The Book of Jade · Chapter
Envoi explained
The speaker reaches the nadir of sorrow and despair, yet defiantly laughs and drinks with personified griefs, before anticipating a mystical dawn and a journey over the sea.
What happens
The speaker reaches the nadir of sorrow and despair, yet defiantly laughs and drinks with personified griefs, before anticipating a mystical dawn and a journey over the sea.
Themes in this chapter
Ennui and Existential Dread
The speaker expresses weariness of woe and a bored, nihilistic laughter at grief.
Death and Decay
Life's glories lie perished, stars are gone, and the speaker crowns himself with nightshade.
Characters to notice
Key passages
“Now I am come to the nadir at last, to the absolute sorrow”
I have finally reached the lowest point of absolute despair.
Opening declaration of the speaker's emotional state.
“Lo, I am easily bor’d, I am easily tired and made weary; Now at the last I am weary of Woe.”
I am quickly bored and tired, and now even sorrow itself has exhausted me.
The speaker's ennui extends to grief itself.
“Now it is midnight; but soon shall the wakening glory of morning Shine in the East”
It is midnight now, but soon the glory of dawn will rise in the east.
A turn toward hope and renewal after darkness.