Observations placeholder
Music Bureau - The new wife
Identifier
015056
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Not at all what it seems
A description of the experience
I was up gathering lovage. Coming down
off the mountain, I met my old husband.
I bowed deep, then asked: Your new wife -
how is she for you, old husband of mine?
My new wife - her words sing, they do,
but she can’t match my old wife's grace,
and for beauty there's no comparison.
Theres no comparing loom-work either.
When a new wife came through the gate,
the old one fled from her rooms. Now
my new wife weaves silk double-thread
where the old one wove it plain-cloth:
every day a single strip of double-thread
finery replaces fifty feet of plain-cloth.
Laying double-thread beside plain-cloth,
its clear the new's nothing like the old.