Remember
Remember me when I am gone away,
Gone far away into the silent land;
When you can no more hold me by the hand,
Nor I half turn to go yet turning stay.
Remember me when no more day by day
You tell me of our future that you plann'd:
Only remember me; you understand
It will be late to counsel then or pray.
Yet if you should forget me for a while
And afterwards remember, do not grieve:
For if the darkness and corruption leave
A vestige of the thoughts that once I had,
Better by far you should forget and smile
Than that you should remember and be sad.
Christina Rossetti's “Remember” is a poem about grief, told not from the perspective of a mourner but rather the person who's to be mourned. In this sonnet, the speaker begs a loved one to remember her after her death—but also not to feel guilty if he forgets her, so long as she's made some permanent mark on his life and he remains happy. The speaker's poignant realism (in the sense of accepting that her beloved may in fact forget about her) engages both with the finality of death and the persistence of love. Rosetti wrote the poem in 1849 at the age of 19, though it was first published in 1862 in her collection Goblin Market and Other Poems.
Summary
Remember me when I'm no longer around, having gone far away into death's silent land; when you can't hold my hand anymore, and when I can no longer make as if I'm leaving, and then turn back and stay after all. Remember me when you can no longer tell me about all your future plans for us. Just remember me; you understand that it'll be too late then to give me advice or to pray for me. But if you do forget me for a while, and then remember me again later, don't feel bad. Because as long as darkness and rot don't destroy the traces of my thoughts in you, it'll much better for you to forget about me and be happy than to remember me and be sad.
Themes
Theme Love, Memory, and Grief
Love, Memory, and Grief
In “Remember,” a speaker entreats a loved one to remember her after her death. At the same time, however, the speaker insists that her beloved shouldn’t feel bad about it if he forgets her for a little while: so long as she’s had some permanent influence on him, it’s ultimately better for him to forget about her and be happy than to remember her and be sad. The poem thus explores the poignant push-pull of grief: while the speaker wishes to remain forever with her love in some way, she also doesn’t want her absence to cause him pain. In the end, the poem suggests that what truly matters to her is that she shape her beloved, becoming a part of him through her influence on his life—and in doing so, become a subtle presence rather than a constantly remembered absence.
The first lines cast the speaker’s death in terms of what she and her beloved won’t be able to do any more when she’s dead and the only way they can come in contact is through memory. The speaker first imagines her death as a journey to a “silent land,” a place that takes both her body and her voice away from her love. Here there is no way for them to communicate, to make plans, to help each other, or simply to be with each other. Memory will be all that’s left to the beloved, then, and the speaker insists that he should cling to it.
Yet, soon enough, the speaker later tempers her insistence. If her lover forgets to do this remembering for a while, he shouldn’t feel guilty—so long as she remains present to him in other ways. What really matters to the speaker is that, in her absence, she should remain to her beloved as “a vestige of the thoughts that once I had”—an influencing presence, maybe not recognized, but still alive in the beloved’s mind. As long as she lives on in this way, it’s better for her lover to be happy with her forgotten presence than sad about her remembered absence.
That said, the speaker isn't quite all the way to hoping that her beloved can forget her and be happy without her forever! She imagines him forgetting her only for “a while.” Either through her influence or her memory, she means to be a permanent part of her beloved’s life; what matters is that their connection can outlast death.
기억해 주세요
내가 멀리 떠나거든 기억해 주세요.
내가 침묵의 땅으로 저 멀리 떠나 가면;
당신이 내 손을 더 이상 잡을 수 없고
돌아서려던 내가 다시 돌아서 머물지 못할 때.
나를 기억해 주세요. 계획해둔 우리의 앞날을
당신이 나에게 더 이상 말해 주지 못할 때.
그저 기억해 주세요; 당신도 알겠지요
그때 가서 하소연하고 기도해야 늦다는 걸.
하지만 혹시나 한동안 잊었다
나중에 생각났다 해도 슬퍼하진 마세요;
어둠과 타락이 한때 내가 지녔던
생각의 흔적을 남긴다 해도
당신이 절 기억하고 슬퍼하기보다는
잊어버리고 미소짓는 게 훨씬 나을 테니.
Christina Rossetti 크리스티나 로세티(1830 -1894)
영문학사에서 아주 중요하게 평가받고 있는 여성 시인 가운데 하나. 환상시, 종교시, 어린이를 위한 시 등, 훌륭한 작품을 많이 남겼다. 화가이자 시인인 댄티 게이브리얼 로세티(Dante Gabriel Rossetti)의 누이동생이었다. 17세에 할아버지가 내준 시집에 벌써 재능이 엿보였다. 경제적으로는 매우 궁핍한 생활을 했다. 평생 어머니를 도와 집안을 돌보면서 종교적 명상과 시 쓰기에만 전념했다. 영국교회 고교회파 신도였던 그녀는 약혼자가 카톨릭이라는 이유로 결혼을 포기하기도 했다. 오빠가 삽화를 그려 넣은 <요귀시장 외 Goblin Market and Other Poems>(1862)와 <왕자의 편력 외 The Prince's Progress and Other Poems>(1866)를 출판하여 좋은 평을 받았다. 아서 휴즈가 삽화를 그린 <동요집 Nursery Rhyme Book>(1872; 1893)은 19세기 아동도서로 최고의 평가를 받고 있다. 1871년에 그레이브스 병에 걸렸지만 신앙의 힘으로 버티면서 꾸준히 창작에 몰두하여 여러 시집들과 함께 1885년에는 운문과 산문을 섞은 일기체의 <시간은 유수같이 Time Flies>를 낸다. 앨프리드 테니슨을 계승할 유망한 계관시인 후보로 여겨졌으나 1891년에 암에 걸려 고생하다 1894년에 세상을 떠나고 만다. 그녀는 늘 영혼의 순수성을 추구하면서 겸허하고 고요하게 성녀 같은 삶을 살았지만 가슴 밑바닥 한편에는 열정적이고 관능적인 기질, 예리한 비판적 감수성, 유쾌한 유머감각이 자리잡고 있던 시인이었다.