 이름이 메이플이기 때문인가요?"

"이름이 메이벌 아니던가요? 메이벌이라고 생각했어요."

"사무실에서 나를 메이벌이라 부르는 소릴 들으셨군요.

사람들이 마음대로 부르게 할 수 밖에 없어 그냥 뒀어요."

그들은 둘 다 그가 이름을 모르고도

그녀의 개인적 신비를 상상한 사실에 감동했다.

무엇인가 그녀 스스로 알지 못한 어떤 것이

그녀에게 있음이 틀림없는 듯 했다. 그렇게 그들은 결혼했고,

그 상상을 집으로 가지고 가서 간직하며 살았다.

그들은 그녀의 아버지 집을 한 번 순례(巡禮)했다.

(그 집은 전면(前面)은 일층 높이였고,

도로와 접한 끝 쪽은 삼층이었다.)

그녀가 간과(看過)했을법한 특별한 나무가

있는지 알아보려는 것이었다. 그들은

사탕단풍 과수원 숲은 차치하고, 단 한 그루의

그늘 용 나무도 발견할 수 없었다.

그녀는 큰 성경책 속의 단풍잎 서표와

그것으로 표시한 곳에 대한 기억을 모두

남편에게 말했다―"그곳은 요제(搖祭),

요제에 대한 어떤 것을 말했어요."

"당신 아버지께 솔직하게 물은 적은 없지요?"

"있었지만, 훗날을 기약하고 대답을 미뤘던 것 같아요."

(이것은 오래 전에 그녀의 아버지가 대답을

미뤘던 모습을 희미하게 기억하고 한 말이었다.)

"모르긴 해도 우리에겐 전혀 의미가 없으나

당신 아버지와 어머니 사이에 있었던

어떤 일 때문에 그러셨을 거요.”

               "내겐 의미가 없다고요?

내게 평생 동안 지닐 이름을 지어주면서

내가 그 비밀을 모르게 한다는 게

과연 공정할까요?"

                            "그렇다면 아마도

어머니라면 몰라도 아버지로서는 딸에게 말할 수

없는 어떤 사연이 있었겠지요. 그리고 또 어쩌면

그게 한때 빠졌던 그분들의 공상이었지만

그분이 너무 늙으신 판국에 그걸 들추어내서

그분을 부끄럽게 하면 아주 나쁘겠지요.

당신 아버지는 우리가 그분의 과거를 캔다고 느끼시고,

마치 아주 사소한 단서를 가지고도

우리가 어떤 발견에 이를 것처럼

불필요하게 우리를 피하시는 거요.

만약 살아계신 경우, 당신의 어머니에게

당신의 출생에서 임신까지를 털어놓는다는 게

당신에게는 더더욱 사적(私的)인 만큼이나

그분에게도 그것이 말할 수 없이 사적이었다는 거지."

"당신이 지금 내심(內心) 말하는 것을 그저 한 번 더

검토하고, 난 포기할래요." 그 마지막 검토도 허사였다.

그러나 그들은 이제 탐색을 영원히 포기했지만,

그들은 영감(靈感)으로 남편이 아내에게서 보았던 것에

연연(戀戀)했다. 그것은 무엇인가가 있음을 증명했다.

그들은 단풍나무들이 제당소 들통에 균일하게 서있고, 

그 수액과 백목질의 김이 무럭무럭 나던 때는

봄철의 단풍나무들을 그들은 일단 생각에서 제외

그들의 생각에서 일단 제외했다.

그들이 그녀를 단풍나무와 결부시킨 것은

가을의 불이 한껏 파고들어 피혁질의 나뭇잎들을  

일소(一掃)하고,수피(樹皮)는 어느 연기에도

그을리거나 검게 되지 않고, 껄끄럽지 않은 때였다.

그들은 가을이면 언제나 휴가를 즐겼다.

그들은 언젠가 숲속 빈터의 단풍 한 그루를 만났다.

단풍나무는 홀로 매끄러운 팔들을 올리고,

입었던 잎 옷을 벗어서 자주와 연한 핑크 잎들을

나무의 발목 주변에 두루 깔고 서있었다.

그러나 그들은 수령 때문에 이 나무는 고려하지 않았다.

25년 전 부모가 메이플의 이름을 지을 때

그 나무는 겨우 두 잎의 묘목에 지나지 않아서

옆의 소가 방목장에 나와 핥아 먹었을 법한 나무였다.

나무는 다르지만 같은 수종의 나무였을 수 있겠지?

그들은 잠시 동안 발견의 언저리를 맴돌았다.

그들은 상징을 보기에 충분한 상상력이 있었지만,

어느 사물이 서로 다른 때에 서로 다른 사람에게

똑같은 것을 의미할 수 있다는 믿음이 부족했다.

어쩌면 부분적으로는 자식으로서의 망설임 때문에

신부(新婦) 같은 나무였을 거라는 생각은 하지 않았다.

그리고 어쨌든 메이플에는 그런 생각이 너무 늦게야 떠올랐다.

그녀는 양손으로 그녀의 눈을 가렸다.

"우리가 지금 그 비밀을 알 수 있다고 해도 그만 둡시다.

더 이상 그것을 캐지 맙시다."

이렇게 의미 있는 이름, 죽으면서 지어준 이름이

한 소녀의 결혼을 성사시켰고, 그녀의 삶을 지배했다.

그 의미가 불확실하다는 것은 전혀 중요하지 않다.

의미 있는 이름이 어느 아이를 기를 수 있고,

그 아이를 부모의 손으로부터 뺏어올 수도 있다.

자연과 행복한 우연에게 더 많은 여백을 남기는

의미 없는 이름이 더 좋다고, 나는 말할 것이다.

당신은 자녀들에게 이름을 지어주며 무얼 하는지 보라.

-신재실 옮김-

단상(斷想): 자녀의 이름을 허투루 짓는 부모는 없으리라. 모든 이름에 어떤 소망이 담았겠지만 이름 덕분에 득을 보는 사람도 있고 이름 탓에 곤욕을 치르는 사람도 있다. 이름이 그 사람을 상징하고 있다고 믿거나 느끼는 사람들이 많기 때문이리라. 예컨대 스미스(Smith)와 롱(Long)은 각각 직업이 대장장이인 사람과 키가 꺽다리인 사람을 은유한 것이었다. 하지만 후손들이 그 이름을 거듭 물려받을수록 그 상징성과 의미가 점점 희미해지고, 참신성이 상실된다.

출생의 비밀을 담고 있는 이름도 있다. 이 시의 주인공 이름은 메이플(Maple)이다. 학교 선생님까지도 여자이름으로 흔히 쓰이는 메이벌(Mabel)을 잘못 표기한 것으로 이해하고, 다른 사람들도 그녀를 메이벌로 알고 부른다. 하지만 그녀의 이름은 분명 메이플이다. 엄마가 짓고 아빠가 동의한 이름이다. 그녀는 엄마를 보지 못했다. 엄마가 출산 후유증으로 곧 세상을 떠났기 때문이다. “엄마가 무슨 뜻으로 지었는지 모르지만,/ 네가 메이플 트리 같은―착한 소녀 되라고/ 당부하기 위해 유언(遺言)한 말씀 같이 보인다.”는 게 아버지의 말이다. 그러기에 그녀는 “그 이름을 가진 소녀에게 요구되는/ 옷이나 몸가짐이 무엇인지 발견하고… / 어머니가 무엇이 귀엽고, 무엇이 좋다고 생각했는지―/ 그녀의 생각을 일부라도 그려서 … ,”그대로 성장하기 위해 공부하고 노력했다.

그 결과 그녀는 다른 사람 보기에 단풍나무 같은 여자로 성장했고, 그녀를 보면 단풍나무가 생각난다는 어느 남자와 결혼까지 했다. 이름이 그녀의 운명을 결정한 것이었다. 그녀의 이름은 과연 무슨 의미일까? 아빠의 말대로 그저 메이플처럼 “착한” 여자가 되라는 뜻인가? “언젠가 성경(聖經)에서 서표(書標)로 쓰인 단풍잎을/ 하나 발견한 그녀는 … / 그 잎이 그녀에게 말하는 어머니인 듯이/ 그것이 눌려있던 두 페이지의 단어를 모두 읽었지만,”당시에는 별다른 의미가 없다고 생각했다. 단풍잎을 본래 자리에 끼워놓지 않았기 때문에, 본래의 자리를 알 수 없지만 요제가 언급되어 있었다. 구약에서 요제의 의미는 무엇인가? 『민수기』5:12-31은 외간 남자와 동침한 부정한 여자에 관한 이야기에서 요제를 언급한다. 그렇다면 그녀의 출생에 부정(不貞)의 비밀이 숨겨있다는 것인가? 글쎄, 알 수 없는 일이다. 아버지도 무엇인가 숨기고 있는 것 같아 더욱 궁금하지만, 그런 의심도 한낱 상상이나 허구일 수 있지 않을까?

이름을 해독하려는 마지막 시도로 그들은 사탕단풍 숲을 찾았다. 가을이다. 수확기인 봄철의 사탕단풍은 수액을 채취당하고, 연기에 그을려, 시커멓지만, 가을 단풍은 “수피(樹皮)는 어느 연기에도 그을리거나 검게 되지 않고,/ 껄끄럽지 않고,” 단풍나무 홀로 “매끄러운 팔들을 올리고,/ 입었던 잎 옷을 벗어서 자주와 연한 핑크 잎들을/ 나무의 발목 주변에 두루 깔고 서있었다.”그 나무는 수령 25년쯤 된 나무, 지금의 메이플처럼 성숙하고 아름다운 가을 여자 같은 모습이었다. 어쩌면 엄마는 이른 봄 수확기의 추레한 단풍을 보고 딸의 이름을 지었는지 모른다. 그들이 봄철의 단풍을 아예 고려하지 않은 것은 잘못이다. 또한 젊고 아름다운 지금의 가을 단풍도 메이플의 이름을 지을 당시와 관련된 옛날의 단풍나무가 될 수 없다는 이유로 제외한 것도 큰 실수였다. 그들은 “사물이 서로 다른 때에 서로 다른 사람에게 / 똑같은 것을 의미할 수 있다는 믿음이 부족했다.”그러기에 “그들은 잠시 동안 발견의 언저리를 맴돌고” 말았다. 그들은 양쪽 모두의 가능성을 스스로 차단했다. 게다가 그들의 “자식으로서의 망설임 때문에/ 신부(新婦) 같은 나무였을 거라는 생각은 하지 않았다./ 그리고 어쨌든 메이플에는 그런 생각이 너무 늦게야 떠올랐다.”어느 쪽이 옳든 두 가능성을 모두 배제한 것은 그들의 큰 실수였다. 어느 한 쪽이 옳거나, 양쪽 다 옳을 수 있기 때문이다.

“이렇게 의미 있는 이름, 죽으면서 지어준 이름이/ 한 소녀의 결혼을 성사시켰고, 그녀의 삶을 지배했다./ 그 의미가 불확실하다는 것은 전혀 중요하지 않다.”프로스트는 “시는 메타포로서, 갑을 말하고 을을 뜻하는 것, 갑을 을로 환산하여 말하는 것, 간접(間接)의 즐거움이다. 시는 메타포만으로 만들어진다,”고 말하였다. 시의 의미가 불확실하다는 것은 전혀 중요하지 않다. 왜냐하면 같은 시라도 서로 다른 때에 서로 다른 사람에게 똑 같은 것을 의미할 수도 있고, 또한 서로 다른 것을 의미할 수도 있기 때문이다. 

-신재실 씀-출처 : http://blog.naver.com/PostList.nhn?from=postList&blogId=js9660&categoryNo=31¤tPage=51

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youtu.be/BvpMqjvXnSE

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Frost allows the mystery of naming to govern the story of a girl’s and then a
woman’s life in “Maple.” Working against the traditional myth of the Adamic
namer, we learn from her father that her mother, before her death soon after
giving birth, bestowed the highly suggestive name upon her. Her father becomes

dangerously suggestive and evasive in telling her the story of her naming and
inspires his daughter’s own search for self-understanding and self-revelation
in her mother’s intent:

“I don’t know what she wanted it to mean,
But it seems like some word she left to bid you
Be a good girl – be like a maple tree.
How like a maple tree’s for us to guess.
Or for a little girl to guess sometime.
Not now–at least I shouldn’t try too hard now.
By and by I will tell you all I know
About the different trees, and something, too,
About your mother that perhaps may help.”
Dangerous self-arousing words to sow.

The self-arousal here creates a life-determining drama: the search for the mean￾ing of her name paradoxically governs her life’s course. Strangely enough, it
leads her away from the country to the city, where her strength and power
become severely limited in the life as a secretary taking “shorthand” in an
office:

So she looked for herself, as everyone
Looks for himself, more or less outwardly.
And her self-seeking, fitful though it was,
May still have been what led her on to read,
And think a little, and get some city schooling.
She learned shorthand, whatever shorthand may
Have had to do with it – she sometimes wondered
So, till she found herself in a strange place
For the name Maple to have brought her to,
Taking dictation on a paper pad,
And in the pauses when she raised her eyes
Watching out of a nineteenth story window
An airship laboring with unship-like motion
Andavague all-disturbing roar above the river
Beyond the highest city built with hands.

Maple’s “self-seeking” has ripped her as far as possible from her mystery
and from nature, and imprisoned her in an alienated world of technology
in which she is reduced to language and naming in a male world of dictation
and shorthand. A man in her office oddly divines her mystery, saying to her
that she reminds him of a maple tree, even though he thinks her true name is
“Mabel” and not “Maple.” Their marriage makes him part of the odyssey of her
self-discovery.

Maple’s husband suggests that her father may have held the key to the mystery
of her name but may also not have told her everything about the story of her
naming:

“And then it may have been
Something a father couldn’t tell a daughter
As well as could a mother. And again
It may been their one lapse into fancy
’Twould be too bad to make him sorry for
By bringing it up when he was too old.”

Perhaps these are dangerous words for the husband to sow. Maple had remem￾bered a maple leaf bookmark in the family Bible marking something about
“wave offerings.” Critics have noted that in the book of Numbers, wave offer￾ings are associated with women discharging penalties for sexual infidelities.
Has something gone on between the father and mother that only the mother
could have told her daughter?

When at the end of the poem Maple contemplates maple trees at various
seasons, we wonder what, figuratively, she may be seeing herself in:

They kept their thoughts away from when the maples
Stood uniform in buckets, and the steam
Of sap and snow rolled off the sugar house.
When they made her related to the maples,
It was the tree the autumn fire ran through
And swept of leathern leaves, but left the bark
Unscorched, unblackened, even, by any smoke.
They always took their holidays in autumn.
Once they came on a maple in a glade,
Standing alone with smooth arms lifted up,
And every leaf of foliage she’d worn
Laid scarlet and pale pink about her feet.
But its age kept them from considering this one.
Twenty-five years ago at Maple’s naming
It could hardly have been a two-leaved seedling
The next cow might have licked up out at pasture.
Could it have been another maple like it?
They hovered for a moment near discovery,
Figurative enough to see the symbol,
But lacking faith in anything to mean
The same at different times to different people.

The images of maples are, perhaps, suggestive of many different things, some
of them erotic and others, perhaps, more disturbing. But Maple’s ability to find

symbolic significance between herself and nature has, somehow, been fractured
by time and life’s unruliness as well as a lack of mystical faith.

from "The Cambridge Introduction to Robert Frost - Robert Faggen"

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Robert Frost and the Challenge of Darwin(1997) - Robert Faggen

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Handling figures of speech

In May of 1952 Mr. Frost traveled to Billings, Montana, to be the speaker at the high-school graduation of his granddaughter Robin Fraser. While at Billings he also spoke at both Rocky Mountain College and the Eastern Montana College of Education. His May-eighteenth talk at the latter institution is represented by this excerpt, within which passing reference is made to U. S. Senator Estes Kefauver, who was then heading a highly publicized investigation of organized crime.

I WOULDN’T GO round the country advocating poetry or defending poetry or trying to make poetry out as of special value in education, I suppose. But I must think that it comes in somewhere, or I wouldn’t be standing here, would I?

I think some of my friends in the educational world think that it is decorative, that it belongs to education as cloves belong to a ham. You stick the poetry into the ham, the solid education. And of course that isn’t right. That wouldn’t be the way to think of it at all.

It belongs to the very essence of it all, just as much as anything you can name, in its small way. It may not be in time; it may not take too much time in school. And I don’t know how directly it ought to be taught. But from childhood up, it probably has its greatest value in preparing everybody in figures of speech, in metaphor.

And when you stop to think of it, all our wisdom, everything we know, is in figures of speech. When you look at the way people can go wrong about politics, religion, philosophy, it’s from some misunderstanding of metaphor. Nearly everything that we say has a metaphorical basis.

For instance, I hear somebody say that “I’m a mechanist; that is, I believe the universe is a machine.” He says he’s a mechanist.

I’m finishing that for him. He leaves it that way: “I believe the world is a machine.” And then I want to say to him: “That’s a pretty good figure. What you’re saying is, ‘The world, the universe is like unto a machine.’” You see, “like unto.”

And then I say: “If you’re used to figures of speech, you must know that every figure of speech breaks down. You can only go a little way with it. It has a little significance and, then, it’s gone; you have to have another figure of speech.”

I say to him: “Now look, it’s ‘like unto a machine,’ you say. Exactly ‘like unto a machine’?” And I say: “All right, now, did you ever see a machine without a pedal for the foot, a button for the finger, or a lever for the hand? All those three things belong to a machine—all of them or one of them: pedal for the foot, button for the finger, a lever for the hand.”

He says, “Yes.”

“In the universe do you know where those are?”

“Well, then, I mean”—he says—“I mean it’s like unto a machine, only it isn’t like unto a machine.”

He stayed too long with it.

From childhood up, there’s always the intimation of something like that. And in the good poetry, beginning with Mother Goose, half the time you’re asked to be on the lookout for some metaphor, some intimation of something else. It’s as if you’re saying, “Now I’m saying one thing, but while I’m saying that, I may be saying something more.”

The double meaning. For instance, it says in Mother Goose, doesn’t it?:

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?…

This is a famous poem, which I was brought up on.—

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?…

You see, it’s an English poem. You can tell, because it says “been” to rhyme with “queen.”—

…where have you been?

I’ve been to London to see the queen.

Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you see there?

I saw…

Now, watch me make something else of it.—

I saw nothing but what I would have seen
if I’d stayed at home.

I saw a little mouse run under a chair.

[…] Did that mean that to the child? No, but it got the child ready to play with that sort of thing, play with double meanings, ulteriorities.

Now, I’m inclined to think that half the trouble that they tell about in the world—I don’t believe that there are troubles any worse at any given time than ’tis at any other. If it is, I wouldn’t be able to know it; I’m not smart enough.

I deplore the corruption today and agree that it’s terrible, with Mr. Kefauver. But then I remember, as I look back—(I make a kind of figure.)—I say, “This time is like unto another time.” That’s what the history’s about, making figures of speech like that.

As for corruption, in Athens the greatest man of all—the greatest statesman of all, that made Athens, for the short time it was the greatest thing in the world’s history maybe, made it that—named Pericles; he was tried for corruption and convicted. So, we meet it elsewhere, you see, corruption. (As someone said, sadly, “Things were never the same in Athens after that.” Took the wind all out of it; Pericles lived afterward, but things weren’t the same.)

But if there is anything wrong with our time—(And we are troubled about the thing.)—you know, I think that very often that it’s nothing but an unpreparedness for the metaphors of Mr. Freud, for instance—as far as they go. Some metaphor about the child that has a little value in it, but you mustn’t stay with it too long.

There are figures of speech, metaphors, that have more lasting value than others. But all of them, you learn—as you read poetry—you learn to know that you must leave ’em; love ’em and leave ’em. They have their beauty. It’s insofar forth. That’s all.

I ought to say that I’ve taught everything but the kindergarten myself. And all the way along, that’s been a growing concern with me, about how we handle figures of speech, how to handle figures of speech. And that’s what poetry is all about.

Some poems are almost without that ulteriority. But almost always there’s a figure within the poem, scattered figures in details or a figure of the whole.

Now, of course, that’s almost the same as saying that everything is allegorical. And ’tis. You’ve got five or six different names just for the metaphor: “allegory,” “metaphor,” and so on. You can’t tell a story that anyone will listen to—no story has any valid interest—that hasn’t got something of intimation. “Intimation” is another word for it. “Hinting” is another word for it. And how far the hint goes and where the hint stops, that’s what we go into poetry to learn.

Now, that’s only one of the things. That’s the chief thing, though, in poetry—that to the mind, anyway; to the ear, some soundness of poetry, whether it’s genuinely sound, valid. That’s all right, and that’s an important thing—lies in the metaphor. And then the other thing is whether it’s a sound, something to the ear.

I read poetry nowadays that seems to me not to have anything for my ear. It’s as if the fellow that wrote it had had his own ears cut off, and he’s content with the mental part of it, without the sound of it.

Now, I wanted chiefly to read to you tonight. That’s what you’re here to listen to. I’m not going to talk too long. Mind you, I haven’t made too much of it.

You know, what I’d like to say of poetry: that it’s some small part of that better half of the world that can’t be made a science of. And when I say “better half,” I say it partly as a good-humored jest—as we speak of our wives, you know, as our better halves. I just mean it’s—somehow—it’s a half.

And you might wonder about that, what I mean. But you can take whole poems. Take a poem of Shakespeare’s. And he lists in one poem I can think of—(It just like an itemized list of things that can’t be made a science of. Over and over again the metaphor is the thing.)—he says:

When in disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes,

I all alone beweep my outcast state,

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries…

You see, he’s talking right away in a metaphorical way about prayer there: “trouble deaf heaven…”—(He’s saying, for the moment he doesn’t believe in prayer.)—“And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries.” You see, heaven’s deaf to me; he’s saying that for the minute. He doesn’t mean that’s an unbelief entirely, except as he’s speaking for him.—

And trouble deaf heaven with my bootless cries,

And look upon myself, and curse my fate,

Wishing myself like one more rich in hope,

Featur’d like him, like him with friends possess’d,

Desiring this man’s art, and that man’s scope…

Take that as my concern. There are three or four other concerns there before you get to that. But when you get there, that’s my concern as a writer: my scope and my art. I look on Whitman, for instance, and I can see that he decided to go in for scope, rather than art. And I look at another poet, like Landor, and I can see he decided to go in for art more than scope. But there it is, laid out for you in a grand figure, the pair of them there.—

With what I most enjoy contented least…

You see, that’s a figure of speech for the United States right now. All its writers are complaining—all but me. They’re all complaining, though we’ve got everything in the world and everybody thinks we have everything in the world. But everybody’s unhappy.—

With what I most enjoy contented least;

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising…

Another grand figure for that thing in yourself that despises yourself.—

Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising…

And then the whole thing a figure for what lifts you out of all this. He goes down, down, down, down, down, step by step—(That’s the figure.)—and then he says:

Haply I think on thee,—and then my state (Like to the lark at break of day arising From sullen earth)…

See, this is all the sullenness of earth.—

From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven’s gate….13

And that’s a figure—he makes that the figure—of love, you see; step after step. It’s an itemized account, that is, of things that can’t be made a science of. There’s no science can touch any of that, never will.

We know how great science is; how remarkable ’tis; how wonderful, admirable, and all that, I’m saying. But there’s a whole half of life that I live and you live that can’t be touched with it.

And poetry always is insisting on that, in its figurative ways, always telling you what stays there: your concern that nobody can touch—psychology, psychiatry, and sociology; nothing that pretends to be science. “Haply I think on thee….” See? Who is she? No science about it.

I rode in a car the other night with a young fellow who insisted that the happiest thing you could do in teaching was to rationalize for students a poem like that—(He didn’t name that poem.) but to rationalize it and show how defective it is.

I said, “You’re one of these fellows that think you’re better than anything you know what’s the matter with.”

All that is a kind of wisdom that goes with delight, too. There’s a wisdom that’s uncritical, somewhat uncritical.

He said, “You’re irrational.” I said: “Well, first of all there’s delight, the delight of wisdom; and, then, the analysis of wisdom as you get older. But,” I said, “you’ll be too analytical by forty, anyway.”

Well, I leave that there and go to these things, some of them, that I’ll say to you. […]

This first one I’ll say to you is called “Birches.” And this is in blank verse. Art and scope; some art and some scope. That’s no boast. For years I didn’t know that was my concern, about my art and my scope.

Landor says in a poem, “I strove with none, for none was worth my strife….” Do you see what he was saying there? He was saying something that a whole administration of ours lived on. “I strove with none, for none was worth my strife….” That’s Wilson. He got that right out of that poem. President Wilson: “too proud to fight” he translated it into “too proud to fight.”—

I strove with none, for none was worth my strife;

Nature I loved…

And then this second line was what I wanted to get to:

Nature I loved and, next to Nature, Art….14

You see, he said “nature” for “scope.” He thought he loved nature best, scope most. But he didn’t. We tell him somebody else did. […]

[Mr. Frost said his poem “Birches.”]

One of the commonest, one of the deadliest figures of speech going: that you have to leave somewhere. There is such a thing as “escape.” The other day a distinguished professor said to me, “Isn’t poetry, on the whole, to be considered just an escape?” I said, “No, I always thought it was a pursuit.”

That’s just spoiling his figure, that’s all. There is such a thing, but I said I didn’t want to hear this figure of speech “escape” anymore. “Well,” he said, “you’re going to have to. It’s all in criticism, all through everything, you know.”

Why did you write poetry? Why do you whistle? Why do you sing? Is it an escape? No, it’s a pursuit. I’m sure you’re after something nice—after something. Nothing’s after you but the devil!