Question by Angel: Anna Akhmatova, Please help me understand what this poem is about?
They didn’t meet me, roamed,
On steps with lanterns bright.
I entered quiet home
In murky, pail moonlight.
Under a lamp’s green halo,
With smile of kept in rage,
My friend said, “Cinderella,
Your voice is very strange…”
A cricket plays its fiddle;
A fire-place grew black.
Oh, someone took my little
White shoe as a keep-sake,
And gave me three carnations,
While casting dawn eyes –.
My sins for accusations,
You couldn’t be disguised.
And heart hates to believe in
The time, that’s close too,
When he will ask for women
To try on my white shoe.
Answers and Views:
Answer by libby l
There are many uses of symbolism in this poem and I am not totally sure my interpretation is correct.
The situation seems to be of a person coming home late and in some way being accused of a sin. I would guess infidelity. It seems, Cinderella like, she has stayed too long away from hearth and home. Her re entrance is not a warm one as no one is waiting for her and she enters a quiet home in murky pail moonlight. Her entrance is in some way sordid as the moonlight is murky. When she does meet someone ( her husband? ) it is via the green light of a lamp. Green is the colour of jealousy and this person also keeps their “rage” under control but the poet does recognise the seething rage of jealousy. She answers but is called on her “strange” voice and is labelled a “Cinderella”. This seems to indicate they have noted the guile in the answers and do not believe her excuses.
The poet now uses more symbols of the Cinderella fairytale. The fire place is not full of glowing embers as Cinderella has not been there to tend to the hearth. Her cinders are cold and black. The good luck cricket is playing a fiddle and is no longer concerned with blessing the hearth and home. Cinderella’s glass slipper is white….a symbol of a wedding shoe. This shoe has been taken as a keepsake of a marriage now doomed.
The poet is given three carnations which symbolise her fate. The giver presents these with “dawn eyes” indicating she has returned home as morning is dawning or that they are now aware of her sin, it has dawned on them. Her sins are now no longer disguised and she is accused of infidelity. Her wedding shoe will be used to find a new wife. Again, in the Cinderella tradition, she recognises her husband will seek a new mate and will symbolically use her wedding shoe to have others try on to see if they will fit the mould of wife. Her heart is heavy and hates to recognise this new fate of being replaced. However; she is resigned to this marriage break up and knows this will all happen very soon.
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Happy Hiram says
It is a poetic version of the Cinderella story.
She comes home not to coachmen and lanterns but empty moonlight. Her friend questions her (in many versions of the story she has animal "friends" to talk to.
The cricket means it is late at night and the shoe is sometimes white in Eastern European versions of the tale. The three carnations are from the wicked step mother and step-sisters, who suspect Cinderella of something. She is too obviously happy. He, the prince, in her memory couldn't be disguised.
This is a pretty crappy translation of Akhmatova by the way. Did you do it?