Ode to a Nightingale (قصیده ای به بلبل)

[Angel]

Ode to a Nightingale

John Keats

1.

My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains

My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk,

Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains

One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk:

'Tis not through envy of thy happy lot,

But being too happy in thine happiness, -

That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees,

In some melodious plot

Of beechen green and shadows numberless,

Singest of summer in full-throated ease.

2.

O, for a draught of vintage! that hath been

Cool'd a long age in the deep-delved earth,

Tasting of Flora and the country green,

Dance, and Provençal song, and sunburnt mirth!

O for a beaker full of the warm South,

Full of the true, the blushful Hippocrene,

With beaded bubbles winking at the brim,

And purple-stained mouth;

That I might drink, and leave the world unseen,

And with thee fade away into the forest dim:

3.

Fade far away, dissolve, and quite forget

What thou among the leaves hast never known,

The weariness, the fever, and the fret

Here, where men sit and hear each other groan;

Where palsy shakes a few, sad, last gray hairs,

Where youth grows pale, and spectre-thin, and dies;

Where but to think is to be full of sorrow

And leaden-eyed despairs,

Where Beauty cannot keep her lustrous eyes,

Or new Love pine at them beyond to-morrow.

4.

Away! away! for I will fly to thee,

Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,

But on the viewless wings of Poesy,

Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:

Already with thee! tender is the night,

And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,

Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;

But here there is no light,

Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown

Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.

5.

I cannot see what flowers are at my feet,

Nor what soft incense hangs upon the boughs,

But, in embalmed darkness, guess each sweet

Wherewith the seasonable month endows

The grass, the thicket, and the fruit-tree wild;

White hawthorn, and the pastoral eglantine;

Fast fading violets cover'd up in leaves;

And mid-May's eldest child,

The coming musk-rose, full of dewy wine,

The murmurous haunt of flies on summer eves.

6.

Darkling I listen; and, for many a time

I have been half in love with easeful Death,

Call'd him soft names in many a mused rhyme,

To take into the air my quiet breath;

Now more than ever seems it rich to die,

To cease upon the midnight with no pain,

While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad

In such an ecstasy!

Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain -

To thy high requiem become a sod.

7.

Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird!

No hungry generations tread thee down;

The voice I hear this passing night was heard

In ancient days by emperor and clown:

Perhaps the self-same song that found a path

Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,

She stood in tears amid the alien corn;

The same that oft-times hath

Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam

Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn.

8.

Forlorn! the very word is like a bell

To toll me back from thee to my sole self!

Adieu! the fancy cannot cheat so well

As she is fam'd to do, deceiving elf.

Adieu! adieu! thy plaintive anthem fades

Past the near meadows, over the still stream,

Up the hill-side; and now 'tis buried deep

In the next valley-glades:

Was it a vision, or a waking dream?

Fled is that music: - Do I wake or sleep?

May, 1819

[Angel]

This ode was written in May 1819 and first published in the Annals of the Fine Arts in July 1819. Interestingly, in both the original draft and in its first publication, it is titled 'Ode to the Nightingale'. The title was altered by Keats's publishers. Twenty years after the poet's death, Joseph Severn painted the famous portrait 'Keats listening to a nightingale on Hampstead Heath'.
Critics generally agree that Nightingale was the second of the five 'great odes' of 1819 and its themes are reflected in its 'twin' ode, 'Ode on a Grecian Urn'. Keats's friend and roommate, Charles Brown, described the composition of this beautiful work as follows:

'In the spring of 1819 a nightingale had built her nest near my house. Keats felt a tranquil and continual joy in her song; and one morning he took his chair from the breakfast-table to the grass plot under a plum-tree, where he sat for two or three hours. When he came into the house, I perceived he had some scraps of paper in his hand, and these he was quietly thrusting behind the books. On inquiry, I found these scraps, four or five in number, contained his poetic feeling on the song of our nightingale. The writing was not well legible; and it was difficult to arrange the stanzas on so many scraps. With his assistance I succeeded, and this was his 'Ode to a Nightingale', a poem which has been the delight of everyone.'

Brown's account was dismissed as 'pure delusion' by Charles Wentworth Dilke, the co-owner of Wentworth Place who visited Brown and Keats regularly. After reading the above account in Milnes's 1848 biography of Keats, Dilke noted in the margin, 'We do not usually thrust waste paper behind books'.
It should be noted that Brown wrote his account almost twenty years after the event. Some critics believe he may have confused the compositions of 'Ode on Indolence' and 'Ode to a Nightingale'. The original manuscript of 'Indolence' is lost and the order of its stanzas remains doubtful (note Brown's memory of arranging stanzas.)
The manuscript is actually on two sheets of paper, not 'four or five' as Brown recalled, and the stanzas are in relative order. But the work was written hastily on scrap paper. It is clear that Keats did not anticipate writing such a lengthy poem when he took just two sheets of paper into the garden, - and he did not dare interrupt his writing to fetch more later.

source:englishhistory.net

[Angel]

Vocabulary and Allusions

Stanza I

Line 2, hemlock: a poison made from an herb or a poisonous drink made from that herb.
Line 4, Lethe: a river in Hades (the underworld). Souls about to be reincarnated drank from it to forget their past lives.
Line 7, Dryad: a wood nymph or nymph of the trees. Dryads or nymphs were female personifications of natural features, like mountains and rivers; they were young, beautiful, long-lived and liked music and dance. A Dryad was connected to a specific tree and died when the tree died.

Stanza II

Line 3, Flora: goddess of flowers and fertility.
Line 4. Provencal: of Provence, an area in the south of France associated with song, pleasure, and luxury.
Line 6, Hippocrene: a spring sacred to the Muses, located on Mt.Helicon. Drinking its waters inspired poets. (The nine muses were associated with different arts, such as epic poetry, sacred song, and dancing.)

Stanza IV

Line 2, Bacchus: Roman god of wine.
pards: leopards, which drew Bacchus's chariot.
Line 3, viewless: invisible.
Poesy: poetry in general or, depending n how you read this ode,a specific kind of poetry: visionary poetry poetry or fantasy.
Line 6, haply: perhaps, by chance.
Line 7, fays: fairies.
Line 10, verdurous: green.

Stanza V

Line 3, embalmed: (1) fragrant, (2) preserved body. Is Keats using both meanings here to suggest the inextricably mixed nature of life?

Stanza VI

Line 1, darkling: in the dark.
Line 10, requiem: song or musical service for the repose of the dead.

Stanza VII

Line 6, Ruth: Boaz saw Ruth, the Moabite, working in the fields, fell in love with her and married her; David is one of her descendents. A book in the Bible is named after her. She is frequently alluded to by poets for her devotion to her mother-in-law Naomi or as a stranger in a strange land. In a sense she has achieved immortality.
Line 7, corn: grain, often wheat, in British usage.
Line 9, casements: windows.

Stanza VIII

Line 5, plaintive: expressing sadness.
anthem: (1)a hymn of joy or praise, patriotism, or devotion; (2) a sacred choral song generally based on words from the Bible. Both meanings carry with them intense feelings and high seriousness. Which meaning do you think Keats intends? Does one fit better with requiem? Can both meanings be meant or suggested?

source:academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

[Angel]

Analysis: "Ode to a Nightingale"

A major concern in "Ode to a Nightingale" is Keats's perception of the conflicted nature of human life, i.e., the interconnection or mixture of pain/joy, intensity of feeling/numbness or lack of feeling, life/death, mortal/immortal, the actual/the ideal, and separation/connection.

In this ode, Keats focuses on immediate, concrete sensations and emotions, from which the reader can draw a conclusion or abstraction. Does the experience which Keats describes change the dreamer? As reader, you must follow the dreamer's development or his lack of development from his initial response to the nightingale to his final statement about the experience.

Stanza I.
The poet falls into a reverie while listening to an actual nightingale sing. He feels joy and pain, an ambivalent response. As you read, pick out which words express his pleasure and which ones express his pain and which words express his intense feeling and which his numbed feeling. Consider whether pleasure can be so intense that, paradoxically, it either numbs us or causes pain.

What qualities does the poet ascribe to the nightingale? In the beginning the bird is presented as a real bird, but as the poem progresses, the bird becomes a symbol. As you read the poem, think about what the bird comes to symbolize. The bird may symbolize more than one thing. Possible meanings include

• pure or unmixed joy,
• the artist, with the bird's voice being self expression or the song being poetry,
• the music (beauties) of nature
• the ideal.

Think of the quality or qualities attributed to the nightingale in deciding on the bird's symbolic meaning.


Stanza II.
Wanting to escape from the pain of a joy-pain reality, the poet begins to move into a world of imagination or fantasy. He calls for wine. His purpose is clearly not to get drunk. Rather he associates wine with some quality or state he is seeking. Think about the effects alcohol has; which one or ones is the poet seeking? Since his goal is to join the bird, what quality or qualities of the bird does he want to experience? How might alcohol enable him to achieve that desire?

The description of drinking and of the world associated with wine is idealized. What is the effect of the images associating the wine with summer, country pleasure, and romantic Provence? The word "vintage" refers to a fine or prime wine; why does he use this word? (Would the effect differ if the poet-dreamer imagined drinking a rotgut wine?) Why does Keats describe the country as "green"? Would the effect be different if the countryside were brown or yellowed? The activities in line 4 follow one another naturally: dance is associated with song; together they produce pleasure ("mirth"), which is sunburnt because the country dances are held outdoors. "Sunburnt mirth" is an excellent example of synaesthesia in Keats' imagery, since Flora, the green countryside, etc. are being experienced by Keats through drinking wine in his imagination.

The image of the "beaded bubbles winking at the brim" is much admired. Does it capture the action of sparkling wine? What sounds are repeated? What is the effect of this alliteration? Do any of the sounds duplicate the bubbles breaking? Say the words and notice the action of your lips.

This image of the bubbles is concrete; in contrast, the preceding imagery in the stanza is abstract. Can you see the difference?

Does the wine resemble the nightingale in being associated with summer, song, and happpiness?


Stanza III.
His awareness of the real world pulls him back from the imagined world of drink-joy. Does he still perceive the real world as a world of joy-pain? Does thinking of the human condition intensify, diminish, or have no effect on the poet's desire to escape the world?

The poet uses the word "fade" in the last line of stanza II and in the first line of this stanza to tie the stanzas together and to move easily into his next thought. What is the effect of the words "fade" and "dissolve"? why "far away"?

What is the relationship of the bird to the world the poet describes? See line 2. Characterize the real world which the poet describes. By implication, what kind of world does the nightingale live in? (Is it the same as or different from the poet's?)

Lead is a heavy metal; why is despair "leaden-eyed" (line 8)?


Stanza IV.
The poet suddenly cries out "Away! away! for I will fly to thee." He turns to fantasy again; he rejects wine in line 2, and in line 3 he announces he is going to use "the viewless wings of Poesy" to join a fantasy bird. In choosing Poesy, is he calling on analytical or scientific reasoning, on poetry and imagination, on passion, on sensuality, or on some something else?

He contrasts this mode of experience (poetry) to the "dull brain" that "perplexes and retards" (line 4); what way of approaching life does this line reject? What kinds of activities is the brain often associated with, in contrast to the heart, which is associated with emotion?

In line 5, he succeeds or seems to succeed in joining the bird. The imagined world described in the rest of the stanza is dark; what qualities are associated with this darkness, e.g., is it frightening, safe, attractive, empty, fulfilling, sensuous, alive?


Stanza V.
Because the poet cannot see in the darkness, he must rely on his other senses. What senses does he rely on? Are his experience and his sensations intense? for himself only or for the reader also?
Even in this refuge, death is present; what words hint of death? Do these hints help to prepare for stanza VI? Was death anticipated in stanza I by the vague suggestions in the words "Lethe," "hemlock," "drowsy numbness," "poisonous," and "shadowy darkness"?
The season is spring (the musk rose, which is a mid-May flower, has not yet bloomed). Nevertheless, Keats speaks of summer: in stanza one he introduces the nightingale singing "of summer," and in this stanza he refers to the murmur of flies "on summer eves." In the progression of the seasons, what changes occur between spring and summer? how do they differ (as, for instance, autumn brings fulfillment, harvest, and the beginning of decay which becomes death in winter)? Why might Keats leap to thoughts of the summer to come?


Stanza VI.
In Stanza VI, the poet begins to distance himself from the nightingale, which he joined in imagination in stanzas IV and V.

Keats yearns to die, a state which he imagines as only joyful, as pain-free, and to merge with the bird's song. The nightingale is characterized as wholly blissful--"full-throated ease" in stanza I and "pouring forth thy soul abroad / In such an ecstasy!" (lines 7-8).

The mixed nature of reality and its transience are suggested by the contrasting phrases "fast-fading violets" and "the coming musk-rose."

In the last two lines, the poet no longer identifies with the bird. He realizes what death means for him; death is not release from pain; rather it means non-existence, the inability to feel the bird's ecstasy. Is there any suggestion of the bird's dying or experiencing anything but bliss? Note the contrast between the bird's singing and the poet's hearing that song; what are the emotional effects of or associations with "high requiem" and "sod"? Why does Keats now hear the bird's song as a requiem? (He heard the bird's song very differently earlier in the poem.) Might the word "still" have more than one meaning here?

Is there any irony in Keats's using the same word to describe both the nightingale and death--the bird sings with "full-throated ease" at the end of stanza I and death is "easeful" (line 2 of this stanza)?


Stanza VII.
Keats moves from his awareness of his own mortality in the preceding stanza to the perception of the bird's immortality. On a literal level, his perception is wrong; this bird will die. Some readers, including very perceptive ones, see his chracterization of the bird as immortal as a flaw. Before you make this judgment, consider alternate interpretations. Interpreting the line literally may be a misreading, because the bird has clearly become a symbol for the poet.

• Is he saying that the bird he is now hearing is immortal? or is he saying something else, like "the bird is a symbol of the continuity of nature" or like "the bird represents the continuing presence of joy in life"? In such a reading, the poet contrasts the bird's immortality (and continuing joyful song) with the condition of human beings, "hungry generations."
• Does the bird symbolize ideal beauty, which is immortal? Or is the bird the visionary or imaginative realm which inspires poets? Or does the bird's song symbolize poetry and has the passion of the song/poem carried the listening poet away?
• Has the actual bird been transformed into a myth?
• Does this one bird represent the species, which by continuing generation after generation does achieve a kind of immortality as a species?
• Is the nightingale not born for death in the sense that, unlike us human beings, it doesn't know it's going to die? An implication of this reading is that the bird is integrated into nature or is part of natural processes whereas we are separated from nature. The resulting ability to observe nature gives us the ability to appreciate the beauty of nature, however transitory it--and we--may be.

The poet contrasts the bird's singing and immunity from death and suffering with human beings, "hungry generations." What is he saying about the human experience with "hungry"? If you think in terms of the passage of time, what is the effect of "generations"?
The stanza begins in the poet's present (note the present tense verbs tread and hear in lines 2 and 3). Keats then makes three references to the bird's singing in the past; the first reference to emperor and clown is general and presumably in a historical past; the other two are specific, one from the Old Testament, the other from fairy tales. The past becomes more remote, ending with a non-human past and place ("faery lands"), in which no human being is present. Is Keats trying to limit the meaning of the bird's song with these images or to extend its meaning? What ideas or aspects of human life do these references represent?

The mixed nature of reality manifests itself in his imagining the nightingale's joyous song being heard by in the past in the series of three images. Is the reference to the emperor and clown positive or neutral? The story of Ruth is unhappy (what words indicate her pain?). In the third image, the "charm'd magic casements" of fairy are "forlorn" and the seas are "perilous." "Forlorn" and "perilous" would not ordinarily be associated with magic/enchantment. These words hint at the pain the poet recognized in the beginning of the poem and is trying to escape. Does bringing up the idea of pain prepare us or help to prepare us for the final stanza?


Stanza VIII.
The poet repeats the word "forlorn" from the end of stanza VII; who or what is now forlorn? Is the poet identified with or separate from the nightingale?

In lines 2 and 3, the poet says that "fancy" (imagination) has cheated him, as has the "elf" (bird). What allusion in the preceding stanza does the word "elf" suggest? What delusion is the poet awakening from?

The bird has ceased to be a symbol and is again the actual bird the poet heard in stanza I. The poet, like the nightingale, has returned to the real world. The bird flies away to another spot to sing. The bird's song becomes a "plaintive anthem" and fainter. Is the change in the bird, in the poet, or in both? Is Keats's description of the bird's voice as "buried deep" a reference only to its physical distance, or does the phrase have an additional meaning? It is the last of the death images running through the poem.

With the last two lines, the poet wonders whether he has had a true insight or experience (vision) or whether he has been daydreaming. Is he questioning the validity of the experience the poem describes, or is he expressing the inability to maintain an intense, true vision? Of course, the imaginative experience is by its nature transient or brief. Is his experience a false vision, or is it a true, if transitory experience of and insight into the nature of reality?

Has the dreamer in this poem changed as a result of his visionary experience? For instance, has his life been improved in any way? has he been damaged in any way? (The effect of the dream on the dreamer is a thread that runs throgh Keats's poems. The life of the dreamer in "La Belle Dame sans Merci" has been destroyed, and there is a question about the impact of dreaming on Madeline in "The Eve of St. Agnes.) What does the tone of the ending seem to you, e.g., happy, excited, hopeful, depressed, sad, despairing, resigned, accepting?

academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu

[Angel]

قصیده ای به بلبل
جان کیتس

1
قلبم درد می کند، و کرختی خواب آلوده ای آزار می دهد
مشاعرم را، گویی جامی از شرنگ شوکران نوشیده ام،
و یا جامی از افیونی دلگیر را تا واپسین قطره اش، سر کشیده ام،
و پس از اندک زمانی به رود فراموشی در دنیای مردگان رسیده ام:
این حال به سبب رشک بردن بر بخت نیک تو نیست، ای بلبل،
بلکه بی اندازه شادمانم از شادمانی تو—
شادمانم که تو، ای حوری سبکبال درختان،
در جایگاهی آهنین
در سبزه های سبز تیره و سایه های بی شمار،
ترانه بهار را، با گلویی گشاده، به راحتی سر داده ای.

2
آه، آرزوی جام شرابی دارم! جامی که
سال ها در سردابه ای ژرف، خنک شده باشد،
شرابی با طعم گلهای ایزد-بانوی گل ها و ییلاق سرسبز،
پایکوبی و ترانه پرووانس در جنوب فرانسه و شادی در نور آفتاب
آه، آرزوی جامی لبریز از شراب جنوب گرم فرانسه را دارم
جامی لبریز از شراب قرمز چشمه الهام ایزد-بانوان شعر و هنر در کوه هلیکان،
با حباب های دُر گونه ای که بر لبه ی آن چشمک می زنند
و دهان آغشته با شراب ارغوانی؛
تا بنوشم و این دنیا را دور از چشم دیگران ترک کنم،
و با تو، ای بلبل، در دل جنگل تاریک محو شوم:

3
محو شوم، حل شوم و کاملا از یاد ببرم
آنچه را که تو، در میان برگهای درختان جنگل، از آن بی خبری،
از یاد ببرم خستگی و فرسودگی، تب و درد جانکاه
این دنیا را، دنیایی که در آن انسانها می نشینند و به ناله یکدیگر گوش می دهند؛
دنیایی که در آن، بیماری فلج، چند تار موی اندوهگین و سپید پیران را می لرزاند،
دنیایی که درآن، جوانان رنگ می بازند، لاغر به سان شبح می شوند و می میرند؛
دنیایی که در آن، تنها اندیشه کردن انسان را سرشار از اندوه
و نومیدی های دلگیر می کند،
دنیایی را یاد ببرم که در آن دیدگان درخشان زیبایی چندی نمی پایند،
و یا عشق نوین، غم آن دیدگان را می خورد و تا فردا نمی پاید.

4
بیا برویم! بیا برویم! ای بلبل، زیرا به سوی تو پر می گشایم،
نه با ارابه ایزد شراب و پلنگانی که آن را می کشند.
بلکه بر بالهای بلند پرواز و ناپیدای شعر می نشینم،
اگر چه مغز آغشته با اندوه دلگیر دنیای واقعی، مرا سرگشته می کند و از پرواز باز می دارد:
هم اکنون با تو در پروازم! شبی خوش است،
و تصادفاً ماه، شهبانوی آسمان، بر تخت خود نشسته است
و اختران آسمان که پریان اویند، گرداگردش را گرفته اند؛
اما در اینجا نوری نیست،
مگر آن نوری که از آسمان به دست نسیم سپرده شده
و از میان تاریکی و شاخسارهای سرسبز و راههای پیچاپیچ و خزه گرفته می تابد.

5
نمی توانم دید چه گلهایی در پیش پایم هستند
و چه رایحه دلنشینی از شاخسارها آویزان است،
بلکه در تاریکی مشک بوی، هر چیز دلربا را حدس می زنم،
هر چیزی که موسم ماه اردیبهشت ارزانی میدارد
به سبزه، جنگل پرپشت، و درخت میوه ی طبیعی؛
خفچه ی سفید و نسترن ییلاقی؛
بنفشه ای که زود پژمرده می شود و در برگها پنهان است؛
و فرزند ارشد نیمه ماه اردیبهشت،
گل سرخ مشک بویی که فرا می رسد و آکنده از ژاله سرخ و شراب گونه است،
و زمزمه مگسها که در شبهای بهار گرد آیند.

6
در تاریکی به نغمه بلبل گوش میدهم؛ و بارها
عاشق مرگی بوده ام که مرا آرامش بخشد،
مرگ را در بسیاری از سروده های خود، با نام های مهربان خوانده ام،
تا نَفَس خموش مرا با خود به هوا برد،
اکنون مردن، بیش از همیشه، پرمایه است،
تا در این دل شب بدون درد و رنج بمیرم،
در این هنگام که تو روانت را به صورت نغمه برون می ریزی
در چنین وجد شاعرانه ای!
تو پیوسته می خوانی و من دیگر گوش شنوا ندارم –
در برابر نوحه ی والای تو خاک می شوم.

7
تو برای مردن زاده نشدی، ای پرنده ی جاودان!
نسل هایی که شتابان می گذرند، نمی توانند تو را زیر پای له کنند؛
صدایی را که در این شبی که گذشت، شنیدم، شنیده شده بود
در روزگار باستان توسط امپراتور و روستایی،
شاید همین نغمه تو بود که راه یافت
به دل اندوهگین روت، آنگاه که دلتنگ برای وطن،
با دیدگان گریان در میان خوشه های گندم کشوری بیگانه ایستاد؛
همین نغمه است که بارها
گشوده است دریچه های افسون شده جادویی را بر کف های
دریاهای خطرناک در سرزمین های دور افتاده پریان.

8
دور افتاده اندوهبار! همین واژه همانند ناقوسی
مرا باز می گرداند و به خود خویشتن می رساند!
بدرود ای بلبل! تخیل نمی تواند به آن خوبی بفریبد
که برای فریفتن شهرت یافته است، بدرود ای پری فریبنده،
بدرود! بدرود! سرود شکوه آمیزت رنگ می بازد
از این مرغزارها می گذرد، از نهر راکد گذر می کند،
از کنار تپه بالا می رود و اکنون مدفون شده است در ژرفای
دره ی بی درخت مجاور:
آیا رویا بود و یا با چشمان باز خواب می دیدم؟
آن آهنگ بلبل رفت؛ -- آیا خوابم و یا بیدار؟

برگرفته از کتاب: تاریخ ادبیات انگلیس (جلد هفتم: شاعران رومنتیک)؛ دکتر امراله ابجدیان؛ 1383؛ انتشارات دانشگاه شیراز.