Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks
Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks - meaning Summary
Innocence Confronted by Cruelty
Neruda’s short narrative portrays a mermaid who wanders into a tavern and is mocked, stripped, and assaulted by drunken men. She cannot answer or cry; her otherworldly beauty is reduced to spectacle and abuse. Returning to the river, she is purified yet chooses to swim toward emptiness and death. The poem depicts dehumanization, the violence of voyeuristic crowds, and a tragic retreat from a world that cannot contain her innocence.
Read Complete AnalysesAll those men were there inside, when she came in totally naked. They had been drinking: they began to spit. Newly come from the river, she knew nothing. She was a mermaid who had lost her way. The insults flowed down her gleaming flesh. Obscenities drowned her golden breasts. Not knowing tears, she did not weep tears. Not knowing clothes, she did not have clothes. They blackened her with burnt corks and cigarette stubs, and rolled around laughing on the tavern floor. She did not speak because she had no speech. Her eyes were the colour of distant love, her twin arms were made of white topaz. Her lips moved, silent, in a coral light, and suddenly she went out by that door. Entering the river she was cleaned, shining like a white stone in the rain, and without looking back she swam again swam towards emptiness, swam towards death.
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