POETS ON THIS PAGE: W.S. RENDRA * TAKAMURA KOTARO * GIUSEPPI GIOACCHINO BELLI * EUGENIO MONTALE * JORGE GUILLEN * GLORIA FUERTES * CESAR VALLEJO * JORGE DE LIMA * JOSEPH VON EICHENDORFF * HANS MAGNUS ENZENBERGER * EDUARD MORIKE * CHRISTIAN MORGENSTERN * HEINRICH HEINE * HERMAN HESSE * C. P. CAVAFY
[PREVIOUS PAGE OF TRANSLATIONS]
[NEXT PAGE OF TRANSLATIONS]
[RETURN TO POEMS IN TRANSLATION INDEX]
THE WORLD’S FIRST FACE
In the pale moonlight He carries his bride Up that hill, Both of them naked, Bringing nothing but themselves. So in all beginnings The world is bare, Empty, free of lies, Dark with silence — A silence that sinks Into the depth of time. Then comes light, Existence, Man and animals. So in all beginnings Everything is bare, Empty, open. They’re both young, Both have come a long way. Passing through dawns bright with illusion, Skies filled with hope, Rivers lined with comfort, They have come to the afternoon’s warmth, Both of them dripping with sweat — And standing on a barren coral reef. So evening comes, Bringing dreams And a bed Lined with gleaming coral necklaces. They raise their heads: Millions of stars in the sky. This is their inheritance, Stars and more stars, More than could ever blink and go out. In the pale moonlight He carries his bride Up that hill, Both of them naked: The world’s first face.
by W.S. (Willibrordus Surendra) Rendra, 1935–2009
translated from the Indonesian by Burton Raffel
WHALE SPOUTING
When May entered the Black Current of Kinkazan Island the sea suddenly blossomed, shimmered like a dome of blue cellophane. The waves, brilliantly flowing, were wincing under the midday sun coursing ever closer to the land. The sperm whale, after spouting once, dived deep again, pillowed the giant weight of his head on the waters. Enraptured by this warm current, salt-rich and silky, he now lets his mind flow free, losing himself in boundless dreams. That I am not a dolphin, not a grampus, but my very self, a sperm whale, makes me the happiest creature in the world, the whale thinks. Ah, it's no use fighting against the present. The whale knows nothing beyond the moment. He is always reveling on the crest of existence. He doesn't bother about hypothesis, he doesn't get into metaphysics. The whale, intoxicated with dreams on the brink of slumber, has intimations of unknown territory approaching, is half frightened, half relieved. Once more he reared up, and into the May sky spouted his bellyful of the Current, almost a rainbow. The lookout siren is hooting at Ayukawa Port on the Oshika Peninsula, but this colossal optimist is blissfully unaware of it.
by Takamura Kotaro, 1883-1956
translated from the Japanese by James Kirkup and Akiko Takemoto
Villon’s Epitaph (Ballade Of The Hanged Men)
O brother men who after us remain, Do not look coldly on the scene you view, For if you pity wretchedness and pain, God will the more incline to pity you. You see us hang here, half a dozen who Indulged the flesh in every liberty Till it was pecked and rotted, as you see, And these our bones to dust and ashes fall. Let no one mock our sorry company, But pray to God that He forgive us all. If we have called you brothers, don’t disdain The appellation, though alas it’s true That not all men are equal as to brain, And that our crimes and blunders were not few. Commend us, now that we are dead, unto The Virgin Mary’s son, in hopes that He Will not be sparing of His clemency, But save our souls, which Satan would enthrall. We’re dead now, brothers; show your charity And pray to God that He forgive us all. We have been rinsed and laundered by the rain, And by the sunlight dried and blackened too. Magpie and crow have plucked our eyeballs twain And cropped our eyebrows and the beards we grew. Nor have we any rest at all, for to And fro we sway at the wind’s fantasy, Which has no object, yet would have us be (Pitted like thimbles) at its beck and call. Do not aspire to our fraternity, But pray to God that He forgive us all. Prince Jesus, we implore Your Majesty To spare us Hell’s distress and obloquy; We want no part of what may there befall. And, mortal men, let’s have no mockery, But pray to God that He forgive us all.
by Francois Villon, 1431-1463?
translated from the French by Richard Wilbur
Ballade of Forgiveness
Brothers and sisters, Celestine, Carthusian, or Carmelite, Street-loafers, fops whose buckles shine, Lackeys, and courtesans whose tight Apparel gratifies the sight, And little ladies'-men who trot In tawny boots of dreadful height: I beg forgiveness of the lot. Young whores who flash their teats in sign Of what they hawk for men's delight, Ape-handlers, thieves and, soused with wine, Wild bullies looking for a fight, And Jacks and Jills whose hearts are light, Whistling and joking, talking rot, Street-urchins dodging left and right: I beg forgiveness of the lot. Excepting for those bloody swine Who gave me, many a morn and night, The hardest crusts on which to dine; Henceforth I'll fear them not a mite. I'd belch and fart in their despite, Were I not sitting on my cot. Well, to be peaceful and polite, I beg forgiveness of the lot. May hammers, huge and heavy, smite Their ribs, and likewise cannon-shot. May cudgels pulverize them quite. I beg forgiveness of the lot.
by Francois Villon
translated from the French by Richard Wilbur
[CLICK TO SEE FRANCOIS VILLON’S “BALLADE OF THE LADIES OF TIME PAST” (TR. BY RICHARD WILBUR)] CLICK ARROWS AT SIDE OF FIRST PAGE TO SEE MORE
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore (20 June 1786 – 23 July 1859) was born in Douai [Flanders]]. Following the French Revolution, her father’s business was ruined, and she traveled with her mother to Guadeloupe in search of financial help from a distant relative. Marceline’s mother died of yellow fever there, and the young girl somehow made her way back to France. At age 16, back in Douai, she began a career on stage. In 1817 she married her husband, the actor Prosper Lanchantin-Valmore.
She published Élégies et Romances, her first poetic work, in 1819. Her melancholy, elegiacal poems are admired for their grace and profound emotion.
Marceline appeared as an actress and singer in Douai, Rouen, the Opéra-Comique in Paris, and the Théâtre de la Monnaie in Brussels, where she notably played Rosine in Beaumarchais’s Le Barbier de Séville. She retired from the stage in 1823. She later became friends with the novelist Honoré de Balzac, and he once wrote that she was an inspiration for the title character of La Cousine Bette.
The publication of her innovative volume of elegies in 1819 marks her as one of the founders of French romantic poetry. Her poetry is also known for taking on dark and depressing themes, which reflects her troubled life. She is the only female writer included in the famous Les Poètes maudits anthology published by Paul Verlaine in 1884. A volume of her poetry was among the books in Friedrich Nietzsche’s library.–condensed from Wikipedia.com
IN THE STREET
on a day of funerals at Lyon*
THE WOMAN We have run out of money to bury our dead. The priest is there, figuring what the price will be, And the corpses stretched out, holed by artillery, Want a shroud, a cross, remorseful words to be said. Murder is king. The victor whistles as he goes To the Treasury, to be paid for blood he shed. He has shed plenty, but his hand is not tired From fighting. There was no fighting at all, God knows. God picked up each soul like a perishing flower. Women and children went flying up to the skies, And men…there they are, in blood up to their eyes. Angry souls, too many to be borne by the air. They don’t want to leave their members behind, the dead. The priest is there, figuring what the price will be, And the corpses stretched out, holed by artillery, Want a shroud, a cross, remorseful words to be said. Those who are still alive do not know where to go. A paid sentinel in the middle of the way, Death is a soldier who aims and they take away The rebel who would stand witness tomorrow. THE WOMEN Let us take our black ribbons, and wear one on the arm. It has been forbidden to take the pale remains Of our murdered. They have heaped them on the stones. God bless them all! They were all of them unarmed.
by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1786-1859; translated from the French by
*funerals at Lyon: Lyon was again convulsed by violence when, during the French Revolution, the citizenry rose up against the National Convention and supported the Girondins. The city was besieged by Revolutionary armies for over two months before surrendering in October 1793. Many buildings were destroyed, especially around the Place Bellecour, while Jean-Marie Collot d’Herbois and Joseph Fouché administered the execution of more than 2,000 people. –Wikipedia.com
APART
Do not write. I am sad, and want my light put out. Summers in your absence are as dark as a room. I have closed my arms again. They must do without. To knock at my heart is like knocking at a tomb. Do not write! Do not write. Let us learn to die as best we may. Did I love you? Ask God. Ask yourself. Do you know? To hear that you love me when you are far away, Is like hearing from heaven and never to go. Do not write! Do not write. I fear you. I fear to remember, For memory holds the voice I have often heard. To the one who cannot drink, do not show water, The beloved one’s picture in the handwritten word. Do not write! Do not write those gentle words that I dare not see, It seems that your voice is spreading them on my heart, Across your smile, on fire, they appear to me, It seems that a kiss is printing them on my heart. Do not write!
by Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1786-1859; translated from the French by
COMPLAINT ON THE OBLIVION OF THE DEAD
Ladies and gentlemen Whose mother is no more, The old gravedigger Scratches at your door. Six feet down Is a dead man's place; He hardly ever Shows his face. You blow smoke into your beer, You wind up your love affair, Yonder crows chanticleer, Poor dead beyond the pale! His finger at his temple, Look at Grandpa half asleep, Sister busy with her knitting, Mother turning up the lamp. One who is dead Is quite discreet, He goes to bed Right in the street. The meal was good, was it? Now how is everything? The little stillborn Get almost no fondling. On one side of your ledger Enter the cost of the dance; On the other, the undertakers fee To make your books balance. Life's a ditty With a hey-nonny-no. Eh what, my pretty, Do you find it so? Ladies and gentlemen, Whose sister is no more, Open up for the gravedigger Who raps at your door. Show him no pity, He will come all the same To drag you out by the heels When the moon is full. Importunate wind, Howl on. Where are the dead? They're gone.
by Jules Laforgue, 1860-1887; translated from French by William Jay Smith
ANOTHER COMPLAINT OF LORD PIERROT
The one who keeps me informed how a woman feels, I shall say to her first, with my least frigid air, “The sum of the angles of a triangle equals Two right angles, my dear.” And if this cry escapes her: “God, how I love you!” “God rewards his own.” Or sadly contemplative: “Keyboards have a heart. My theme is always of you.” I: “All is relative.” With blazing eyes, aware of being tedious: “Ah, you don’t love me! But so many others do!” I with an eye racing toward the Unconscious: “Well enough, thanks. And you?” “Let’s see which can be more faithful.” “What’s the idea?” “The one who loses wins.” Then another couplet: “Ah, you would be the first to grow tired, I swear . . .” “Go ahead. Place your bet.” Finally, still pretending that I don’t believe, If one evening she should die, and not make a fuss, I shall say, “How so? We had what it takes to live! Then it was serious?”
by Jules Laforgue, 1860-1887; translated from French by Louis Simpson
The Coffeehouse Philosopher
People differ the way one coffee bean in a sack will differ from another when they’re spooned into some expresso machine to meet the fate they all come to together. They go round and round, behind, before, always changing place; they’ve barely begun when there they go through that iron door that crushes them into powder, all one. So all the people live on this earth, mixed together by fate, swirled around and changing places, bumping along from birth. not knowing or caring why, some out of breath, some taking it easy, all sinking toward the ground to be gulped down by the throat of death.
–Giuseppi Gioacchino Belli, 1791–1863; translated from the Romanesco dialect of Italian by Miller Williams
GREED
When I watch folks of this world and see how widespread It is for those, that pile up treasure and put on fat, to chafe At the bit and grasp for more, the way they hunger for a safe As broad as the ocean, and so deep, that it’d never touch the seabed, I say to myself: ah, you herd of blind fools, bank away, bank, Ruining your days with anxieties, lose night after night of sleep, Do shady deals and diddle: then what? Old Granpa Time’ll creep In with his scythe, and slice away at your bundle of plans, hank after hank. Death’s hidden away, and hunkers inside the clock-tower; And no one can say: Tomorrow, once more I’ll Still hear midday ring out like today, at this very same hour. What’s the poor pilgrim do when he takes on a rough and tough Journey, knowing he’ll travel but for a little while? He packs a crust or two of bread, and that’s enough.
–Giuseppi Gioacchino Belli, 1791–1863; translated from the Romanesco dialect of Italian by Peter Nicholas Dale
THE SOUL
What are souls? They are a kind of air. Just as winds that blow the plains and hills are sometimes coarse and sometimes light and fair, there are light and ordinary souls. The first are held for royalty, popes and such, for kings and queens and all their aunts and cousins; the other kind, that ain't worth very much, they're for people counted by the dozen. This world is set on such old titles and castes, but there's a fear inside the banquet halls that in the next it'll turn like an apple tart. Because Christ, and Peter his bodyguard, are going to remember as long as God lasts the rank of the man who put him on the cross.
–Giuseppi Gioacchino Belli, 1791–1863; translated from the Romanesco dialect of Italian by Miller Williams
The Confessor (Er confessore)
Father… - Say the confiteor. - I said it.- The act of contrition? - I already done it.- Continue, then. - I said crazy prick To my husband, and I lifted four bits.- Then? - For a pot my cat broke on me I said before I knew it: ‘‘Goddam you!’’ I know, it’s a critter of God! - What else? – Well, I went to bed with a young man that I know.- And what happened there? - A bit of everything.- That is? The usual way, I should imagine. – And from the rear… - Oh, what a ghastly sin! Therefore, because of this young man, return, My daughter, with a heart fully contrite, Tomorrow, at my own house, around midnight.
–Giuseppi Gioacchino Belli, 1791–1863; translated from the Romanesco dialect of Italian by Harold Norse
Robert Hass: Here is the famous poem of 1948. It’s about an eel. Montale caught them as a boy. In the poem, intricately, their murky gold color is caught in light reflected from the chestnut trees of Romagna: It is an image of a world come back to life — an image, by the end of the poem, of the light in an almost mythical woman’s eyes:
THE EEL
The eel, siren of cold seas, who leaves the Baltic for our seas, our estuaries, rivers, rising deep beneath the downstream flood from branch to branch, from twig to smaller twig, ever more inward, bent on the heart of rock, infiltrating muddy rills until one day light glancing off the chestnuts fires her flash in stagnant pools, in the ravines cascading down the Apennine escarpments to Romagna; eel, torch, whiplash, arrow of Love on earth, whom only our gullies or desiccated Pyrenean brooks lead back to Edens of generation; green spirit seeking life where only drought and desolation sting; spark that says that everything begins when everything seems charcoal, buried stump; brief rainbow, iris, twin to the one your lashes frame and you set shining virginal among the sons of men, sunk in your mire -- can you fail to see her as a sister?
By Eugenio Montale; translated from Italian by Jonathan Galassi
FROM `COLLECTED POEMS, FROM 1916-1956″ REPRINTED BY PERMISSION OF FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX, INC.
The Storm
Les princes n'ont point d'yeux pour voir ces grand's merveilles, Leurs mains ne servent plus qu' à nous persécuter . . . (Agrippa D' Aubigné: À Dieu) The storm that trickles its long March thunderclaps, its hail, onto the stiff leaves of the magnolia tree; (sounds of shaking crystal which startle you in your nest of sleep; and the gold snuffed on the mahogany, on the backs of the bound books, flares again like a grain of sugar in the shell of your eyelids) the lightning that blanches the trees and walls, freezing them like images on a negative (a benediction and destruction you carry carved within you, a condemnation that binds you stronger to me than any love, my strange sister): and then the tearing crash, the jangling sistrums, the rustle of tambourines in the dark ditch of the night, the tramp, scrape, jump of the fandango. . .and overhead some gesture that blindly is groping. . . as when turning around, and, sweeping clear your forehead of its cloud of hair, you waved to me--and entered the dark.
by Eugenio Montale; translated from Italian by Charles Wright
The Lemon Trees
Listen: the laureled poets stroll only among shrubs with learned names: ligustrum, acanthus, box. What I like are streets that end in grassy ditches where boys snatch a few famished eels from drying puddles: paths that struggle along the banks, then dip among the tufted canes, into the orchards, among the lemon trees. Better, if the gay palaver of the birds is stilled, swallowed by the blue: more clearly now, you hear the whisper of genial branches in that air barely astir, the sense of that smell inseparable from earth, that rains its restless sweetness in the heart. Here, by some miracle, the war of conflicted passions is stilled, here even we the poor share the riches of the world— the smell of the lemon trees. See, in these silences when things let themselves go and seem almost to reveal their final secret, we sometimes expect to discover a flaw in Nature, the world's dead point, the link that doesn't hold, the thread that, disentangled, might at last lead us to the center of a truth. The eye rummages, the mind pokes about, unifies, disjoins in the fragrance that grows as the day closes, languishing. These are the silences where we see in each departing human shade some disturbed Divinity. But the illusion dies, time returns us to noisy cities where the sky is only patches of blue, high up, between the cornices. Rain wearies the ground; over the buildings winter's tedium thickens. Light grows niggardly, the soul bitter. And, one day, through a gate ajar, among the trees in a courtyard, we see the yellows of the lemon trees; and the heart's ice thaws, and songs pelt into the breast and trumpets of gold pour forth epiphanies of Light!
by Eugenio Montale; translated from Italian by William Arrowsmith, Cuttlefish Bones, Norton
from “Cuttlefish Bones”
Bring me the sunflower, let me plant it in my field parched by the salt sea wind, and let it show the blue reflecting sky the yearning of its yellow face all day. Dark things tend to brightness, bodies die out in a flood of colors, colors in music. So disappearing is the destiny of destinies. Bring me the plant that leads the way to where blond transparencies rise, and life as essence turns to haze; bring me the sunflower crazed with light.
by Eugenio Montale; translated from Italian by Jonathan Galassi
From Poems: Montale published by Everyman’s Library, 2020
[CLICK TO SEE JORGE GUILLEN’S “THE HORSES” (TR. RICHARD WILBUR)]
I WANT TO SLEEP
I shall be still stronger. Still clearer, purer, so let The sweet invasion of oblivion come on. I want to sleep. If I could forget myself, if I were only A tranquil tree. Branches to spread out the silence. Trunk of mercy. The great darkness, grown motherly, Deepens little by little. Brooding over this body that the soul — After a pause — surrenders. It may even embark from the endless world. From its accidents. And, scattering into stars at the last. The soul will be daybreak. Abandoning myself to my accomplice. My boat, I shall reach on my ripples and mists Into the dawn. I do not want to dream of useless phantoms, I do not want a cave. Let the huge moonless spaces Hold me apart, and defend me. Let me enjoy so much harmony Thanks to the ignorance Of this being, that is so secure It pretends to be nothing. Night with its darkness, solitude with its peace. Everything favors My delight in the emptiness That soon will come. Emptiness, O paradise Rumored about so long: Sleeping, sleeping, growing alone Very slowly. Darken me, erase me. Blessed sleep. As I lie under a heaven that mounts Its guard over me. Earth, with your darker burdens. Drag me back down. Sink my being into my being: Sleep, sleep.
by Jorge Guillen, 1893-1984; translated from the Spanish by James Wright
Prayer
You are here on earth, our Father, for I see you in the pine needle, in the blue torso of the worker, in the small girl who embroiders with bent shoulder, mixing the thread on her finger. Our Father here on earth, in the furrow, in the orchard, in the mine, in the seaport, in the movie house, in the wine, in the house of the doctor. Our Father here on earth, where you have your glory and your hell, and your limbo in the cafes where the rich have their cool drink. Our Father who sits in school without paying, you are in the groceryman, and in the man who is hungry, and in the poet--never in the usurer! Our Father here on earth, reading on a bench of the Prado, you are the old man feeding breadcrumbs to the birds on the walk. Our Father here on earth, in the cigarette, in the kiss, in the grain of wheat, in the hearts of all those who are good. Father who can live anywhere, God who moves into any loneliness, You who quiet our anguish, here on earth, Our Father, yes we see you, those of us who will see you soon, wherever you are, or there in heaven.
by Gloria Fuertes; translated from Spanish by John Haines
THE ETERNAL DICE
God of mine, I am weeping for the life that I live; I am sorry to clutch at your bread; but this wretched, thinking piece of clay is not a crust leavened in your side: you have no Mary-candles to darken! My God, had you been man, you, today, would know how to be God; but you always lived so well, that now you feel nothing of your own creation. The man who suffers you--is God! Today, when there are candles in my dazed eyes, as in the eyes of a condemned man, My God, you will light all your lamps, and we will play with the old dice . . . My God, when the whole universe is thrown, maybe the circled eyes of Death will turn up, like two final aces of clay. My God, in this muffled, dark night, you can’t play anymore, because the earth is already a die nicked and rounded, worn from rolling by chance, and it can stop only in a hollow place, in the hollow of the enormous grave.
by Cesar Vallejo, 1892-1938; translated from Spanish (Peru) by James Wright
THE BIG MYSTICAL CIRCUS
Frederick Knieps, Physician of the Bed-Chamber to the Empress Theresa, resolved that his son also should be a doctor, but the youth, having established relations with Agnes, the tightrope artist, married her and founded the circus dynasty of Knieps with which the newspapers are so much concerned. Charlotte, the daughter of Frederick, married the clown, whence sprang Marie and Otto. Otto married Lily Braun, the celebrated contortionist, who had a saint's image tattooed on her belly. The daughter of Lily Braun—she of the tattooed belly— wanted to enter a convent, but Otto Frederick Knieps would not consent, and Margaret continued the circus dynasty with which the newspapers are so much concerned. Then Margaret had her body tattooed, suffering greatly for the love of God, and caused to be engraved on her rosy skin the Fourteen Stations of our Lord's Passion. No tiger ever attacked her; the lion Nero, who had already eaten two ventriloquists, when she entered his cage nude, wept like a new-born babe. Her husband, the trapeze artist Ludwig, never could love her thereafter, because the sacred engravings obliterated both her skin and his desire. Then the pugilist Rudolph, who was an atheist and a cruel man, attacked Margaret and violated her. After this, he was converted and died. Margaret bore two daughters who are the wonder of Knieps' Great Circus. But the greatest of miracles is their virginity, against which bankers and gentlemen with monocles beat in vain; their levitations, which the audience thinks a fraud; their chastity, in which nobody believes; their magic, which the simple-minded say is the devil's; yet the children believe in them, are their faithful followers, their friends, their devoted worshipers. Marie and Helene perform nude; they dance on the wire and so dislocate their limbs that their arms and legs no longer appear their own. The spectators shout encore to thighs, encore to breasts, encore to armpits. Marie and Helene give themselves wholly, and are shared by cynical men; but their souls, which nobody sees, they keep pure. And when they display their limbs in the sight of men, they display their souls in the sight of God. With the true history of Knieps' Great Circus the newspapers are very little concerned.
by Jorge de Lima; translated from Portguese (Brazil) by Dudley Poore
THE RIVER AND THE SERPENT
The river and the serpent are mysterious, my son. On the top of the mountain Were two circles of the Eternal. One circle was the serpent. The other circle was the river: Both precipitated, Both came searching for man, One to purify him, The other to poison him.. Down there they both found The simple man. One offered him the Fish to feed him, The other offered him the fruit to intoxicate him. The river and the serpent are mysterious, my son. From the clowds they precipitated, Both are crawling on the earth Like the two ways of man, For him to choose as his guide. The river and the serpent are mysterious my son: They come from the beginning of things, They run towards the end of everything And sometimes in the water of the river You will find the black serpent. Things were simple, my son, But they became confused: The river that washes you Can also drown you, For under the appearance of the river Slides the serpent. The river and the serpent are mysterious, my son: In the brightening they were two circles, From there they came uncoiled.
by Jorge de Lima; translated from Portguese (Brazil) by John Nist with the help of Yolanda Leite
[CLICK HERE TO SEE “ON MY CHILD’S DEATH” BY JOSEPH VON EICHENDORFF, 1788-1857 (Trans. W. D. SNODGRASS)]
THE DIVORCE
At first it was only an imperceptible quivering of the skin – ‘As you wish’ – where the flesh is darkest. ‘What’s wrong with you?’ – Nothing. Milky dreams of embraces; next morning, though, the other looks different, strangely bony. Razor-sharp misunderstandings. ‘That time, in Rome –’ I never said that. A pause. And furious palpitations, a sort of hatred, strange. ‘That’s not the point.’ Repetitions. Radiantly clear, this certainty: From now on all is wrong. Odourless and sharp, like a passport photo, this unknown person with a glass of tea at table, with staring eyes. It’s no good, no good, no good: litany in the head, a slight nausea. End of reproaches. Slowly the whole room Fills with guilt right up to the ceiling. This complaining voice is strange, only not the shoes that drop with a bang, not the shoes. Next time, in an empty restaurant, slow motion, bread crumbs, money is discussed, laughing. The dessert tastes of metal. Two untouchables. Shrill reasonableness. ‘Not so bad really.’ But at night the thoughts of vengeance, the silent fight, anonymous like two bony barristers, two large crabs in water. Then the exhaustion. Slowly the scab peels off. A new tobacconist, a new address. Pariahs, horribly relieved. Shades growing paler. These are the documents. This is the bunch of keys. This is the scar.
by Hans Magnus Enzensberger, translated from German by Michael Hamburger
HONG KONG 1997
Have you seen the builders of this city, illiterate acrobats climbing up skyhigh on bamboo scaffolding? Have you bought the cheapest jeans and slept in the most expensive beds on earth? Did you cough in the incense-filled temples and smell the clouds of French perfume hanging over the sewers? Have you heard the clatter of gambling dens and the roar at the stock exchange? And the tourists, did you notice them rubbing their eyes, exhausted from shopping, like giant pink shrimps behind tinted bus windows? No. This town, in which a thousand flowers wither, which has got over its Great Leap Forward long ago, is beyond belief. It is a phantom, a portent, a hallucination, a science-fiction opera, a miraculous fake.
by Hans Magnus Enzenberger, 1929- ; translated from German by Anni Dyck
[CLICK HERE TO SEE “FORSAKEN GIRL” BY EDUARD MORIKE, 1804-1875 (trans. RANDALL JARRELL)]
Anxiety for the Future
Korf, whom worry easily attacks, Can already see the skies Filled by balloons of every size, So all day he prepares whole stacks Of draughts for bylaws and statutes Of a society for resolute Maintenance of a zone designed To keep balloon-egress confined. Yet even now he can smell doom: His club already falls behind; The air, it seems to him, goes blind, All the landscape turns gloom and tomb. Therefore he puts down his pen, Turns on the light (they all will, THEN!) And goes at once to Palmstrom's place; They sit together, face to face. After four long hours, finally, This nightmare is overcome. First to break the spell is Palmstrom: "Be a man now, Korf;" says he, "You've got hold of the wrong era; As yet, this is a vain chimera That tricks your intellect away, Bobbing over your head today." Korf recovers his own clear sight– No one is flying in the golden light! He snuffs his candle, silently; Then, points to the sun suddenly And speaks: "If not today, sometime! One day you will no longer shine, At least for us–it makes one's teeth Chatter–the masses underneath! . . ." Thereafter, von Korf once again Sits in his room and takes his pen Drawing up a vast design For the protection of sunshine.
by Christian Morgenstern, 1871-1914; translated from the German by W. D. Snodgrass
SUMMONS
Korf receives one day from the coppers one of those B-9 forms, so-called because they aren't: Who? Where? How? Why? And other such stumpers and stoppers. Married? Single? Divorced? Separated? Other? (Supply all relevant and requisite documentation to support these claims.) And the Maiden Name of your Mother? Visa? Permit de sejour? Papieren? Pass? Credit rating? Or bluntly and plainly, are you a legitimate person or are you perhaps nothing? A no-one? A member even of the torturable class? Failure to fill out the form will subject the subject to penalties only some of which are specified hereinunder— forfeitures, fines, confinement, etc. Signed, Oberuntergruppenfüher Hecht. Clearing his throat, with a discreet, "Korf!" he replies, "I insist, on my right, notwithstanding any covenants and codicils to the contrary, and as the party of the first part, to deny that I officially exist." Agape, aghast, a-gasp, the deputy superintendent clutches in what could be a coronary.
by Christian Morgenstern, 1871-1914; translated from the German by David R. Slavitt
MAIDS ON SATURDAY
They hang them over the ledge, The carpets large and small; In their minds they start to beat Up masters, one and all. Wild with satisfaction, In rage and berserk, They cool their souls off for One week full of hard work. They beat an infernal rhythm Until their canes split; Ears at the front of the house Take no account of it But in the back are wailing, Torn by punch and by thump, The runners, the Persian pillows, The eiderdown, German and plump.
by Christian Morgenstern,1871-1914; translated from the German by Lore Segal and W. D. Snodgrass. From Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology, edited by Paula Deitz, with an introduction by Mark Jarman. © 2013 by Syracuse University.
PALMSTROM
Palmstrom, standing beside the brook, Unfolds a handkerchief wide and red On which a mighty oak is shown And someone with an open book. Blow his nose?—he would not dare! For he belongs to that sort of men Who are so often, nakedly, Stricken by beauty, unaware. What he has only just outspread, Tenderly, now, he has to close; No sensitive spirit will condemn Him, marching on with unblown nose.
by Christian Morgenstern, 1871-1914; translated from the German by W. D. Snodgrass
DEATH IS THE TRANQUIL NIGHT
Death is the tranquil night. Life is the sultry day. It darkens; I will sleep now; The light has made me weary. Over my head rises a tree Wherein sings the young nightingale. It sings of constant love. Even in this dream I hear it.
Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856; translated from German by Louise Bogan
TO THE WORLD WE MUST APPEAR
To the world we must appearA most peculiar couple:The lady is weak in the legs,Her lover can barely hobble. She is an ailing kitten, He sick as a dog, and I think Their heads should both be examined By some responsible shrink. "I am a lotus blossom" Is the notion fixed in her brain, While her pallid companion Fancies himself The Moon. She opens her little cup Awaiting the lunar bonanza, But instead of the life-giving touch All she will get is a stanza.
Heinrich Heine, 1797-1856; translated from German by Francis Golffing
A SWARM OF GNATS
Many thousand glittering motes Crowd forward greedily together In trembling circles. Extravagantly carousing away For a whole hour rapidly vanishing, They rave, delirious, a shrill whir, Shivering with joy against death. While kingdoms, sunk into ruin, Whose thrones, heavy with gold, instantly scattered Into night and legend, without leaving a trace, Have never known so fierce a dancing.
by Herman Hesse; translated from German by James Wright
DEPARTURE FROM THE JUNGLE
With my suitcase, I sit on the beach; Below me, on the streamer, Indians, Chinese, Malayans are shouting, Laughing loudly and trading their knickknacks. Behind me, feverish nights, and days Of glowing life, that even now I carry Carefully as treasures in my deepest thoughts, As though I still wet my feet in the jungle stream. I know many countries and cities are still waiting, But never again will the night of the forests, The wild fermenting garden of the earliest world Lure me in, and horrify me with its magnificence. Here in this endless and gleaming wilderness I was removed farther than ever from the world of men-– And I never saw so close and so clearly The image in the mirror of my own soul.
by Herman Hesse; translated from German by James Wright
WITHOUT YOU
My Pillow gazes upon me at night Empty as a gravestone; I never thought it would be so bitter To be alone, Not to lie down asleep in your hair. I lie alone in a silent house, The hanging lamp darkened, And gently stretch out my hands To gather in yours, And softly press my warm mouth Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak- Then suddenly I'm awake And all around me the cold night grows still. The star in the window shines clearly- Where is your blond hair, Where your sweet mouth? Now I drink pain in every delight And poison in every wine; I never knew it would be so bitter To be alone, Alone, without you.
by Herman Hesse; translated from German by James Wright
THE CITY
You said: “I’ll go to another country, go to another shore, find another city better than this one. Whatever I try to do is fated to turn out wrong and my heart lies buried like something dead. How long can I let my mind moulder in this place? Wherever I turn, wherever I look, I see the black ruins of my life, here, where I’ve spent so many years, wasted them, destroyed them totally.” You won’t find a new country, won’t find another shore. This city will always pursue you. You’ll walk the same streets, grow old in the same neighborhoods, turn gray in these same houses. You’ll always end up in this city. Don’t hope for things elsewhere: there’s no ship for you, there’s no road. Now that you’ve wasted your life here, in this small corner, you’ve destroyed it everywhere in the world.
by C. P. Cavafy; translated from the Greek by Edmund Keeley
from C.P. Cavafy: Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Translation Copyright © 1975, 1992 by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Reproduced with permission of Princeton University Press.
THE AFTERNOON SUN
This room, how well I know it. Now they’re renting it, and the one next to it, as offices. The whole house has become an office building for agents, businessmen, companies. This room, how familiar it is. The couch was here, near the door, a Turkish carpet in front of it. Close by, the shelf with two yellow vases. On the right—no, opposite—a wardrobe with a mirror. In the middle the table where he wrote, and the three big wicker chairs. Beside the window the bed where we made love so many times. They must still be around somewhere, those old things. Beside the window the bed; the afternoon sun used to touch half of it. . . . One afternoon at four o’clock we separated for a week only. . . And then— that week became forever.