Cindy Oktavia (174214025)

One Hundred Love Sonnets: XVII

BY PABLO NERUDA
TRANSLATED BY MARK EISNER

I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as one loves certain obscure things,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,
and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,

I love you directly without problems or pride:
I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,
so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,
so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

SUMMARY

1st Stanza: Here the speaker want to emphasize that he love his significant other not because
her outer appearance or beauty, but he love her as someone who loves God. Everybody can
adore beauty but not everybody can adore and love something that is can’t be seen by eyes
and hard to be understood. The speaker love for her is incomprehensible and special, unlike
any other love that has ever existed in the world. Just like someone who believe in God, his
love is intimate and so exclusive, it is only for him and her.

2nd Stanza: In this stanza the speaker want to tell us that even though he love her so much
but he doesn’t want to show it to the world. Although his love is hidden and can’t be shown
but he still love her whole heartedly. his love is quiet because it’s the type of love he keeps to
himself, but it’s no less strong than the others.

3rd Stanza: In this last stanza, the speaker confess that he doesn’t know how or when or from
where his love coming from. He just love her. His love for her is bigger than his problem and
his pride. The speaker want to tell us that he love her unconditionally with all of himself. He
loves her because he loves her, there is no other reason can explain his feeling better than
that.
Cindy Oktavia (174214025)

NEW CRITICISM

This poem tells us about a person who loves and adore someone so much but he does
it secretly. His love is hidden and unknown by the world. In the first stanza, this poem uses
simile to describe the speaker love. “I don’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz, and
the arrow carnations” this sentence is comparing his love to precious things that any people
adore because its beauty and value. However, his love is different, his love is inexplainable
“as one loves certain obscure things.” “Obscure things ” here can be interpreted as things that
can’t be reached and can’t be understood by normal human mind like God or other
supernatural things. This poem tells us that the speaker love his lover secretly, exclusively,
intimately “between the shadows and the soul.” Shadows here can be interpreted as dark
place. Why dark places? because dark places are least visited by people. The soul here is the
speaker soul. So his love is located a quit place, hidden deep within his soul. Another figurative
language that we can find in this stanza is alliteration, inter sentence: “secretly, between the
shadow and the soul.”
In the second stanza, the sentence “I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but
carries the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,” uses simile to explain the speaker’s
love. The poem compares the speaker’s love to an unbloomed flower. The poem also
personified the unbloom flower, the poem uses the word “carries” as if the unbloomed
flowers can really carries the lights of the flowers that actually have bloomed. This poem
wants to tell us that the speaker can only grow feeling towards his significant other but the
speaker cannot show his love to the world. In the opposite of reality, people usually love
flower only when it blossomed because they can see its beauty and the actual color and shape
of the flower, there is nothing much to see and adore in unboomed flower. However, that
doesn’t mean he loves her less, the flower buds actually carries the same lights and beauty as
the bloomed flower. His love stays the same and it still is there but it is just hidden inside his
soul, just like the beauty of flower that is still can’t be seen because it hasn’t bloomed yet.
We can find personification in the sentence “thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose
from the earth lives dimly in my body”. This sentence personifies aroma as if it is alive and
can live in the speaker’s body. This sentence want to tell us that the speaker is thankful
because his significant other love is not as big as his love for her. Her love reminds him that
he still lives on “earth”. Place were things are known to be unfair and it will forever be like
that. In the second stanza the poem also uses alliteration in the sentence “secretly, between
the shadow and the soul.”
The last stanza will explain about the speaker feeling deeper and clearer. The sentence
“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where” tells us that the speaker love is
unconditional. The sentence “I love you directly without problems or pride:” tells us that the
speaker love is selfless, even his problem and his pride means nothing compared to his love.
From the sentence “I love you like this because I don’t know any other way to love, except in
this form in which I am not nor are you,” initiated that the speaker doesn’t need any other
Cindy Oktavia (174214025)

reason to love her, he loves her purely because he loves her. He, himself is the only reason
for his love for her, there is no other better explanation than he himself. The sentence “so
close that your hand upon my chest is mine, so close that your eyes close with my dreams”
tells us that the speaker loves so much that he become obsessive.

CONCLUSION

This poem titled “One Hundred Love” is about someone who loves his significant other
regardless of the conditions. The speaker can still fully express his love even though it is
hidden. The speaker love is incomprehensible. This poem is really about the speaker himself.
Every sentences and words are describing the speaker’s minds and feelings about how much
he love his significant other.