52 Steven L. Riep
the early deaths of children,
young fifteen-year-old poplars
yesterday’s skirt cannot be worn today
Broken wineskins, the piercing
of the sword of Damascus
the bugles have fallen silent, the
torches have gone dark
someone is lying on a carved
shield now broken through
the sobbing of wives, infants
wrapped in tattered banners
(Ya 1981b: 48–49)
The impact of war on the civilian populace, represented by women
and children, is traced out in the reference to famine and the deaths of
children symbolized by the fifteen-year-old poplars in lines 6 through
8 and the flag-wrapped infants in line 12. The battlefield scenes of
broken wineskins, silent bugles, and fallen men shown in the third
stanza are registered in the grieving of their wives. The only victor
appears to be the God of War himself, shown later in line 16 “polishing
his boots” oblivious to the human toll he has exacted.
“Naples” nopq, completed on May 10, 1958 and subtitled
“what was seen in 1943,” opens by describing statues of women
buried in rubble from bombings. The smiles on the statues seem ironic
in light of the destruction that they signify. Ya Xian moves from phys-
ical damage to human suffering in the fourth stanza with the images of
children playing on streets after bombings:
Children, many ef餓們, ^_
nameless s有tu
play on the streets after bombings v戲xyz{的街道~
like a tea-pear tree 茶
growing beneath the Blessed 在聖的椅f面長
Virgin’s throne ,
and sends forth shoots, and blooms ^的
what appear to be o道
flowers of suffering
But for whom were they planted?
(Ya 1981b: 126–127)
The namelessness of the children suggests that they have lost their
parents, families, and pasts and have become orphans. Most
likely they are the illegitimate children of the invading soldiers, who
in the sixth stanza are described as “possible fathers... who
昨天的f天o ¡¢破酒¥, 大¦§革刀的ª¢
«¬ , ® ̄
有°±在²³的 ́μ~
¶°們的· ̧, ¹º包¼着½兒