Story one: man dumped woman
A woman was playful in the beginning of the relationship. Although the man liked her playful demeanor initially but eventually he dumped her. She was showing remorse in the poem for not showing her honesty at the very beginning.
There few difficulties in this interpretation. First the man apparently liked her playful demeanor—that won him to her. Why break? No quality of the man was even mentioned. The speaker mentioned that if she fell in love with the man right away (presently) and went into physical contact directly she could have him ‘remained’. What a nice love? She was dumped because of her foul play. If this is the case how she left an image of an ‘austere, supreme’ girl in his memory’s halls? Does the poem overly show her remorse?
In this interpretation “certain stakes I gained” has to be explained as the goodies that she got from this man. But what are they?
Story two: woman dumped man
A woman was playful in the beginning of the relationship. Although the man liked her playful demeanor but she decided to walk away from him because she sees this man has no depth. She mocked this man in the poem.
I will say what support this interpretation although the logic brock here and there.
First, the overall mocking tone. The speaker said the girl should fall in love right away and “caught your hand against my cheek and breast” and “Spread like a chart”. But should she? Is this a proper way to get into a true love? Second, the man’s quality. The only place in the poem is that the man liked what the girl did initially and that won him to her. This line delivered his quality. The similar poor experiences woke her up and she decided waking out the relationship, which left an ‘austere, supreme’ image of her in man’s memory. The overall tone of the poem says that the girl did not love the man.
In this interpretation “certain stakes I gained” can be explained as the lessons from previous love experiences.
I have to confess that in either explanation there are broken logics. But a poem is poem. We cannot expect everything in a poem have clear logic. But I see an overall mocking tone instead remorse and this is why I translated it in the way presented in my earlier post: http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/mysj/200164.html
