To An Athlete Dying Young

[manal232]

To An Athlete Dying Young

THE time you won your town the race
We chaired you through the market-place;
Man and boy stood cheering by,
And home we brought you shoulder-high.

To-day, the road all runners come, 5
Shoulder-high we bring you home,
And set you at your threshold down,
Townsman of a stiller town.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away
From fields where glory does not stay, 10
And early though the laurel grows
It withers quicker than the rose.

Eyes the shady night has shut
Cannot see the record cut,
And silence sounds no worse than cheers 15
After earth has stopped the ears:

Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honours out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man. 20

So set, before its echoes fade,
The fleet foot on the sill of shade,
And hold to the low lintel up
The still-defended challenge-cup.

And round that early-laurelled head 25
Will flock to gaze the strengthless dead,
And find unwithered on its curls
The garland briefer than a girl'

إلى الرياضي الذي مات صغيرا

في الوقت الذي أكسبت مدينتك السباق
هتفنا بك في منطقة الأسواق
الرجل والولد وقفوا يهتفون
وحملناك إلى دارك على الأكتاف

اليوم . كل العدائين توافدوا
على الأكتاف أعدناك إلى دارك
و على عتبة دارك وضعناك
يا قاطن المدينة. مدينة السكون

الفتى الذكي.ذهب وابتعد مبكرا
من الحقول، حيث لا يبقى المجد
ورغم ذلك ينمو الغار مبكرا
لكنه يذبل أسرع من الورد

يراقب الليل المظلم حتى يغرب
لا يمكن أن ترى التسجيل يقطع
والأصوات الصامتة لا تعلو على الهتافات
عندما توقف الأرض الاستماع

الآن لا يتأثر بالهزيمة
الأولاد الذين شرفهم معلوم
والعدائين الذين ذاع صيتهم
والاسم مات قبل الرجل

غرب قبل أن تخبو أصدائه
القدم السريعة على عتبة الظلام
ويحمل إلى عتبة الباب العليا
ما زال يدافع عن كاس التحدي

باكرا وحول إكليل ذلك الرأس
سوف يتجمع ليحدق الموت الواهن
ليجده غير ذابل على ضفائره
الإكليل اقصر من ضفائر البنت

[manal232]

CENTER]Poem Summary


Lines 1-4
In the first stanza of “To an Athlete Dying Young,” the speaker presents a remembered image of a young athlete, a runner, on a day when he had won a race for his town. That the athlete is a runner might evoke an association with the Greek Olympiad, an ancient athletic competition. Lines 2 through 4 establish the reaction of the townspeople to their competitor’s victory. It is clear that the athlete was much lauded, and he was placed on a emotional/psychological pedestal as well as a physical one, wherein he was brought home “shoulder-high” through the town’s marketplace. Line 3 singles out the admirers as men and boys. This could suggest the classical Greek concept of the love of males for the physical beauty of the perfected young male body.
Lines 5-8
These lines tell us that the athlete is again being carried “shoulder-high” by the townspeople; this time, however, pallbearers are carrying him in a casket to his grave. The phrase “The road all runners come” signals the speaker’s awareness of the mortality of all people. Line 7 continues the narrative by telling us that the body is lowered and “set” at a “threshold.” The “threshold” may literally be the physical edges of a grave, but it could also refer to the boundary between earthly reality and the world of the dead. The “threshold” thus becomes the entryway to the place where the dead athlete will spend eternity.
Lines 9-10
Here, the diction, or language, of the poem begins to change subtly from the simple words and direct statements of the first two stanzas to a more lofty or lyrical manner of expression. This coincides with the speaker’s shift from simply relating the plot of his story to his philosophical interpretation of events. In lines 9 and 10, the speaker suggests that the athlete was “smart” to die and leave the natural world, where “glory does not stay.” The speaker implies that, as the athlete had grown older, or as time progressed, the townspeople would not remember his victory and, perhaps, other runners would supplant him as victor of the town race. This potential outcome points to the idea that the world, in general, is made up of people who are fickle, with feelings so changeable that they might hold someone up as a hero or as an object of love at one point in time, only to later forget them.
Lines 11-12
In these lines, Housman introduces the laurel as a symbol of victory, but also of victory’s ephemerality and of the delicate shortness of life, especially youthful life. The laurel wreath was traditionally worn by victorious Greek athletes; it is also a symbol for poets, who, in ancient times, would receive “laurels” for winning poetry competitions. The idea of a laurel leaf representing the brevity of physical beauty and strength is furthered by its comparison to the feminine and delicate rose, which grows early in the season and withers and dies quickly (but not as quickly as the laurel). The speaker continues to express the concept of glory fading early and of youthful male beauty being short-lived.
Lines 13-16
In this stanza, the speaker reinforces the idea that it is wise to “slip” away into death at the peak of youthful athleticism, while still lauded as a hero. The athlete will not have to see his record being “cut” (broken) nor wait for the inevitable time when the cheering stops.
Lines 17-20
These lines emphasize, and perhaps intensify for us, the speaker’s observation that all athletes, at some point, fade in their ability to perform and to win. Their “renown” eventually outruns them: because they can no longer uphold their athletic reputation by sustaining their peak performance, their reputation, or “name,” dies before they do. Since the hero-athlete of this poem has died while at his peak, he will not have to become part of this “rout” (crowd) of has-been athletes.
Lines 21-24
The action progresses in these lines, and the persona speaks to his fellow townspeople, directing them to place the athlete’s body down at its grave quickly before his record or reputation and the townspeople’s memories of his victory fade. Housman’s choice of the word “set” in line 21 not only poetically echoes his use of the same word in line 7, but it makes us feel that a permanence can occur in the dead athlete’s reputation and glory — that the swift running foot can be “set” like concrete to remain just the way it was when the beautiful young man died. The fact that the speaker hurries the townspeople to “set” the “fleet foot” down at the edge of the world of the dead (“the sill of shade”) before the foot’s “echoes fade” emphasizes how quickly our youthful lives pass. In lines 23 and 24, we are given the image of the victor’s challenge-cup still being celebrated as it is held out toward the “low lintel,” or ornament over the door to the world of the dead. This stanza particularly demonstrates the tension between the idea that life is full of vibrancy and energy and the concept that it might be advantageous to die young. The images of this section of the poem are, on the one hand, those of the “fleet” foot of the athlete, representative of all that life can offer in terms of vitality and celebration of physical being, and, on the other hand, the image of the challenge-cup forever belonging to the victor after death, something that could not happen in life.
Lines 25-28
The last stanza of “To an Athlete Dying Young” presents the image of the dead athlete having passed through the threshold into the world of the dead. He is wearing the laurel wreath of victory, and in the phrase “early-laureled” we are reminded that both his victory and death occurred during his youth. The dead who come to gaze at him are “strengthless,” seemingly in contrast to the athlete, who is still depicted as young and strong because he was “smart” enough to die in his youth. The garland is expressed as “unwithered,” reiterating Housman’s theme of the permanent victory an early death might provide. The garland is “briefer than a girl’s,” meaning, perhaps, that the garland usually (in the natural world) withers more quickly than the rose Housman introduces in line 12, but that here it will live forever as a symbol of a glory that will not fade as it would with the passage of earthly time. If we accept that Housman is also using the laurel-leaf garland as a symbol of poetry, or the poet, then we might interpret these last lines to mean that the poem itself, as a garland of words, represents the only permanence — that art alone can transcend death[/CENTER]

[manal232]

Theme

Glory is fleeting. The only way a person can capture it and make it last is to die young after achieving greatness. In this way, the person can live forever in the minds of people who remember him at the the peak of his powers. Although Housman does not wish his readers to take this message literally, the undercurrent of cynicism in the poem suggests that life in later years is humdrum and wearisome. Consequently, he praises the young athlete for dying before his glory fades: “Smart lad, to slip betimes away / From fields where glory does not stay. . . .” In the last century, the early deaths of baseball player Lou Gehrig (age 37), aviator Amelia Earhart (39), actor James Dean (24), actress Marilyn Monroe (36), female athlete Babe Didrickson Zaharias (42), U.S. President John F. Kennedy (46), civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. (39), singer Elvis Presley (42), singer John Lennon (40), singer Janis Joplin (27), and Princess Diana of Great Britain (36) all seem testify to the validity of Housman’s thesis. By taking away their lives when they were still relatively young, death gave them eternal life in the minds of their admirers.

[manal232]

Commentary

.......Housman’s cynical view of life may have a certain perverse appeal for young people disenchanted with life. These are the youths who sometimes act on their “death wishes” by taking dangerous risks in fast cars, by experimenting with drugs, or by committing acts of violence that end in suicide. Housman himself was troubled as a youth as a result of his shyness and the fact that his mother died when he was only twelve. At Oxford University, he was a brilliant student but failed his final examinations, and he ended up accepting a humdrum job as a civil servant.
.......Obviously, “To an Athlete Dying Young” is a thought-provoking poem of considerable merit. It makes the reader think about life and its meaning, and its beautiful imagery and rhyme scheme please the eye and the ear. And, though Housman is right when says people tend to remember public figures great promise who die young, he neglects to mention that people also remember important men and women who lived well beyond middle age, including, Sophocles, the greatest playwright of antiquity, who was 91 when he died; Augustus Caesar, the emperor of ancient Rome during its Golden Age, who was 77 when he died; Michelangelo Buonarroti, the extraordinary Renaissance artist and sculptor, who was nearing 89 when he died; Victoria, queen of the British Empire at the height of its power in the 19th Century, who was 81 when she died; Pablo Picasso, perhaps the most influential artist of the 20th Century, who was 91 when he died; Albert Einstein, developer of the revolutionary Special and General Theories of Relativity, who was 76 when he died; and Mother Theresa of Calcutta, the Nobel Prize-winning nun famous for her work among the poor, who was 87 when she died. And who will ever forget Mahatma Gandhi, the "father of modern India," who was 79 when he was assassinated, and Pope John Paul II, who helped topple Soviet communism and promoted ecumenism with Jews and other non-Catholics. He was a few months short of his 85th birthday when he died.
.......Yes, dying an untimely and early death can earn headlines and television eulogies for the deceased person. But long-lasting fame depends more on compiling a record of accomplishments than on “going out in a blaze of glory.”

[manal232]

Figures of Speech:
Alliteration: The time you won your town the race (Line 1), road all runners (Line 5), Townsman of a stiller town (Line 8), runners whom renown outran (Line 19), fleet foot (Line 22).
Oxymoron: silence sounds (Line 15)
Personification: fields where glory does not stay (Line 10)
Synecdoche: Fleet foot on the sill of shade (foot represents the entire body