no weeds to mock

[Coenraedt]

Hello everyone,
Could anybody please help me interpreting the following saying:
"Cannot you see there is no grass upon the earth . . . no weeds to mock at man's endeavour?"
I can't make head or tail of it.
Thank you in advance.
Coenraedt

[RonBee]

Could you supply more context?

[MrPedantic]

Seconded...

(I suppose "weeds" would "mock at man's endeavour" in the context of attempting to cultivate a weed-infested piece of land. If a patch of land is so barren that weeds and grass are absent, it must be very barren indeed. But that's only a wild guess.)

MrP

[mykwyner]

This looks to me like an interesting, but complex metaphor. It would be nice to have the entire passage, but this is my interpretation.

When someone plants a garden but raises only weeds, those weeds can be said to be mocking (ridiculing) the gardner's efforts [endeavor]. (This type of metaphor is called anthropomorphism.) The landscape in this passage is so barren it doesn't even have the "mocking" weeds.

[RonBee]

BTW, the expression is "I can't make heads or tails of it".

[Coenraedt]

Thank you all for responding.
About the context: it is a one-act play, rather enigmatic, in which a dying soldier, accompanied by a chanting chorus of unseen wounded, addresses a dead person whom he called for. He talks about the horrors of war (In this case W.O. I), about homes burning: "My home burns like the grass dries in a summer's heat, and I have thrown a stone for . . . for understanding...
THE DYING (to THE DEAD). Look! . . . Cannot you see there is no grass upon the earth . . .no weeds to mock at man's endeavour? This, brother, is the end, for this . . .belongs to you! . . . March, comrades, march . . (His delirium alternates with his sanity. He laughs into the night)

[MrPedantic]

In that case, it may relate to the churned vegetation-less mud of the First World War. (Though poppies sprang up on the battlefields.)

MrP

[Coenraedt]

Thank you Mr.Pedantic,
I understand now. I conclude that it is not an expression or saying, so I can translate it literally. Your remark about the mud of W.O.I makes very good sense here.
Thank you!
Coenraedt