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* translation 3/3 on the friday influence

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

(from Proverbios y Cantares – Antonio Machado) *

XXXII.

Oh faith of meditation!

Oh faith after deep thought!

When a heart returns to earth,

the human cup overflows, and the sea swells.

***

This week, The Friday Influence presents the work of the great Spanish poet Antonio Machado.

I first ran across the above poem during my first trip to Powell’s in Portland two years ago.  I spied Machado’s Poesias Completas on the shelf and immediately flipped through to these lines.

I was moved by the tension between the mind and the senses implied in these lines.  I mean, that’s what it’s like to be overwhelmed, to be interrupted and taken from thought to body.  The sea swells!  I fell in love and took the book home with me.

I see in these lines the days when I am so focused on the page that to be taken away or distracted hurts – mainly it makes me fussy.  Phil Levine once said: when a poem comes, the phone can wait, the knock at the door can wait, it all can wait.  Ignore it.  I respect the necessity for that kind of attention.  I figure: it’s my poetry – if I don’t make time for it and give it the attention it deserves, who will?

I believe this is a shade of what Keats meant when he spoke of the poet as being “the most unpoetical of any thing in existence.”

***

I have enjoyed this three part stint of translating.  I guess four, if you count my riffing around with Goethe.

For this week’s post, I collaborated with Andrea Schreiber, a self-styled polyglot and linguist with a true love of language.  She is also my girlfriend.  Meaning, she puts up with me when I get fussy.  And she has seen Machado’s Spain, the roads he saw, the sea…  She helped steer my translations towards the spirit of the poems.  I thank her.

Here are a few more from Machado:

XXI.

Last night I dreamed that I saw

God and that I spoke with God;

and dreamed that God listened…

later I dreamed I had dreamed.

XXVIII.

Everyone has two

battles to fight:

in dreams, you wrestle with God;

awake, with the sea.

XLI.

It is common knowledge that cups

are used for drinking;

Sadly, it is unknown

what use we have for thirst.

XLIV.

Everything moves on, and everything stays;

it is our lot to move on,

move on making roads,

roads over the sea.

XLV.

To die…and fall like a drop

of ocean back to the ocean?

Or, be what I never could be:

a man, without shadow, without dreams,

a man that goes forward

without roads, without mirrors?

***

Happy forwarding!

J

* all poems translated by Jose Angel Araguz and Andrea Schreiber.  (word to your late night conversations!)

* Goethe

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment

(Roman Elegy V – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe) *

I find myself on Classic soil;

the past and present speak to me.

As I was told to, I leaf through the works of Ancients and find joy.

Through the nights, love keeps me busy at other things;

even though I am half-educated, I am twice happy.

And am I not educated when I take in the forms of a breast,

or let my hands glide down hips?

I begin to understand marble statues, I think and compare;

I see with a feeling eye, feel with a seeing hand.

And though my love steals a few hours of my day,

she gives me hours of the night in return.

We not only kiss, we talk great talks;

and when she falls asleep, I lie awake and think.

I have composed poems in her arms,

have tapped and counted out hexameters on her back.

She breathes softly when she sleeps,

and warms me with her breath.

Meanwhile, Cupid stokes the fires,

as he did for his other great poets.

***

I am on a Goethe kick these days.  It is one of those instances where I find myself getting into the work of one writer and, when I look up his sign, am endeared to them even more.  And not just because he is a Virgo like myself.  It is that he is such a Virgo.

I find myself referring to the poem above in particular when talking to people about the man.  I mean, alone, the line: “I see with a feeling eye, feel with a seeing hand” is both motto and manifesto for poets everywhere.  And couple that (ahem) with the sensuous nature of the poem, and it is quite the performance.

Ahem.

Seriously, he is famous for the line about counting out hexameters on his lady’s back – but, few realize that the man is truly keeping count.  The Virgo loves to multitask.  This whole poem – a great love poem, yes – is also an ode to the multitasking spirit.  He is in Rome reading as much as he can while on a romantic vacation.  And why else the defensive tone of, “We not only kiss, we talk…”

The bit about her being asleep and him lying awake thinking – I’ve totally been there.  A Virgo makes use of every moment to the point that they forget how to live in the moment.  I have a feeling, though, that Goethe, like me, figured out that much of what drives this spirit is restlessness.

Restlessness can be a great generator of creativity if approached the right way.  Hence the line: “though I am half-educated, I am twice happy.”  I can tell he really means what he says here, and that it is a hard-won victory.

To not only work hard but also to stop, assess, celebrate and dream – these are lessons it takes a life to learn.

***

Happy learning!

J

* the translation here is my own rendition of a more scholarly translation by Stanley Applebaum. (word to your Dover Thrift editions!)