stained and lost through age"
The speaker conveys in this line how age can be perceived through imagery. Taken notice in the description of it its physical appearance. ``Shapes like full-blown roses stained`` that alone gives you an image of how old & ancient the skin appears to be. My perception is that the speaker is trying to make it aware that the fish physical appearance is worn out because its stained but yet it still has the beauty of being shaped like full-blown roses, just stained. ``Lost through age`` gives us an additional assessment because it shows us how something of a beautiful nature can still be beautiful but lose its value over time. In some eyes that old beauty that was so called ``lost through age`` will be considered antique, which is another perception of beauty. In this line the speaker showed both ugly & beauty.
"He hung a grunting weight"
The speaker conveys symbolism in this line because it shows two different sides. One side, in its literal context, the fish is considered being full in weight. The other side, I highlighted on the word grunting. Grunt in its tern is the medium-sized tropical marine food fishes that utter grunting sounds when caught. So the symbol in this is that the speaker both shows what the fish is naturally & also what it is physically doing. How was the speaker able to conjure both effects? I have no idea.
careful with the "grunting," here, since this in not a tropical setting--so, we can look for other connotations of grunt--such as reluctant, exhausted, etc. In any case, your question is a good one--how is Bishop able to get such resonance into what appear, at first, to be fairly straight-forward images? That's where considering the suggestiveness of particular image details--not just a "big," but "tremendous" fish, for eg.--guide the way
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