English Poetry. Edna St. Vincent Millay. An Ancient Gesture. Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей.

Edna St. Vincent Millay (Эдна Сент-Винсент Миллей)

An Ancient Gesture

I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
Penelope did this too.
And more than once: you can’t keep weaving all day
And undoing it all through the night;
Your arms get tired, and the back of your neck gets tight;
And along towards morning, when you think it will never be light,
And your husband has been gone, and you don’t know where, for years.
Suddenly you burst into tears;
There is simply nothing else to do.

And I thought, as I wiped my eyes on the corner of my apron:
This is an ancient gesture, authentic, antique,
In the very best tradition, classic, Greek;
Ulysses did this too.
But only as a gesture,—a gesture which implied
To the assembled throng that he was much too moved to speak.
He learned it from Penelope...
Penelope, who really cried.

Edna St. Vincent Millay’s other poems:

1. Inland
2. Exiled
3. Two Sonnets in Memory
4. When the Year Grows Old
5. Not Even My Pride Shall Suffer Much

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