Fifty-One Tales · Chapter
The Unpasturable Fields explained
The mountains boast of their permanence and endurance against Time, but the clouds counter that they themselves are the realm where Pegasus prances and browses on song, suggesting a different kind of imperishability through myth and imagina
What happens
The mountains boast of their permanence and endurance against Time, but the clouds counter that they themselves are the realm where Pegasus prances and browses on song, suggesting a different kind of imperishability through myth and imagination.
Themes in this chapter
Time and Mortality
The mountains defy Time, claiming he will break his staff and stumble on their rocks, yet the clouds remind them that even mountains pass away.
The Power of Myth and Imagination
Pegasus, a mythical creature, gallops and browses on song in the clouds' fields, symbolizing the enduring power of imagination over physical permanence.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Time on our rocks shall break his staff and stumble: and still we shall sit majestic, even as now, hearing the sound of the sea, our old coeval sister, who nurses the bones of her children and weeps for the things she has done.”
Time will fail and fall upon our rocks, yet we will remain grand and unchanged, listening to the sea, our ancient sibling, who cares for the remains of her offspring and mourns her past actions.
The mountains assert their permanence against Time, while the sea is personified as a grieving mother.
“We pass away, indeed we pass away, but upon our unpasturable fields Pegasus prances. Here Pegasus gallops and browses upon song which the larks bring to him every morning from far terrestrial fields.”
Yes, we vanish, yet on our eternal fields Pegasus runs freely, feeding on the songs that larks carry to him each day from distant earthly lands.
The clouds acknowledge their transience but highlight the immortal realm of myth where Pegasus thrives on poetry.