Simon the Cyrenian Speaks
by Countee Cullen
Countee Cullen
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May 30, 1903–January 9, 1946
Birth place unknown
Abandoned by parents and raised by his grandmother
Grandmother died when he was 15 and was adopted by
a minister at a Harlem church
Went to high school in the Bronx and Queens receiving
special honors in Latin
Graduated from NYU in 1925
Wife divorced him, saying he admitted to liking men
Died from kidney failure
Considered one of the greatest writers of the Harlem
Renaissance
"Simon the Cyrenian Speaks"
He never spoke a word to me,
And yet He called my name;
He never gave a sign to me,
And yet I knew and came.
At first I said, "I will not bear
His cross upon my back;
He only seeks to place it there
Because my skin is black."
But He was dying for a dream,
And He was very meek,
And in His eyes there shone a gleam
Men journey far to seek.
It was Himself my pity bought;
I did for Christ alone
What all of Rome could not have wrought
With bruise of lash or stone.
Simon the Cyrenian
• Simon in Hebrew means “Listening”
• Was the man selected from the crowd to
help Jesus carry his cross to the hill as
mentioned in Matthew 27:32 and Mark
15:21
Speaker
• Black guy speaking
– “… my skin is black.”
• Does not seem to be religious until this one time in
the poem
– “He never spoke a word to me, And yet He called my
name; He never gave a sign to me, And yet I knew and
came.”
• Seems to be some kind of prophet
– “He never gave a sign to me, And yet I knew and
came.”
Attitude
• Bitter
– “He only seeks to place it there Because my skin is black.”
– Doesn’t necessarily show who he’s bitter at: God for giving him
black skin or white people as the stereotype would suggest
• Empathy
– “It was Himself my pity bought; I did for Christ alone”
• Proud
– “I did for Christ alone What all of Rome could not
have wrought With bruise of lash or stone.”
Organization
• Four stanzas
• a-b-a-b rhyme scheme (Ballad meter)
• Iambic tetrameter and iambic trimeter
Stanzas
• #1
– Speaker is being called to something although
he does not have a clue as to why
• #2
– Initially refused to come out and help, saying he
was only chosen from the crowd because of his
skin color
– Simon of Cyrene was also African although his
skin color is unknown, which suggests that this
statement is what Cullen believes Simon may
have said assuming he was black like most other
Africans
Stanzas cont’d
• #3
– Speaker starts to realize that there’s
something different about Jesus
– “And in His eyes there shone a gleam Men journey far
to seek.”
• #4
– He finally helped because it had a greater effect than
anything Rome could’ve done and he realized this
– Time suggests that it’s some period after the event,
although a date is not established.
Imagery
• Cross – even in today’s world we “all have our
cross to bear” as the cliché goes
• Gleam in Jesus’ eye – if someone has a gleam
in their eye there’s something special about
them that the person just recognized. In Jesus’
case the speaker couldn’t identify it but he saw
something
• Rome – dominating force in the society of the
time. This could refer to both the Romans or
oppressors of the 1920’s.
Diction and Syntax
• There isn’t much special diction as short poems
with only 6-8 syllables a line can’t fit very many
fancy words
– Closest thing to a “fancy” word is “wrought” in the last
stanza
• Stanzas are used to convey different emotions
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1: confusion
2: anger
3: hope
4: pride
Conclusion
This story can be used as a comparison between the first years AD
to the 1920’s in which Cullen lived. Although it is certainly a poem
about the real Simon of Cyrene, it was also widely known that Simon
was not black even though he was from Africa. He uses the race
issue to grab his black audience’s attention. Even in the northern
states in the USA in the 1920’s, black people were still oppressed
and were suffering under “separate but equal” clause since Plessy
vs. Ferguson in 1896. It’s unclear whether Cullen is trying to turn
people to religion, which would be entirely possible given his living
circumstances, or trying to tell people to just bear segregation and
do what they can until the grand ending where bold acts will
eventually take down virtual tyranny. This poem was radical in
either way as the imagery was, and, to some extent, still is,
generally interpreted as whites being the oppressive Romans in
which blacks have to break free propelling Countee Cullen into the
Harlem Renaissance Hall of Fame.
Bibliography
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"Countee Cullen." Wikipedia. 13 Apr 2008. Wikipedia. 14 Apr 2008
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Countee_Cullen>.
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Daniel, Walter C.. "Countee Cullen." Gerogetown University: Web Hosting.
Gerogetown University. 14 Apr 2008
<http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/bassr/heath/syllabuild/iguide/cullen.ht
ml>.