Fifty-One Tales · Chapter
Nature and Time explained
A triumphant spirit strides through Coventry on a winter's night, followed by a ragged, weeping spirit who laments the loss of nature to the growing cities.
What happens
A triumphant spirit strides through Coventry on a winter's night, followed by a ragged, weeping spirit who laments the loss of nature to the growing cities. She accuses him of forgetting her, but he retorts by listing fallen ancient cities as proof of his faithfulness, promising that fields and grass will return soon.
Themes in this chapter
Nature vs. Civilization
The chapter personifies Nature as a suffering spirit oppressed by the trams, shops, and factories of Coventry, while Time promises the eventual return of fields and grass.
Time and Mortality
Time is depicted as a triumphant, relentless force that has witnessed the fall of great cities and reassures Nature of the cyclical return of the natural world.
Characters to notice
- Time
Strides triumphantly through Coventry, indifferent to surroundings, and reassures Nature that he has not forgotten her.
- Mother Earth
Appears as a ragged, weeping spirit lamenting the death of her anemones, fallen woods, and the suffering of her children due to urban expansion.
Key passages
“My anemones are dead for miles, all my woods are fallen and still the cities grow.”
Nature mourns the destruction of her flowers and forests, which have been replaced by expanding urban areas.
Highlights the theme of nature's loss to civilization.
“Did I not throw down Babylon for you? And is not Nineveh gone? Where is Persepolis that troubled you? Where Tarshish and Tyre?”
Time reminds Nature that he has destroyed great ancient cities to make way for her return.
Emphasizes Time's role in the cyclical rise and fall of civilizations.