quillori

Girl With The Dark Hair
Anon, trans W.S. Merwin

      Girl with the dark hair
If you are asleep, be warned:
( Half of our life is a dream )

from The Harper's Song For Inherkhawy
Egyptian, trans John L. Foster

All who come into being as flesh
           pass on, and have since God walked the earth;
                and young blood mounts to their places.
The busy fluttering souls and bright transfigured spirits
      who people the world below
                     and those who shine in the stars with Orion,
They built their mansions, they built their tombs –
      and all men rest in the grave.
So set your home well in the sacred land
           that your good name last because of it
Care for your works in the realm under God
           that your seat in the West be splendid.
The waters flow north, the wind blows south,
and each man goes to his hour.

Sir Patrick Spens
Anon

The king sits in Dumferling toune,
      Drinking the blude-reid wine:
‘O whar will I get a guid sailor,
      To sail this schip of mine?’

( Up and spak an eldern knicht )

The Seven
Anon (Akkadian), trans Jerome Rothenberg

They are 7 in number, just 7
In the terrible depths they are 7
Bow down, in the sky they are 7

( In the terrible depths, the dark houses )

Today’s poem, Jonson’s Hymn To Cynthia reminded me of a section in the introduction to John Brough’s Poems From The Sanskrit in which he demonstrates the difficulties of translation by ‘translating’ this same poem into various other English versions:

( Extract here )

( Hymn To Cynthia )

from The Wanderer
trans Michael Alexander

A wise man may grasp how ghastly it shall be
when all this world's wealth standeth waste,
even as now, in many places, over the earth
walls stand, wind beaten,
hung with hoar-frost; ruined habitations.
( The wine-halls crumble; their wielders lie )

Absence
Matthew Arnold

In this fair stranger's eyes of grey
Thine eyes, my love! I see.
I shiver; for the passing day
( Had borne me far from thee. )

Herewith two of Du Bellay's poems on Rome, one translated by Ezra Pound, the other by Yvor Winters. Also to be found below the cut are the same two poems translated by Spenser and, rather more recently (2002), Norman Shapiro. I admit that this is a little unfair to Shapiro, but then if you translate things you are pretty much bound to have your work put in comparison to its predecessors. Personally, I really love comparing translations. Here and here are the originals, saving me from having to type them out, and yet another translation, though not one I'd recommend.

Nouvaeu venu, qui cherches Rome en Rome
Joachim du Bellay, trans Ezra Pound

O thou new comer who seek'st Rome in Rome
And find'st in Rome no thing thou canst call Roman;
Arches worn old and palaces made common,
Rome's name alone within these walls keeps home.

Behold how pride and ruin can befall
One who hath set the whole world 'neath her laws,
All-conquering, now conqueréd because
She is Time's prey and Time consumeth all.

Rome thou art Rome's one sole last monument,
Rome that alone hast conquered Rome the town,
Tiber alone, transient and seaward bent,
Remains of Rome. O world, thou unconstant mime!
That which stands firm in thee Time batters down,
And that which fleeteth doth outrun swift Time.

( trans Norman R. Shapiro )
( trans Edmund Spenser )

Toy qui de Rome emerveillé contemples
Joachim du Bellay, trans Yvor Winters

You, who behold in wonder Rome and all
Her former passion, menacing the gods,
These ancient palaces and baths, the sods
Of seven hills, and temple, arch and wall,
        Consider in the ruins of her fall,
That which destroying Time has gnawed away –
What workmen built with labour day by day
Only a few worn fragments now recall.

        Then look again and see where, endlessly
Treading upon her own antiquity,
Rome has rebuilt herself with works as just:
        There you may see the demon of the land
Forcing himself with fatal hand
To raise the city from this ruined dust.

( trans Norman R. Shapiro )
( trans Edmund Spenser )

Gretel In Darkness
Louise Gluck

This is the world we wanted.
All who would have seen us dead
Are dead. I hear the witch's cry
Break in the moonlight through a sheet of sugar: God rewards.
Her tongue shrivels into gas....

        Now, far from women's arms,
And memory of women, in our father's hut
We sleep, are never hungry.
Why do I not forget?
My father bars the door, bars harm
From this house, and it is years.

No one remembers. Even you, my brother.
Summer afternoons you look at me as though you meant
To leave, as though it never happened. But I killed for you.
I see armed firs, the spires of that gleaming kiln come back, come back -
Nights I turn to you to hold me but you are not there.
Am I alone? Spies
Hiss in the stillness, Hansel we are there still, and it is real, real,
That black forest, and the fire in earnest.