Verse 2 is given over mainly to the voice of the bridegroom, who is presented negatively through the use of the word "gloats" and through his appearance based, mercenary, blaming attitude;
"If only her face matches her hands,
and she gives me no mother-in-law problems,
I'll forgive her the cot and the trunk
and looking glass. Will the rain never stop?
It was my luck to get a pot licking wench."
It is interesting to see that the references to the proverb and the dowry are less positive in this verse; plainly this is not the dowry the bridegroom wanted, and he takes the proverb seriously rather that seeing it as quaint.
It is not until verse 3 that we hear from the bride. The main sense used here is that of touch; she is in the dark, with wet feet, feeling cold and scared. Her fear and insecurity is revealed by her anxiety about the now choric reference to the cot, trunk and looking glass, though her submerged but more major concern is "What sort of a man is my husband?" Because the structure of the poem has already introduced us to him, in no complimentary fashion, we are unable to anticipate a happy answer for her.
At this point the danger presented by the "swollen river" is reintroduced via the slipping feet of the palankeen bearers. A link seems to be being made between the risks offered by the river and by the marriage.
In verse 4 we meet the bridegroom's father, and are immediately able to see the source of the son's undesirable attitudes; the father's mercenary and condemning approach is brought into focus by reference, again, to the proverb and the dowry, which is deemed of low value because the items are "all the things that she will use!"
It is made clear that he had been expecting more personal advantage, in the form of cattle. Once again we are reminded of the danger of the journey, because "The light is poor, and the paths treacherous," and of the overwhelming river, which is associated with "fear".
The final verse belongs exclusively to the narratorial voice. The mercenary element persists with the reference to the fact that "a wedding party always pays extra" and the dowry makes its final, by this time devalued and trivialised appearance.
Metaphor, arguably personification, is used to describe both the "angry" river and the ferry which "disgorges" its load; I feel that the image of the ferry, at least, is more that of a monster spewing out its victims, Charybdis like, than of a person. Either way, both river and ferry cease to be inanimate and gain definite identities. The ferryman is reminiscent of Charon, who carried the dead over the river Styx to Hades.
The final 6 1/2 lines, if I am reading them correctly, seem squalidly comic, in a "Carry On" film kind of way; The reference to the clarinet filling with water can be seen as a sexual image, particularly when juxtaposed with the line "Oh what a consumation is here" and the information that
"in an eddy, among the willows downstream,
The coy bride is truly wedded at last."
OK. Further discussion with Mr Sheehan and Mrs Partridge (who are ganging up against me!) leads me to review my position on this. I have been convinced that this is about death, the ultimate consumation; Hamlet described death as "a consumation / Devoutly to be wish'd" so there are very respectable literary precedents. Further, the palankeen can be seen as a coffin, carried as it is by "bearers". In this reading, then, the whole wedding party dies as a result of the flood. The sexual imagery is still there - sex and death have always been linked in literature - but it is representative of death rather than being an end in itself.
Mr Sheehan argues that Taufiq Rafat sees the flood as sweeping away the old way of doing things, such as the arranged marriage described here, to make way for the new.
Maybe I'm responding to this poem in too much of a European feminist way, but I feel that the poet is presenting the attitudes expressed by the male characters in it as patriarchal and chauvinist. The sequence of events described is comic but the overall feel of the poem, especially in terms of the potential of happiness for the bride, strikes me as negative and hopeless.
