Can anyone help me with this sonnet?

Question

Heres the poem: Sonnet XLVII http://www.wisdomportal.com/Romance/Neruda-LoveSonnets.html

Can anyone help me paraphrase and understand it? also if you have any ideas for my analysis please let me know

the fruit is a metaphor for love. thats why i don't completely undertand all of it....

Answer 1

First read it as you would prose.

"I want to look back and see you in the branches./Little by little you turned into fruit./It was easy for you to rise from the roots,/singing your syllable of sap./Here you will be a fragrant flower first,/changed to the statuesque form of a kiss,/till the sun and the earth, blood and the sky, fulfill/their promises of sweetness and pleasure in you...my mouth will fill with the taste of you,/the kiss that rose from the earth/with your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit." ~Pablo Neruda, "Sonnet XLVII



- The whole poem in my view likens "you" to a juicy delicious fruit of love. Hence the persona wants to look back and see the branches of the tree from which the fruit is borne. Like many of Neruda's poems it mixes tenses: present, past, and future to reflect continuity. suggestion of a plant growing and needing sunlight and earth is obvious, but instead of moisture, we have blood. Like the sweet fruit naturally nurtured so that one can taste its sweetness, this love promises sweetness as if natural as the delicious fruit is so nurtured for eating except here , it will be a kiss, so natural one would assume it was as sweet as the fruit, yet it is the human kiss "the blood of a lover's fruit". such lexicons as blood, singing, pleasure, kiss etc suggest that Neruda is talsking about something beyond a delicious fruit. Hence, I think the love the "I" feels for "You" is the central point. The growth of pleasurable feelings of love and leading to the kiss is as natural as that of a fruit from germination to when it ripens, becomes succulent and delicious.
You may want to look at Shakespeare's Sonnet XLVII
which shares the same theme of love although they are unrelated.


Good luck

Answer 2

Sonnet XLVII
I want to look back and see you in the branches.
Little by little you turned into fruit.
It was easy for you to rise from the roots,
singing your syllable of sap.

Here you will be a fragrant flower first,
changed to the statuesque form of a kiss,
till the sun and the earth, blood and the sky, fulfill
their promises of sweetness and pleasure, in you.

There in the branches I will recognize your hair,
your image ripening in the leaves,
bringing the petals nearer my thirst,

and my mouth will fill with the taste of you,
the kiss that rose from the earth
with your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit.

This?? You cannot understand this?? My dear this is a poem about a TREE. Fruit Tree to be exact. Fruit starts as a flower then becomes a piece of fruit - a fruit the author longs to taste. Can it be more simple? Read it line by line imagining a tree. It is all right there. Roots, sap, branches, flowers, fruit. I think maybe it's a blood orange. Pax - C.

Answer 3

i beg to disagree with blakeslee poem analysis..the poem is about love..my translation of the poem is this..

Sonnet XLVII
I want to look back and see you in the branches.
Little by little you turned into fruit.
It was easy for you to rise from the roots,
singing your syllable of sap.
**the Author is talking about the person that he loves and how he realized that he loves this person from obscurity

Here you will be a fragrant flower first,
changed to the statuesque form of a kiss,
till the sun and the earth, blood and the sky, fulfill
their promises of sweetness and pleasure, in you.
**He was talking when he first saw this girl from being a friend and then she change to someone special in his eyes, the author saw the girl bloom to womanhood

There in the branches I will recognize your hair,
your image ripening in the leaves,
bringing the petals nearer my thirst,
**the author is likening the girls hair to the tree's branches,maybe because the girl's hair is very attractive or pleasing..and he likens the girls image to the tree's leaves that shines and stands out.. because a tree's leaves are the things that you can see from afar..and he longs to get to know her and be with her

and my mouth will fill with the taste of you,
the kiss that rose from the earth
with your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit.
** the author longs to be with her not really on a sexual sense but to have a commitment with her, he was thinking of having a relationship..

I hope i made some sense and i hope i helped you understand and appreciate the poem more.. you chose a very good poem..

Answer 4

Wow. This is NOT about a fruit tree - it is about love (really about sex), actually...

Sonnet XLVII
I want to look back and see you in the branches.
Little by little you turned into fruit.
It was easy for you to rise from the roots,
singing your syllable of sap.
**Author has watched the person grow from a child to adult (ripe = sexually appealing)

Here you will be a fragrant flower first,
changed to the statuesque form of a kiss,
till the sun and the earth, blood and the sky, fulfill
their promises of sweetness and pleasure, in you.
**Again, the idea that flowering = ready for physical love - many use the euphamism "to deflower" when talking about losing virginity. First the child grew into a cute - presumably girl - first. Female is also hinted at with line "pleasure IN you"

There in the branches I will recognize your hair,
your image ripening in the leaves,
bringing the petals nearer my thirst,
**Obviously now, the person in question is a female. The "petals" have historically been a literary reference to the external female reproductive organs. Thirst = sexual desire.

and my mouth will fill with the taste of you,
the kiss that rose from the earth
with your blood, the blood of a lover's fruit.
** Reference is Biblical - Eve gave the "fruit" of knowledge to Adam and allowed them to understand how good a kiss felt, but also caused many problems for them. The blood is referencing the fact that virgins bleed the first time they have sex - "the blood of a lover's fruit."