Sedulia's Translations

Hofmannsthal: My ancestors are as related to me as my own hair

I still feel their breath on my cheeks:
how can it be that these near days
are gone, gone forever, and completely over?
This is a thing that no one completely thinks out,
and much too horrible to complain about:
that everything slides and trickles away.
And that my own I, with nothing to stop it,
slid over here out of a small child
to me, like a dog, eerily silent and strange.
Then: to think that a hundred years ago, I was,
and my ancestors, in their shrouds,
are as related to me as my own hair,
as one with me as my own hair.

   --Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874-1929)

Über Vergänglichkeit

Noch spür ich ihren Atem auf den Wangen:
Wie kann das sein, daß diese nahen Tage
Fort sind, für immer fort, und ganz vergangen?
Dies ist ein Ding, das keiner voll aussinnt,
Und viel zu grauenvoll, als daß man klage:
Daß alles gleitet und vorüberrinnt.
Und daß mein eigenes Ich, durch nichts gehemmt,
Herüberglitt aus einem kleinen Kind,
Mir wie ein Hund unheimlich stumm und fremd.
Dann: daß ich auch vor hundert Jahren war
Und meine Ahnen, die im Totenhemd,
Mit mir verwandt sind wie mein eigenes Haar,
So eins mit mir als wie mein eignes Haar.

  

Liliane Wouters: To the child I did not have

Will and Testament

For Alain Bosquet

To the child I did not have
but which I received from a man
seventy-seven times and more, to the good child
whose breath and face I formed
seventy-seven times, in a belly like mine,
by nights red with the sun,
by crystalline days of northern dawns,
to the child whose secret initials
I carry inside me, along with your name, Yahweh,
a child conceived, but still unfinished,
that they make in me, that I make, each time I love,
that is undone inside me to give a poem,
to the child that will not come
to close my eyes, to choose the winding-sheet,
to walk behind my weight of bones, of ashes,
to watch me descend into the grave,
to this child I bequeath before God, before
men and my dog, before the living day
(which is only because I am and which will die
as I die) I bequeath, as much as can be,
as much as can be used instead of, in place of
me, its mother and father in one being,
I bequeath all my fleshly and spiritual goods,
of time still counted and of illusory space:

the corner of the sky I have stared at in vain,
the acre of land where I wore out my shoes,
the four walls inside which I stayed,
the six partitions that were their twins;
the money that ran through my fingers--
for the pleasure I had in spreading it--
the false knowledge that they thought they passed me
-- for the happiness of unlearning it just as soon--;

the days I passed that I did not live,
the days lived where I passed nearby,
the mortal time I survived,
the hour, eternal and yet erased;

the love thrown away whose price I did not know,
 the love given to those who could not take it,
the love offered that I took back right away,
the love lost that you can still see waiting outside.

To the child that I did not have,
whom I have all the same, formed
of my seed, conceived in my flesh,
whose existence is perfected in every embrace,
to this child I bequeath for the better but especially for
the worst, what the day has lent me:

the I which I use on credit
at an interest I can't afford,
whose face and sex I could not choose
(you have to take what you get):

a hollow brain in a full head,
a body too soft on bones too strong,
blood too lively for a short breath,
a heart too gentle for this furious blood,

feet that have raised nothing but dust,
arms surprised to have embraced the wind,
knees trapped by prayers,
hands staying empty as before;

eyes closed on a side of things,
-- that half that we all are missing--,
eyes open under their closed pupils
and in the dark seeing more than they should.

To the child I did not have
I bequeath lastly, so that it will pay
attention, so that it will remember
through stubbornness, when the hem
of my passage is ripped out of the ancient fabric:

the fifteen things that I never could do:
bow my head before those greater than I,
walk on those lower, point a finger,
shout with the crowd, or else be silent,
recognize the Black among the Whites,
choose the ten just men, name a guilty party,
find that suitable attitude,
read someone besides myself in the mirrors,
conjugate love in several persons,
resist temptation, wound on purpose,
stay indecisive, say "Nuts"
instead of "Shit," which is more French.

   --Liliane Wouters (1930-). This poem is from the book  Poèmes à dire, ed. by Zéno Bianu, Gallimard (2002). Here is an excerpt from the beginning.

Testament

Pour Alain Bosquet

À l'enfant que je n'ai pas eu
mais que d'un homme je reçus
septante fois sept fois et davantage, à l'enfant sage
dont je formai le souffle et le visage
sept fois septante fois, dans un ventre pareil
au mien, par des nuits rouges de soleil,
par des jours cristallins d'aurore boréale,
à l'enfant dont je porte en moi les initiales
secrètes, ainsi que ton nom, Yahvé,
enfant conçu, toujours inachevé,
qu'on me fait, que je fais, à chaque fois que j'aime,
qui se défait en moi pour donner un poème,
à l'enfant qui ne viendra pas
clore mes yeux, choisir l'ultime drap,
marcher derrière mon poids d'os, de cendres,
me regarder dans la fosse descendre,
à cet enfant je lègue devant Dieu, devant
les hommes et mon chien, devant le jour vivant
(qui n'est que parce que je suis et qui mourra
comme je meurs) je lègue, pour autant qu'on pourra,
pour autant qu'il en fasse usage en lieu et place
de moi, ses père et mère en un seul être pris,
je lègue tous mes biens de chair, d'esprit,
de temps toujours compté et d'illusoire espace....

Sabine Sicaud: Speak to you? No. I cannot.

Speak to you? No. I cannot.
I prefer to suffer like a plant,
like the bird that says nothing on the linden tree.
They wait. That's fine. Since they aren't tired
of waiting, I'll wait, with the same waiting.

They suffer alone. One should learn how to suffer alone.
I don't want indifferent people ready to smile
nor friends groaning. No one should come.

The plant says nothing. The bird is silent. What would they say?
This pain is alone in the world, whatever one wants.
It is not the pain of others, it is mine.

A leaf has its ache that the other leaf ignores.
And the bird's ache-- the other bird knows nothing about it.

One doesn't know. One doesn't know. Who is like another?
And if they were, what matter. This evening
I don't want to hear a single vain word.

I wait-- like the old motionless tree
and the mute finch behind the window...
A drop of pure water, a little wind, who knows?
What are they waiting for? We will wait for it together.
The sun has told them it will come back, perhaps....

      --Sabine Sicaud (1913-1928) died at age 15 after much suffering.

Vous parler? Non. Je ne peux pas.
Je préfère souffrir comme une plante,
comme l'oiseau qui ne dit rien sur le tilleul.
Ils attendent. C'est bien. Puisqu'ils ne sont pas las
d'attendre, j'attendrai, de cette même attente.

Ils souffrent seuls. On doit apprendre à souffrir seul.
Je ne veux pas d'indifférents prêts à sourire
ni d'amis gémissants. Que nul ne vienne.

La plante ne dit rien. L'oiseau se tait. Que dire?
Cette douleur est seule au monde, quoi qu'on veuille.
Elle n'est pas celle des autres, c'est la mienne.

Une feuille a son mal qu'ignore l'autre feuille.
Et le mal de l'oiseau, l'autre oiseau n'en sait rien.

On ne sait pas. On ne sait pas. Qui se ressemble ?
Et se ressemblât-on, qu'importe. Il me convient
de n'entendre ce soir nulle parole vaine.

J'attends - comme le font derrière la fenêtre
le vieil arbre sans geste et le pinson muet...
une goutte d'eau pure, un peu de vent, qui sait ?
Qu'attendent-ils ? Nous l'attendrons ensemble.
Le soleil leur a dit qu'il reviendrait, peut-être...          

Lounès Matoub on the death of Mohamed Boudiaf: Algeria will rise from this evil

Hymn to Boudiaf

For so many years far from your country!
You revolted, you turned against tyranny
We were waiting for the new clearness from you
about what the criminals had devoured
but behind you, death rose up
guided by unforeseeable traitors
Miserable ones, may he remind you of it--  
you are the ones who lit the furnace.

Alas, alas, sad widows!
[woman's voice]
We are torn from men who did not deserve to die.
{repeat}

The plotters called you
in that air of terrible oppression
they invited you to the no-man's-land
You came, careless of the tufts of nettles
They undid the bonds of our land
she sank into a bottomless pool
she sank head first
the nations watched her being swallowed up.

Alas, alas, sad widows!
[woman's voice] We are torn apart from men who did not deserve to die.
{repeat}

 You found the country being ravaged
It is torn, gone to rags
Some exalt themselves: "We are Arabs
and nothing was here before us."
As for the know-nothings and their henchmen 
they have sworn never to relent.
They are sharpening the last judgment
against those who affront their plans.

Alas, alas, sad widows!
[woman's voice:] We are torn apart from men who did not deserve to die.
{repeat}

Your name has gone into history,
future generations will find it
this time of suffering is not for always
although today, the Furies are burning us.
Algeria will rise again from this evil
knowledge will put out buds,
you have opened the way to the dignity of our people
rest in peace, honorable Boudiaf.
you have opened the way to the dignity of our people
At present, be in peace, honorable Boudiaf...

[Over, in French: From Abane to Boudiaf, how many crimes have been orchestrated!
Krim, Khider, and others...
Will we leave this ancestral land in the hands of these sad cases who have plunged it into chaos?
Or in the claws of these "lit-up*" cowards? 

          --Mohamed Boudiaf (1919-1992) was an Algerian patriot who became head of state briefly after a long period of exile, but was assassinated after only four months. The country slid into a long period of violence and civil war, and is only recently emerging. The Berbers (Algerian Berbers are Kabyles) are the original inhabitants of North Africa, and were conquered by the Arabs and converted from Christianity to Islam in the early 700s. Today, the Berber language is a focus of a new sense of Berber pride. Lounès Matoub (1956-1998), a famous Algerian Berber singer, wrote this song about him. Lounès Matoub was himself assassinated in 1998.

You can see Lounès Matoub singing the song here, in the Berber language, with French subtitles. I came across his music for the first time in the French movie Là-bas... mon pays ("Over there...my country"), about a Frenchman who grew up in colonial Algeria and goes back many years later. The music wails across the landscape through most of the film and powerfully evokes a mood of nostalgia, longing, and rebellion.

*The word in the French translation is illuminés, which means "the enlightened ones," but is sarcastic and refers to religious fanatics and crazy people.