Plead Mercy

[ Sabbe Sattha Bavanthu Sukhi Thattha] * epigraph

‘May all beings be happy’

By Anne Ranasinghe
We pass a bullock yoked to a cart tied up against your will
Straining uphill. He shivers struggling / taking a great effort to go uphill trembles
With effort, his bones
Protrude and the taut skin quivers taut – tightly stretched / trembles
At each whip of sharp-throned stick
There is no expression on his face
Only his eyes plead mercy begging for sympathy and forgiveness
Foam slavers from his lips saliva dripping from his mouth – utter hopelessness and physical pain

As he travails to increase his pace struggling/ painful laborious effort

And slips. My daughter asks brutality

Does he think life is worth living?
I tell her what I know
Is not true, that life
Is always better than death the poet lived to tell the horrible tale
She frowns that the daughter is doubtful/not satisfied/not totally convinced
If there is revolution, she says, turbulence, violence mob verb is revolt
I'll kill myself. All those horrible things
They do to people
The bullock has fallen on the rough
Edge of the road, He tries
But in spite of the
Stick he cannot rise the pleading expression in the animals’ eyes play a major role in this poem

Lord have mercy on his eyes narrator is asking for God’s mercy on living beings
My daughter is just thirteen.
*may all beings be happy
Poetic license

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  Plea – a humble request
 The suffering in the eyes of the animal sparks off a train of thought in the narrator’s and her
daughter’s eyes.
 economy of words

Questions
1. What does the title mean?
2. Why is this poem called Plead Mercy?
1. Ask for sympathy or forgiveness
2. The title suggests that someone or something is asking for sympathy,
forgiveness. The poem depicts a bull struggling to pull a heavy load up a hill and
the narrator is asking God to give that animal some relief.
3. Who are the ‘we’ in this poem? The narrator and her daughter
4. How old is the daughter? 13
5. What does the line ‘in spite of the stick, he cannot rise’ mean?
Although the animal is being beaten he is too tired and worn out to get up and
also the load he is carrying is too heavy.
6. Does the poet truly believe that life is better than death?
Perhaps she thinks that ‘to live’ is better than death according to the
circumstances. If there is going to be physical harm such as torture, there could be
an instance when death is better.
7. State what the daughter says about a revolution in reported speech.
The daughter said that if there was revolution, she would kill herself.
Epigraph:
i. a short quotation or saying at the beginning of a book or chapter intended to
suggest its theme
ii. an inscription on a building, statue or coin

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Further questions:
1. Give the meaning of the following lines in your own words:
Foam slavers from his lips
As he travails to increase his speed
2. What are the thoughts that go through the daughter’s mind when she sees
the bullock cart?
3. How do the poet’s words make us visualize the pathetic condition of the bull?
4. What is the significance of the last two lines

Literature question
Discuss what the poet Anne Ranasinghe is attempting to convey in her poem
‘Plead Mercy’.

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Anne Ranasinghe

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