On Marsden Moor By Simon Armitage - please help

[Anna_MAlkovych]

On Marsden Moor
By Simon Armitage

Above the tree line and below the fog
I watched two menon the opposite slope
hauling wooden poles and slabs of dressed stone
from the foot of the hill towards the top.


They didn't stall - just lifted, carried, dropped.
I watched for an hour or thereabouts,
way off, but close enough in a straight line
to bundle them over with a big shout.

Away from the five o'clock of the town,
out from under the axles and bruised skies
it bothered me that men should hike this far
to hoik timber and rock up a steep bank.

Because what if those poles were fencing posts
to hammer home, divide a plot of land
between the two of them, and those dumb stones
the first steps to a new Jerusalem?



I need to translate this, but I am no native speaker and not familliar with a lot of things, so maybe you can help me
I think there is a process of building smth, but can't exactly get who is building it , who are menons? are they from India ( looked in web) ?and why are they then building Marsden Moor which is in Yorkshire ? They are bulding that estate aam I right or maybe I am wrong? steep bank? whar is that? is that a kind of cliff from which you can fall? Maybe it is somehow histirical connected but I am not strong in history of that place. It seems like I really don understand a thing, why devide the land, was it in the past and between whom?
(SORRY if I seem to ask stupid questions and thank you for hel[) :hat:

[Anna_MAlkovych]

If you can give any explanation on what the author meant you are welcome too, cause I have no idea about that too, thank you

[blank|verse]

Hi Anna - I'll send you a Private Message about this, but to answer the easy question - 'menon' is a mistake, it should be the two words 'men on' which of course makes a lot more sense. I don't know where you got this copy from, but it goes to show the importance of a reliable source, particularly if you are translating a text.

Anyway, I'll send you a more detailed reply shortly.

[Albion]

"Menon" is a typing error for "men on". A bank is a sharply rising, but not vertical, piece of land but not a hill: here, it is steep, ie has a gradient that requires a great effort to climb or haul materials. "dressed stone" is stone that has been shaped or smoothed before deploying it in a wall. "hoik" should be "hoick" but is poorly chosen because it is slang or colloquial better expressed by "haul", "lift" or "carry".

The speaker is concerned that the men may despoil the natural beauty of the moor by building a fence across open land; and seems to worry that the men may be dividing themselves from each other by building the fence in order to separate themselves. He values the contrast with the town besmirched by "five o'clock of the town" (I assume, the evening smoke) bruising (I assume, colouring) the sky. The mention of Jerusalem recalls Blake's poem, Jerusalem, with a similar distaste for industrial pollution; but a "new Jerusalem" implies an improvement in the condition of man. This seems to contradict the speaker's fears that the men may be seeking isolation from each other, however. The men did not stall ie they worked continuously. The speaker watches for an hour this puzzling scene (but, fails to question them directly although he is within shouting distance). Perhaps he is watching the disintegration of society but, like God, is merely interested in the men finding their own destiny.

[blank|verse]

"hoik" should be "hoick" but is poorly chosen because it is slang or colloquial better expressed by "haul", "lift" or "carry".

'Hoik' is correct as it stands (Faber: 2006, p. 8) even though it is a non-standard spelling. Armitage writes mainly in colloquial language, and the inclusion of the word underlines how seemingly quotidian the event is. It also carries a consonantal echo of 'hike' from the previous line; the 'k' sound is also picked up in the line with 'rock' and 'bank'.