Monday 18 March 2024

Pierre de Ronsard: 'Comme on voit sur la branche...'

 


Comme on voit sur la branche au mois de may la rose,

En sa belle jeunesse, en sa premiere fleur,

Rendre le ciel jaloux de sa vive couleur,

Quand l’Aube de ses pleurs au poinct du jour l’arrose;

 

La grace dans sa feuille, et l’amour se repose,

Embasmant les jardins et les arbres d’odeur;

Mais batue ou de pluye, ou d’excessive ardeur,

Languissante elle meurt, fueille à fueille déclose.

 

Ainsi en ta premiere et jeune nouveauté,

Quand la Terre et le Ciel honoraient ta beauté,

La Parque t'a tuee, et cendre tu reposes.

 

Pour obseques reçoy mes larmes et mes pleurs,

Ce vase plein de laict, ce panier plein de fleurs,

Afin que vif et mort ton corps ne soit que roses.

 

 

As one perceives the rose on every branch in May

In all its youthful beauty and in early flower,

Its brightness making jealousy the skies devour,

When Dawn with tears refreshes it at break of day;

 

Grace in its petals lies, there love too does repose,

Filling the trees and gardens with its fragrant scent;

But soon by rain or by excess of fervour spent,

It languishes as wilting petals all expose. 

 

Thus in your first and early freshness all ablaze,

When Earth and Sky your beauty honoured and did praise,

Did Fate devise your death, your ashes did contrive.

 

As obsequies receive these tears in copious showers

This vase brimful of milk, this basket full of flowers,

So that, alive or dead, as roses you survive.

 

For more information about the poem, go to here 

 

 


Saturday 16 March 2024

Pierre de Ronsard: 'Pour son tombeau'

Prieuré San-Cosme

 

POUR SON TOMBEAU

 

Ronsard repose icy, qui hardy dés enfance

Détourna d’Helicon les Muses en la France,

Suivant le son du luth et les traits d’Apollon:

Mais peu valut sa Muse encontre l’eguillon

De la mort, qui cruelle en ce tombeau l’enserre.

Son ame soit à Dieu, son corps soit à la terre.

 

 

FOR HIS TOMB

 

Ronsard is lying here, whose early daring stance

The Muses did divert from Helicon to France,

The lute’s sound and Apollo’s traits his chosen road:

But little could his Muse when pit against the goad

Of death, who him did seal most cruelly in this tomb.

May his soul be with God, may earth his corpse consume.

 

Lars Gustafsson: 'Triviala kunskaper'

 

TRIVIALA KUNSKAPER

 

Olivolja är ett utmärkt

rostborttagningsmedel.

 

Enskilda händelser saknar sannolikhet.

De är punktformiga.

 

Alltså:

Även jag saknar sannolikhet.

 

De döda vet inte

att de någonsin har funnits.

 

Tiden kan inte ha börjat med universum.

Tiden kan inte ha en början.

 

Ty en början är alltid en händelse.

 

               *

 

Hästar har mycket svårt att sova

om de lämnas ensamma ute om natten.

 

Hästar bevakar varandras sömn.

 

Personer med stört modersförhållande

blir poeter.

 

Personer med stört fadersförhållande

blir tjatiga.

 

 

TRIVIAL PIECES OF KNOWLEDGE

 

Olive oil is a splendid agent

for removing rust.

 

Individual events lack probability.

They are point-formed.

 

Thus

I lack probability too.

 

The dead do not know

that they have ever existed.

 

Time cannot have begun with the universe.

Time cannot have a beginning.

 

For a beginning is always an event.

 

               *

 

Horses find it very hard to sleep

if they are left out alone at night.

 

Horses watch over each other’s sleep.

 

People with a disturbed mother relationship

become poets.

 

People with a disturbed father relationship

become tedious. 

 

Lars Gustafsson: 'Beskrifning öfver Norbergs bergslag'

 

BESKRIFNING ÖFVER NORBERGS BERGSLAG

 

De mycket mörka vattnen kommer mycket långsamt

ut ur skogen och har en besk smak

 

Jättelika svarta kräftor rör sig vacklande

över stenar och stenar, mitt över strömmen

 

svävar en stare, och det är tusen år

för tidigt eller tusen år för sent.

 

Svarta vattenfyllda gruvhål i avlägsna kullar

sträcker sig djupare ned än kyrkornas torn

 

och trevar efter något

 

Jättelikt järnbeslaget trä murknar

under en grönska som är alltför tät:

 

hallon och ormar

 

De medeltida bergsmännens hackor sitter fast i träden

 

Hela trakten väntar

 

Snart skall det börja igen

 

 

DESCRIPTION OF THE NORBERG MINING DISTRICT

 

The very black waters come very slowly

out of the forest and have an acrid taste

 

Gigantic black crayfish lurch uncertainly

over stones and stones, midway above the river

 

a starling hovers, and it is a thousand years

too early or a thousand years too late.

 

Black, inundated pits in distant hills

stretch farther down than the towers of churches

 

groping for something

 

Gigantic iron-encrusted wood decays

beneath verdure that is far too dense:

 

raspberries and snakes

 

The mattocks of medieval miners are still stuck in the trees

 

The whole region is waiting

 

Soon it will begin again

 

Friday 15 March 2024

Ezra de Haan: 'De blinde Gids'

 

DE BLINDE GIDS

 

Laat mij je leidsman zijn

degene die op de tast

zijn weg vindt

 

Laat mij, de niet-ziende

maar alwetende

vertellen waarom de wereld draait

en er geen licht oplaait

achter de donkere glazen

van mijn bril

 

Laat mij getuigen van mijn ogen

de zintuigen zonder zin

het gevoel te zijn

door vingertoppen

zodra het licht ontbreekt

 

Laat mij de drager zijn

van al je zorgen

de tranen en angst

die ik niet zie

 

Laat mijn tong

het woord voor je doen

tot we weten waarheen het voert

 

Laat mij je geleiden

en je gelijke zijn,

de tunnel tot het licht.

 

 

THE BLIND GUIDE

 

Let me be your leader

the one who uses touch

to find his way

 

Let me, non-seeing

but omniscient 

relate why the world turns

and no light flares up

behind the dark lenses

of my glasses

 

Let me give evidence from my eyes

the senses without sense

the feeling of existing

through fingertips

as soon as light is lacking

 

Let me be the bearer

of all your sorrows

the tears and fears

that I do not see

 

Let my tongue

speak in your name

until we know where it leads

 

Let me lead you

and be your equal,

the tunnel to the light.

 

 

Translated in collaboration with Albert Hagenaars

Poetic Synapses 12

 

Erik Heyman: 'Mantis i.'

 

MANTIS

 

Beelden van Michel Janssens

 

i.

 

Een man dacht een vrouw

bij elkaar en verleende

bestaan aan geweten en

tijd. Hij wuifde de dood uit

 

haar oog en verdunde haar

mond. Ooit onder de aarde

verliest zij de sporen. Hij

toonde geen woord meer

 

maar richtte haar op uit de

grond. Hij weet nu: ze kijkt op

hem neer als een zoon die

zij niet meer kan horen.

 

 

MANTIS

 

Statues by Michel Janssens

 

i.

 

A man put together a woman

in his mind and granted

her conscience and

time. He waved death

 

out of her eyes and thinned out

her mouth. Once beneath the earth

she’ll lose the traces. He

showed not a word more

 

but raised her up out of the

ground. He now knows: she looks

down at him like a son that

she no longer can hear.

 

Translated in collaboration with Albert Hagenaars

Poetic Synapses 11

 

 

Thursday 14 March 2024

Lars Gustafsson: 'Carl Fredrik Hill besöker Lake Buchanan'

 

Carl Fredrik Hill, 1875

CARL FREDRIK HILL BESÖKER LAKE BUCHANAN

 

‘Den nya skolan’, skriver Carl Fredrik Hill

i brev, från Montigny till Lund, i juni 1876,

 

‘går ut på att blott utföra en bit i tavlan

och sudda resten.’ Nu är det juni 1989,

 

och i dag är det just så naturen målar,

också den en envis mästare som snart förvirras.

 

En ensam pelikan går nära vatten under tropikgrå

himmel. Så tungt hans vingar slår!

 

Detta sorgsna innanhav har nu lagt an sin

julifärg; ett utsmält silver i en silverdimma.

 

Alkemi. I det hermetiska kärlet pågår nu

och sedan länge grundämnens förvandlingar.

 

Ja, silver över det varma bleket.

Att simma runt båten är som att simma i tevatten.

 

Den är inte ankrad. Det är alltför stilla.

Dessutom skulle ingen ankarlina räcka till.

 

Det är några hundra meter här. Också vi,

de simmande, är fåglar. Och märker det inte.

 

Långt borta ljudet av en snabb båt.

Den går i någan annan riktning. I silver. Tro mig

 

det finns platser, både i geografin och i drömmen,

som inte skulle kunna målas på något annat sätt.

 

Så går formen fram ur det formlösa,

och det formlösa ur formen.

 

Mäster Hill! Vad mycket du ändå visste!

Hur självklart var det inte

 

att du sedan måste lägga det i det glömska!

Låta det falla djupt i glömskans vatten.

 

Myntet som singlar i djupet och är borta.

‘Det tjugotal bilder av hans egen hand

 

som fanns i rummet, syntes han sedan

aldrig ägna någon uppmärksamhet.’

 

                      (För Dr. Birgit Rausing)

 

 

CARL FREDRIK HILL VISITS LAKE BUCHANAN

 

‘The new school’, Carl Fredrik Hill writes

in a letter, from Montigny to Lund, in June 1876,

 

‘involves carrying out one part only of the picture

and blurring all the rest.’ Now it is June 1989,

 

and today nature is painting precisely so,

it too a stubborn master soon to be confused.

 

A lone pelican goes at the water’s edge beneath a

tropical-grey sky. So heavily its wings beat!

 

This mournful inland lake has now put on its

July colour – a molten silver in a silver mist.

 

Alchemy. In the hermetic vessel now and for so long

the elements’ transformations are taking place.

 

Yes, silver over the hot dead calm.

To swim round the boat is like swimming in tea-water.

 

It is not anchored. It it far too still.

No anchor line would be sufficient anyway.

 

It’s several hundred metres here. We too,

the swimmers, are birds. And do not notice it.

 

Far off the sound of a speeding boat.

Moving in another direction. In silver. Believe me

 

there are places, in both geography and dreams,

that could not be painted in any other way.

 

So does form emerge out of the formless,

and the formless out of form.

 

Maestro Hill! How much you knew after all!

And how self-evident wasn’t it

 

that you afterwards had to consign it to oblivion!

Let it fall deep into the waters of forgetfulness.

 

The coin that seesaws down into the depths and is gone.

‘The score or so pictures which he did himself

 

that were in the room he apparently never paid

the slightest attention afterwards.’

 

                      (To Dr. Birgit Rausing)

 

Sunday 10 March 2024

ZKV 60



WHITE SPOTS AND WORDWIDEWEBS

 

It’s nice to have a gardener your own age. To chat to about the many eccentricities of life. Today we talk about weeds and the fact that they are still flourishing in mid-October. We mention tiny clover-like plants on flights of stone stairs. Move on to ground elder and the impossibility of excavating the network of white spaghetti under the ground. ‘You can eat ground elder when the shoots are young,’ Jørgen remarks.  I run into a white spot. ‘Yes, and...?’ What are those yellow things in the lawn with jagged leaves called? I get this mental image of tumbleweed. My vocabulary is made up of synonym clusters with the words interlinked, but ground elder, bindweed and other botanical obnoxions have suddenly become unhooked from this weed. ‘You know, yellow flower, jagged leaves.’ But Jørgen has been struck down by the same fate. We stand there, trying vainly to reestablish our respective wordwidewebs. I try my next strategy. ‘Löwenzahn, leeuwetand, lövetann, dandelion – teeth like lions.’ No go. I go Swedish: ‘maskros’. We stand there gawping at each other.

‘I’ll get back to you.’ I walk away, muttering to myself ‘det var fandens!’ (the devil take it!) – and remember that the common Danish expression for the weed is the devil’s dandelion. ‘Fandens mælkebøtte’ I shout back to Jørgen. ‘Yes, and we’re two puffballs’ is his reply.

 

  

Pierre de Ronsard: 'Ah Longues nuicts d'hyver'

The Fall of Ixion by Cornelis van Haarlem



Ah longues nuicts d’hyver de ma vie bourrelles

 

Ah longues nuicts d’hyver de ma vie bourrelles,

Donnez moy patience, et me laissez dormir,

Vostre nom seulement, et suer et fremir

Me fait par tout le corps, tant vous m’estes cruelles.

 

Le sommeil tant soit peu n’esvente de ses ailes

Mes yeux tousjours ouvers, et ne puis affermir

Paupiere sur paupiere, et ne fais que gemir,

Souffrant comme Ixion des peines eternelles.

 

Vieille umbre de la terre, ainçois l’umbre d’enfer,

Tu m’as ouvert les yeux d’une chaisne de fer,

Me consumant au lict, navré de mille pointes:

 

Pour chasser mes douleurs ameine moy la mort,

Ha mort, le port commun, des hommes le confort, 

Viens enterrer mes maux je t’en prie à mains jointes. 

 

 

Ah endless winter nights, tormentors of my life

 

Ah endless winter nights, tormentors of my life,

Please grant me patience and my thirst for sleep now slake,

At your mere name my body starts to sweat and shake,

Your cruelty to me is keenest smart and strife.

 

What little sleep there is with wingbeats fails to ease

My ever open eyes, and I to no avail

Can bring my lids together only moan and wail,

Suffering like Ixion pains that would never cease.

 

Old shadow of the earth, to that of hell allied,

My eyes with iron chain you have held open wide,

Consuming me in bed, by sharp spikes in dismay:

 

To chase my pains away, on death I beg you call,

Ah death, man’s common haven, solace to us all,

Come bury all my woes, with folded hands I pray!