If—
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;
If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling, one of the most famous poets of the late British Empire, published "If—" in his 1910 book Rewards and Fairies. The poem's speaker advises his son to live with restraint, moderation, and composure. The son should always keep his wits about him, the speaker says, never overreacting; he should learn to be confident without being vain, accept hardships without dwelling on them, and behave with dignity. Living this way, the speaker suggests, will make the son a true man. This is a poem of advice not just from a father to a son, but from Fathers to Sons: a poem about an idealized kind of self-sufficient male virtue. Its worldview borrows heavily from Stoicism, an Ancient Greek philosophy that encourages people to live uninfluenced by pleasure or pain—a perspective that appealed to English writers like Kipling and plays into the stereotypical idea of the British "stiff upper lip."
Summary
If you can stay calm when everyone around you is panicking and holding you responsible for their panic; if you can be confident even when no one trusts you, while still taking other people's concerns into consideration; if you can be patient; if you can avoid lying even when people lie about you; if you can not hate anyone even when they hate you; if you can be virtuous in these ways, but still not think too highly of yourself;
If you can have big ambitions, without becoming a servant to them; if you can be analytical, but not get lost in analysis for its own sake; if you can take a measured approach to successes and failures, seeing them both as temporary and not especially meaningful; if you can handle it when unscrupulous people distort your sincere words to deceive the ignorant; if you can lose everything you've worked for and get right back to rebuilding it from the ground up;
If you can risk everything you've earned on a single gamble, lose it all, and begin again from nothing without complaining; if you can push yourself to total mental and physical exhaustion and still keep going with only your willpower to support and sustain you;
If you can mingle with the masses without losing your own moral compass, or travel in the highest society without becoming haughty; if neither your enemies nor your friends can hurt your feelings; if you can treat everyone with respect, but avoid idolizing anyone in particular; if you can fill up every second of unrelenting time with worthwhile action, then the world will be your oyster—And, more importantly, you will be a true man, my son.
Themes
Composure and Self-Restraint
The speaker of "If—" champions a morality built on moderation. In this poem, he advises his son to move through life with composure, and to always exercise self-control, integrity, and humility. This means never letting "Triumph" nor "Disaster"—events either good or bad—go to one’s head. Composure and self-restraint, the speaker implies, makes it possible to act with dignity in all circumstances and to lead a respectable and virtuous life.
No matter what happens, the speaker believes, it’s important that people keep their cool. He tells his son to “keep [his] head” about him even when everyone around him is losing their composure—not to respond with vitriol just because other people might “hate[]” him, for example. Similarly, the speaker says that his son should calmly devote himself to rebuilding his life if it ever goes to shambles, encouraging him to remain reasonable and diligent even when times are tough.
The speaker also insists that his son shouldn’t become smug about his own measured and virtuous way of navigating life: “[D]on’t look too good, nor talk too wise,” the speaker says, steering his son away from vanity (in the sense of merely wanting to look like a good guy) in favor of simple levelheadedness. Essentially, the speaker’s saying that people need to find a happy medium between confidence and modesty (lest their self-assuredness blind them to their own shortcomings). Those who succumb to neither vice nor vanity are those who are capable of persevering through hardship, their “Will” always telling them to “Hold on!”
The idea, then, is that composure leads to strength and integrity: the speaker insists that the world will be his son’s oyster if only he practices restraint and discipline. These qualities will also turn the boy into a true "Man," the speaker says, indicating that he thinks respectable men are defined by their ability to lead measured, dignified lives. (Remember, this is an Edwardian poem with an essentialist view of gender—see the theme on Manhood and Masculinity for more about that.)
All of these ideas about composure and restraint align with the stereotypically British “stiff upper lip”—in other words, the idea that one should be resilient in the face of adversity. This was a particularly popular worldview in the late 1800s and early 1900s, when a number of British poets embraced the Ancient Greek philosophy of Stoicism, which urged indifference to both pain and pleasure. Because this indifference is so similar to the moderation the speaker tells his son to adopt, it’s reasonable to read “If—” as the speaker’s argument for why British society (and in particular, British men) should embrace Stoic ideals.
Manhood and Masculinity
To the Edwardian-era speaker of "If—," manhood isn't something one is born with, but a quality one earns. The poem reflects some rather old-fashioned ideas about masculinity; after all, the self-sufficiency and levelheadedness the speaker describes would be virtues in any person, and marking them out as specifically male feels antiquated and sexist. Yet poem also doesn’t just grant every man these qualities, and instead suggests that men must earn manhood. Masculinity, the poem insists, is a demanding goal that one must strive for, and the few who achieve virtuous manhood enjoy a rock-solid sense of self. To be a capital-M "Man," in this speaker's view, is a virtue, an achievement, and its own reward.
The whole poem is built around a set of goalposts, standards of good behavior that a boy has to achieve in order to become a "Man." Manhood isn't inborn or natural, the poem suggests, but a state one achieves through self-sufficiency, self-mastery, and stability. To be a man, the "son" the speaker addresses must learn to "keep [his] head," "lose, and start again at [his] beginnings," and "talk with crowds and keep [his] virtue": in other words, he has to develop an inner security that makes him brave, centered, and unflappable. The sheer length of the poem's list of instructions suggests that this is hard work!
The rewards of this kind of difficult self-mastery, the speaker suggests, are great: being a "Man" means even more than having "the Earth and everything that's in it" at one's disposal. Manhood, in this poem's view, is its own reward, providing its possessors with an unshakeable sense of self. The speaker's capitalization of the word "Man" suggests that he sees manhood as an honorable title: becoming a "Man" is like earning a degree or being knighted.
To the modern reader, all this might sound narrow and sexist, since it seems to single certain good human qualities out as specifically male. But this vision of a distinct and virtuous masculinity fits right into the speaker's Edwardian worldview, in which gender roles were clear, separate, and rigid—and male authority was taken for granted. Reading masculinity as an achievement, the speaker makes it clear that, in his view, the powers and responsibilities of Edwardian maleness are earned, not automatic.
만약
만약 뭇사람이 이성을 잃고 너를 탓할 때
냉정을 유지할 수 있다면,
만약 모두가 너를 의심할 때
자신을 믿고 그들의 의심을 감싸안을 수 있다면,
만약 기다릴 수 있고 기다림에 지치지 않으며,
자신에 관한 거짓이 들리더라도 거짓를 장사하지 말으며,
미움을 받고도 미워하지 말으며,
그러면서도 너무 선한 체, 너무 현명한 체하지 않는다면.
만약 꿈을 꾸면서도 꿈의 노예가 되지 않을 수 있다면,
만약 생각하면서도 생각을 목표로 삼지 않을 수 있다면,
만약 '승리'와 '재앙'을 만나고도
이 두 협잡꾼을 똑같이 대할 수 있다면,
만약 네가 말한 진실이 악인들에 의해 왜곡되어
어리석은 자들을 옭어매는 덫이 되는 것을 참을 수 있다면,
네 일생을 바친 것들이 무너지는 것을 보고도
낡은 연장을 집어들고 다시 세울 수 있다면.
만약 힘써 얻은 모든 것을 무더기로 쌓아올려
단 한 번의 도박에 걸고도
그것들을 다 잃고도 다시 시작하면서도
한마디 불평도 하지 않을 수 있다면,
만약 심장과 신경과 힘줄이 다 닳아버리면서도
그것들은 너에게 도움이 될 것을 강요하며
남은 것이라곤 "벼텨라"고 말하는 의지뿐인 때도
여전히 버틸 수 있다면.
만약 군중과 이야기하면서도 덕성을 지킬 수 있고,
왕들과 같이 거닐면서도 서민성을 잃지 않을 수 있다면,
만약 적도 사랑하는 친구도 너를 해칠 수 없게 된다면,
만약 모두를 중히 여기되 그 누구도 지나치게 중히 여기지 않는다면,
만약 용서할 수 없는 1분간을
60초 동안의 달리기로 채울 수 있다면,
그러면 이 세상과 그 안의 모든 것이 네 것이 되리라.
그리고 - 보다 중요한 것은 - 너는 어른이 되리라, 내 아들아!
"IF"는 Rudyard Kipling(러디어드 키플링)의 시로, 1895 년경 Leander Starr Jameson에게 바친 헌사. 빅토리아 시대 스토아주의(스토이시즘, Stoicism)의 문학적 예.
러디어드 키플링(Rudyard Kipling) (1865. 12 - 1936. 1)
키플링은 <정글북>으로 알려진 영국의 유명한 소설가 겸 시인이다. 1907년 노벨문학상을 수상하였다.