I've recently heard a song based on a poem by Yeats, but I can't understand it very well (I'm Italian)
the poem is the following

XIX - THOSE DANCING DAYS ARE GONE

COME, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup.}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup.}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup,}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

What remains quite obscure to me are the verses

In as foul a rag

and

The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?

Can somebody help me with their meaning?

Many thanks

nushagak27

my take is that a body has been wrapped in a dirty shroud and the marble flag is a tombstone.

jtoliver

Hello,

Am I right in thinking that the song you heard was by Carla Bruni? That’s an aside…

As for the parts you didn’t understand, consider the following:

Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:

Here a comparison is being drawn between the foul body and the foul rag. The rag is as foul (disgusting/putrid). Wrap the body in a rag that is just as putrid as the body.

- - - -

The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?

I’m a little less sure on the meaning of this part, but I think it is something like this:

‘The children that he gave’ could be the children that he fathered.
‘sleeping like a top’, although I have no authority for this theory, perhaps that they are in a deep sleep/heavy sleep/sleeping heavily/soundly.

And ‘a marble flag’: ‘flag’ is used to describe pavement stones in English. A flagged pavement/sidewalk would be composed of rectangular-shaped stones, in a sort of lattice – a ‘pavement flag’.

I am quite prepared to be contradicted on this, since I’m not a poet or literature student.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I've recently heard a song based on a poem by Yeats, but I can't understand it very well (I'm Italian)
the poem is the following

XIX - THOSE DANCING DAYS ARE GONE

COME, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone,
All that silk and satin gear;
Crouch upon a stone,
Wrapping that foul body up
In as foul a rag:
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup.}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup.}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick,
May sing, and sing until he drop,
Whether to maid or hag:
i{I carry the sun in a golden cup,}
i{The moon in a silver bag.}

What remains quite obscure to me are the verses

In as foul a rag

and

The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?

Can somebody help me with their meaning?

Many thanks

Arkadi Stark

I'm not sure wether anybody is still checking for answers but I hope I could help...

It seems quite quite obvious to me that sleeping soundlind or being dead is quite the same so the marble flag should be the grave of the knave's son.

"Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you,
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag?"


what questions me though is "that the most could pleasure you"
what could a knave do to pleasure me ???

Arkadi Stark

That's quite the question...

stuckinkiel

This is the first question I'm answering here. I came to this poem through the Carla Bruni song as well. Let me also say, the views here are my interpretations and best guesses so to speak. I have not studied literature and am no expert. Any corrections are welcome.

I agree with Arkadi Stark, the poem seems to be about death, and in particular a dead woman, and an old man (her former lover?) who mourns for her at her tomb.

Come, let me sing into your ear;
Those dancing days are gone, <= "dancing days" are youth, when one is young
All that silk and satin gear; <= dresses and fancy clothes
Crouch upon a stone, <= the clothes are in a tomb (maybe?)
Wrapping that foul body up <= a corpse
In as foul a rag: <= the once fancy clothes on the corpse
I carry the sun in a golden cup, <= I think 'time' is the speaker in this poem
The moon in a silver bag.

Curse as you may I sing it through;
What matter if the knave
That the most could pleasure you, <= maybe the 'knave' was her husband
The children that he gave,
Are somewhere sleeping like a top
Under a marble flag? <= and her children are dead and in the grave, the "marble flag" being a gravestone.


I thought it out this very day.
Noon upon the clock,
A man may put pretence away
Who leans upon a stick, <= an old man no longer needs to hide his feelings
May sing, and sing until he drop, <= he may mourn, until he dies
Whether to maid or hag <= for the old woman, or the memory of her

DCbadger

The poem is about the apparently (but not actually) more docile beauty of beautiful words and thoughts as opposed to the youthful beauty found in dancing. Listen to the poet's song, endearingly wrap your aging body in an aged rag and embrace it, crouch on your cold stone chair, your in-life grave, and be gladder than you ever have been before that you can sing.

The second stanza, yes, is about the man with whom the given woman of the old man's or poet's affection. Who cares, now, who once succeeded in courting her and reproducing? For now the children born of this reproduction are sleeping under a marble flag; it is a flag, so it still flies, but it is marble, it foreshadows the grave, it is immobile stone, they do not sing with this old man who sings with life's elation.

The third stanza; the old maid or hag is not the old man's dead wife, or something like that. While an old decrepit man may be, well, old and decrepit, he no longer needs care about the impression he leaves, the judgments he encounters, he may not have the legs to dance, but he has the voice to sing and is free from chains of pretense which we cling to in youth, trying to maintain an edifice, he is free to sing as long and loudly as he wants. And he is free to sing his elated song to any muse he meets, whether the fair maidens he once tried to court, or hags he never cared to court; now, he wants them all to hear his song.

In the end, the youth require their dancing legs for their type of beauty to be experienced. They must worry about whether they will succeed in courting the opposite sex, they must maintain themselves, they must dance to bring themselves into elation. This man knows that all he needs is the golden goblet and the silver bag of his elation at life, which he can carry at all times and places.

p.s. "Time" is not the speaker; the speaker is the old man, as well as the poet. Yeats has no trouble or hesitation at blending the two, the old man and the poet.

p.s. 2 It is not about death, it is about life before death, life just before death, where now more than ever the exhilarating song can be heard anywhere by a person who appreciates their ability to sing.

p.s.3. As for the foul rag, Yeats commonly spoke of this; of seeing the human body as a "heart...fastened to a dying animal", where because we can see time moving us closer to death we feel gross, we feel like a part of death and wish for something more permanent.