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The Secret City · Chapter
Epigraph explained
The epigraph sets a dawn scene with fading stars and a cock crowing, evoking the end of a feast and the arrival of morning, as the world stirs to life.
What happens
The epigraph sets a dawn scene with fading stars and a cock crowing, evoking the end of a feast and the arrival of morning, as the world stirs to life.
Key passages
“In the eastern quarter dawn breaks, the stars flicker pale. The morning cock at Ju-nan mounts the wall and crows. The songs are over, the clock run down, but still the feast is set. The Moon grows dim and the stars are few; morning has come to the world. At a thousand gates and ten thousand doors the fish-shaped keys turn; Round the Palace and up by the Castle, the crows and magpies are flying.”
Dawn arrives in the east as stars fade, a rooster crows from the wall, the festivities end, and the world awakens with keys turning and birds flying around the palace.
The epigraph uses ancient Chinese imagery to evoke a transition from night to day, symbolizing an ending and a new beginning.