When i started reading this poem earlier i knew it was going to be one of those poems, the ones that make you cry yes! the ones that when they were written you know the microphones were listening. this translation, by geoffery wagner, is not as good as the french (and that's funny that what with the five years of latin reading it in the french actually makes sense. it least there it meters and rhymes), so i may tweak it a bit, but won't transcribe all eight parts.
1.
For the child, adoring cards and stamps,
The universe fulfills its vast appetite.
Ah, how large is the world in the brightness of lamps,
In the eyes of memory how the world is petite!
One morning we leave, brains full of flame,
Hearts full of malice and bitter desires,
And we go, and follow the rhythm of the waves,
Rocking our infinite on the finite of the seas:
Some, happy to escape an infamous country
Others, the horrors of their cradle, and a few,
Astrologers drowned in the eyes of a woman,
Some tyrannical Circe of dangerous perfumes.
So not to be changed into beasts, they get drunk
On space and light and skies on fire;
The ice that bites, the suns that turn them copper,
Slowly efface the mark of kisses.
But the true travelers are they who depart
For departing's sake; hearts light as balloons,
From their destinies they never swerve,
And, without knowing why, say continuously: Let us go on!
These have desires formed like clouds.
And they dream, as a conscript of his gun,
Of vast pleasures, transient, little understood,
Which the human spirit can not name.
ii.
That we imitate, the horror! the top and ball
In their bounding waltzes; even asleep
Curiosity torments and turns us
Like a cruel angel whipping the sun.
Whimsical fortune, whose end is displaced,
And, being nowhere, can be anywhere!
Where Man, in whom hope is never weary,
Runs searching for repose always like a madman.
Our soul is a brigantine seeking its Icarie;
A voice resounds on deck: 'Open your eyes!'
A voice from the maintop, hot and mad, cries:
'Love...glory...fortune!' Hell! is a rock.
Each little island sighted by the lookout man
Is an Eldorado the promise of Destiny;
Imagination, dressing its orgies,
Finds but a reef in the light of morning.
Oh the poor lover of chimerical lands!
Must one put him in irons, throw him in the sea,
This drunken sailor, inventor of Americas
Whose mirages rend the gulfs more bitter?
Thus the old vagabond, tramping through the mud,
Dreams, with his nose in the air, of brilliants paradises;
His bewitched eyes discover a Capua
Wherever a candle glimmers in a hovel.
iii.
Wonderful travelers! what noble histories
We read in your eyes as deep as the seas!
Show us the coffins of your rich memories,
Those marvelous jewels, of stars and stratospheres.
We would travel without wind or sail!
And so, to gladden the boredom of our prisons,
Pass over our spirits, stretched like a canvas,
Your memories with their frames of horizons.
Tell us, what have you seen?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment