Art Formidable: May 2009

Saturday, 30 May 2009

"Silly girl, listen!"
But she doesn't listen
While the village roofs glisten,
Bright in the sun.
"Silly girl, what do you do there,
As if there were someone to view there,
A face to gaze on and greet there,
A live form warmly to meet there,
When there is no one, none, do you hear?"
But she doesn't hear.

Like a dead stone
She stands there alone,
Staring ahead of her, peering around
For something that has to be found
Till, suddenly spying it,
She touches it, clutches it,
Laughing and crying.

Is it you, my Johnny, my true love, my dear?
I knew you would never forget me,
Even in death! Come with me, let me
Show you the way now!
Hold your breath, though,
And tiptoe lest stepmother hear!

What can she hear? They have made him
A grave, two years ago laid him
Away with the dead.
Save me, Mother of God! I'm afraid.
But why? Why should I flee you now?
What do I dread?
Not Johnny! My Johnny won't hurt me.
It is my Johnny! I see you now,
Your eyes, your white shirt.

But it's pale as linen you are,
Cold as winter you are!
Let my lips take the cold from you,
Kiss the chill o f the mould from you.

Dearest love, let me die with you,
In the deep earth lie with you,
For this world is dark and dreary,
I am lonely and weary!

Alone among the unkind ones
Who mock at my vision,
My tears their derision,
Seeing nothing, the blind ones!

Dear God! A cock is crowing,
Whitely glimmers the dawn.
Johnny! Where are you going?
Don't leave me! I am forlorn!

So, caressing, talking aloud to her
Lover, she stumbles and falls,
And her cry of anguish calls
A pitying crowd to her.

"Cross yourselves! It is, surely,
Her Johnny come back from the grave:
While he lived, he loved her entirely.
May God his soul now save!"

Hearing what they are saying,
I, too, start praying.

"The girl is out of her senses!"
Shouts a man with a learned air,
"My eye and my lenses
Know there's nothing there.

Ghosts are a myth
Of ale-wife and blacksmith.
Clodhoppers! This is treason
Against King Reason!"

"Yet the girl loves," I reply diffidently,
"And the people believe reverently:
Faith and love are more discerning
Than lenses or learning.

You know the dead truths, not the living,
The world of things, not the world of loving.
Where does any miracle start?
Cold eye, look in your heart!"

Translated by W.H. Auden

by Angela Britlinger

Norwid

NARCISSUS

1
Narcissus, reflecting a satisfied face,
Cried, "Let everyone note :
As I am supreme, so is Greece."
Thereupon Echo spoke,

2 "These nymph haunts, this lake,
And the depths of saphire slopes
Are not solely from your Greece,
But - from light, clouds and mists...

3
"Your shape, note, how shimmering,
Though you gaze in a crystal pool
Reflexion comes from the distant sun ,
Only the deep is your constant home ."

Beauty

BEAUTY

...God sees all
"How can
God's eye endure ugliness all round ?"
If you wish to know, with an artist's eye
Look closely at a ruin, at cobwebs
In sunlight, at matted straw
In fields, at potter's clay -
- He gave us all, even His traces,
As He perceives things, have no envy, have no shame!
Yet there is sun-gilded Pride
Convinced the sun will not shine through her;
She is the end of sight and contemplation,
She is the screen against God's rays,
So that man, the most ungrateful creature in the world,
Should feel extinguished brightness and night in his eyes
- In every art let all arts gleam, save the one
Through which the work is to be done.

True Love Szymborska

True Love

True love. Is it normal
is it serious, is it practical?
What does the world get from two people
who exist in a world of their own?

Placed on the same pedestal for no good reason,
drawn randomly from millions but convinced
it had to happen this way - in reward for what?
For nothing.
The light descends from nowhere.
Why on these two and not on others?
Doesn't this outrage justice? Yes it does.
Doesn't it disrupt our painstakingly erected principles,
and cast the moral from the peak? Yes on both accounts.

Look at the happy couple.
Couldn't they at least try to hide it,
fake a little depression for their friends' sake?
Listen to them laughing - its an insult.
The language they use - deceptively clear.
And their little celebrations, rituals,
the elaborate mutual routines -
it's obviously a plot behind the human race's back!

It's hard even to guess how far things might go
if people start to follow their example.
What could religion and poetry count on?
What would be remembered? What renounced?
Who'd want to stay within bounds?

True love. Is it really necessary?
Tact and common sense tell us to pass over it in silence,
like a scandal in Life's highest circles.
Perfectly good children are born without its help.
It couldn't populate the planet in a million years,
it comes along so rarely.

Let the people who never find true love
keep saying that there's no such thing.

Their faith will make it easier for them to live and die.

Wislawa Szymborska

Other poems by Szymborska

Utopia

Under One Small Star

Motion

MOTION

You’re crying here, but there they’re dancing

There they’re dancing in your tear.

There they’re happy, making merry,

They don’t know a blessed thing.

Almost the glimmering of mirrors.

Almost candles flickering.

Nearly staircases and hallways.

Gestures, lace cuffs, so it seems.

Hydrogen, oxygen, hose rascals.

Chlorine, sodium, a pair of rogues.

The fop nitrogen parading

up and down, around, about,

beneath the vault, inside the dome.

Your crying’s music to their ears.

Yes, eine kleine Nachtmusik.

Who are you, lovely masquerader.

Translated from Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh

Ruch

Ty tu płaczesz, a tam tańczą.
Tam tańczą w mojej łzie.
Tam się bawią, tam wesoło,
Tam nie wiedza nic a nic.
Omal że migoty luster.
Omal że płomyki świec.
Prawie schodki i krużganki.
Jakby mankiet, jakby gest.
Ten lekkoduch wodór z tlenem.
Te gagatki chlor i sód.
Fircyk azot w korowodach
Spadających, wzlatujących,
Wirujących pod kopułą.
Ty tu płaczesz, w to im grasz.
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.
Kim jesteś, piękna maseczko.

Hymn slowacki

Master, my heart is sore. Your radiant West
Pours out its rainbows for me, while your deep
Blue waters quench the star that burns in quest
Of everlasting sleep
Yet though you gild the skyline, sea and shore,
Master, my heart is sore.

Erect, like empty husks of corn, I am
Void of both pleasure and satiety.
Greeting a stranger, I can still seem calm
Though silent as this sky.
In front of you I must say something more.
Master, my heart is sore.

Petulant as an infant when his mother
Leaves him alone, I see the sky grow red.
Its last beams rise from water as I smother
The tear I almost shed.
Though dawn will bring fresh daylight as before,
Master, my heart is sore.

Today I watched, wedged in the blue air,
A convoy of storks, and they were flying
A hundred miles from land, still more to where
This long low land is lying.
I've seen storks race across my native moor.
Master, my heart is sore.

Since I have meditated much on death,
Since I have seldom known a home, since I
Am a poor pilgrim, trudging, out of breath,
And lightning scars the sky
Since time still keeps my unknown grave in store,
Master, my heart is sore.

Perhaps my skeleton will whiten and
No gravestone cast its solemn shadow there,
I shall still grudge each corpse the plot of land
That keeps it safe from air.
My bed will be as restless as it's poor.
Master, my heart is sore.

At home a child will pray for me each day
Just as he has been told. And yet I know
That, as it sails, this ship takes me away,
A mile each mile we go.
And since his prayers cannot the child restore,
Master, my heart is sore.

A hundred years from now some other men
Will watch the rainbows that your angels hew
Across the starry vastness - but by then
They will be dying too.
I reach out toward the nothing at my core.
Master, my heat is sore.

Composed at sea off Alexandria.

Translated by Jerzy Peterkiewicz and Burns Singer

Other:

My Testament - Testament Moj

Laments

Jan Kochanowski

English 1

English 2 Adam Czerniwski

Polish

Jacaszek - Laments

Poets as Translators

Milosz

A Task

In fear and trembling, I think I would fulfill my life
Only if I brought myself to make a public confession
Revealing a sham, my own and of my epoch:
We were permitted to shriek in the tongue of dwarfs and
demons
But pure and generous words were forbidden
Under so stiff a penalty that whoever dared to pronounce one
Considered himself as a lost man.

Czeslaw Milosz

"Keep a Tranquil Mind"

"Keep a Tranquil Mind" (Horace Odes II.3)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Remember in difficult times to
keep a tranquil mind, and in good times
to keep from becoming overjoyed,
my Dellius who is yet to die,

whether you live always in sadness
or on festal days in far-off field
reclining you take delight in a
famed vintage of Falernian wine.

Why do the tall pine and white poplar
love to unite their foliage in
inviting shade? Why does the rushing
water press on through its winding banks?

Bring wines and perfumes and the too-brief
flower that blooms on the lovely rose
while good fortune and our youth allow,
and the dark threads of the three Sisters.

You'll leave your boughten lands and your house
in the country, washed by the Tiber --
you'll leave them, and some heir will acquire
the wealth you piled high. And whether

you're rich and of ancient lineage
or you're poor and sleep beneath the stars,
in the end it makes no difference: for
pitiless Orcus will have your soul.

We are all gathered to the same place:
the lot of all is turned in the urn
of Fate, who will come forth and place us
in the skiff, for eternal exile.

Poems

"What Shall a Singer Ask of Apollo?"

(Horace, Odes I.31)

translated by Peter Saint-Andre

What shall a singer ask
of Apollo? What shall
he request, pouring wine
from the offering bowl?

Not the fertile cornfields
of rich Sardinia;
not the fine herds of hot
Calabria; not gold
or ivory from far
India; not the land
that's washed away by the
gentle waters of the
quiet-flowing Liris.

Let those whom Fate assigns
prune the vines with scythes from
Calenia, so that
some rich merchant can drink
deeply, from golden cups,
the wine for which he trades
Syrian merchandise
(he is dear to the gods,
for three or four times each
year he ventures out on
the Atlantic, unscathed) --
my feast shall be olives,
chicory, and mallows.

Grant me health, I pray, and
to enjoy what I have:
to pass my old age with
a sound mind, with honor,
and with my cithara.

Charles Baudelaire

L'Albatros

Souvent, pour s'amuser, les hommes d'équipage
Prennent des albatros, vastes oiseaux des mers,
Qui suivent, indolents compagnons de voyage,
Le navire glissant sur les gouffres amers.

À peine les ont-ils déposés sur les planches,
Que ces rois de l'azur, maladroits et honteux,
Laissent piteusement leurs grandes ailes blanches
Comme des avirons traîner à côté d'eux.

Ce voyageur ailé, comme il est gauche et veule!
Lui, naguère si beau, qu'il est comique et laid!
L'un agace son bec avec un brûle-gueule,
L'autre mime, en boitant, l'infirme qui volait!

Le Poète est semblable au prince des nuées
Qui hante la tempête et se rit de l'archer;
Exilé sur le sol au milieu des huées,
Ses ailes de géant l'empêchent de marcher.

— Charles Baudelaire

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of a crew
Catch albatrosses, those vast sea birds
That indolently follow a ship
As it glides over the deep, briny sea.

Scarcely have they placed them on the deck
Than these kings of the sky, clumsy, ashamed,
Pathetically let their great white wings
Drag beside them like oars.

That winged voyager, how weak and gauche he is,
So beautiful before, now comic and ugly!
One man worries his beak with a stubby clay pipe;
Another limps, mimics the cripple who once flew!

The poet resembles this prince of cloud and sky
Who frequents the tempest and laughs at the bowman;
When exiled on the earth, the butt of hoots and jeers,
His giant wings prevent him from walking.

— William Aggeler, The Flowers of Evil (Fresno, CA: Academy Library Guild, 1954)

The Albatross

Sometimes for sport the men of loafing crews
Snare the great albatrosses of the deep,
The indolent companions of their cruise
As through the bitter vastitudes they sweep.

Scarce have they fished aboard these airy kings
When helpless on such unaccustomed floors,
They piteously droop their huge white wings
And trail them at their sides like drifting oars.

How comical, how ugly, and how meek
Appears this soarer of celestial snows!
One, with his pipe, teases the golden beak,
One, limping, mocks the cripple as he goes.

The Poet, like this monarch of the clouds,
Despising archers, rides the storm elate.
But, stranded on the earth to jeering crowds,
The great wings of the giant baulk his gait.

— Roy Campbell, Poems of Baudelaire (New York: Pantheon Books, 1952)

The Albatross

Sometimes, to entertain themselves, the men of the crew
Lure upon deck an unlucky albatross, one of those vast
Birds of the sea that follow unwearied the voyage through,
Flying in slow and elegant circles above the mast.

No sooner have they disentangled him from their nets
Than this aerial colossus, shorn of his pride,
Goes hobbling pitiably across the planks and lets
His great wings hang like heavy, useless oars at his side.

How droll is the poor floundering creature, how limp and weak —
He, but a moment past so lordly, flying in state!
They tease him: One of them tries to stick a pipe in his beak;
Another mimics with laughter his odd lurching gait.

The Poet is like that wild inheritor of the cloud,
A rider of storms, above the range of arrows and slings;
Exiled on earth, at bay amid the jeering crowd,
He cannot walk for his unmanageable wings.

— George Dillon, Flowers of Evil (NY: Harper and Brothers, 1936)

Albatrosses

Often our sailors, for an hour of fun,
Catch albatrosses on the after breeze
Through which these trail the ship from sun to sun
As it skims down the deep and briny seas.

Scarce have these birds been set upon the poop,
Than, awkward now, they, the sky's emperors,
Piteous and shamed, let their great white wings droop
Beside them like a pair of idle oars.

These wingèd voyagers, how gauche their gait!
Once noble, now how ludicrous to view!
One sailor bums them with his pipe, his mate
Limps, mimicking these cripples who once flew.

Poets are like these lords of sky and cloud,
Who ride the storm and mock the bow's taut strings,
Exiled on earth amid a jeering crowd,
Prisoned and palsied by their giant wings.

— Jacques LeClercq, Flowers of Evil (Mt Vernon, NY: Peter Pauper Press, 1958)

The Albatross

Often, to amuse themselves, the men of the crew
Catch those great birds of the seas, the albatrosses,
lazy companions of the voyage, who follow
The ship that slips through bitter gulfs.

Hardly have they put them on the deck,
Than these kings of the skies, awkward and ashamed,
Piteously let their great white wings
Draggle like oars beside them.

This winged traveler, how weak he becomes and slack!
He who of late was so beautiful, how comical and ugly!
Someone teases his beak with a branding iron,
Another mimics, limping, the crippled flyer!

The Poet is like the prince of the clouds,
Haunting the tempest and laughing at the archer;
Exiled on earth amongst the shouting people,
His giant's wings hinder him from walking.

— Geoffrey Wagner, Selected Poems of Charles Baudelaire (NY: Grove Press, 1974)