THE CROCUS
White threads of the roots reach
The globe on the glass of the vase;
In the water: the flower petals
Make a purplish haze.
Heaven and earth and tide
In so transparent a border,
In growth, flowering and withering
Are what the poet does.
His verse unfolds in word.
That holds his soul enclosed.
His song flown through with light
Dies as the ear it perceives.
ALBERT VERWEY
(translated from Dutch)
The Muses
In ancient Greek mythology, the Muses are the inspirational goddesses of literature, science, and the arts. They were considered the source of the knowledge embodied in the poetry, lyric songs, and myths that were passed on orally for centuries in ancient Greek culture.
The Roman scholar Varro relates that there are only three Muses: one born from the movement of water, another who makes sound by striking the air, and a third who is embodied only in the human voice. They were called Melete or "Practice", Mneme or "Memory" and Aoide or "Song". Plutarch also reports three ancient Muses.
However, the classical understanding of the Muses tripled their triad and established a set of nine goddesses, who embody the arts and inspire creation with their graces through remembered and improvised song and mime, writing, traditional music, and dance. It was not until Hellenistic times that the following systematic set of functions became associated with them, and even then some variation persisted both in their names and in their attributes: Calliope (epic poetry), Clio (history), Euterpe (flutes and lyric poetry), Thalia (comedy and pastoral poetry), Melpomene (tragedy), Terpsichore (dance), Erato (love poetry), Polyhymnia (sacred poetry) and Urania (astronomy).
On the other hand, according to Pausanias, who wrote in the later second century AD, there were originally three Muses, worshiped on Mount Helicon in Boeotia: Aoide ("song" or "tune"), Melete ("practice" or "occasion"), and Mneme ("memory").
Together, these three form the complete picture of the preconditions of poetic art in cult practice.
Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making") is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language - such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre - to evoke meanings. It uses forms and conventions to suggest differential interpretations of words, or to evoke emotive response.
Western cultural tradition (which extends at least from Homer to Rilke) associates the production of poetry with INSPIRATION – often by a Muse (either classical or contemporary).
P.S. When it comes to translation of poetry from original language to another language it becomes tricky. Mainly because a poet's language cannot be transferred to another language without losing some of the original intent and atmosphere. When reading translations of poetry use your own imagination and intellect to comprehend the intention of a poet.
DEPARTURE
The crowd swarms
A man jostled, agitated
The cries
Of women around me
Each rushes by bumping me
That’s how night falls
I’m cold
With these words I make you smile
PHILIPPE SOUPAULT
(translated from French)
Selection of poems
FAREWELL TO POETRY
Come, fallen angel, and your pink wings close;
Doff your white robe, your rays that gild the skies;
You must, from heaven, where once you used to rise
Streak, like a shooting star, fall into prose.
Your bird’s feet now must strike an earthly pose.
It is no time to fly: walk! Lock your prize
Your harp’s fair harmonies, in resting wise,
Within your heart: vain, worthless treasures those!
Poor child of heaven, but vainly would you sing:
To them your tongue divine means not a thing!
Their ear is closed to your sweet chords! But this
I beg: O blue-eyed angel, first, before
You leave, find my pale love, whom I adore,
And give her brow one long, last farewell kiss.
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
(translated from French)
THE SWALLOW
I am a swallow and not a dove;
My nature forces me to hover always.
The nest where pigeons shelter loves,
If there were to brood, would soon be my grave.
For a few months, I live in a niche that overlooks
And fly, when autumn has shortened the days,
For the white minarets leaving the black towers,
Towards the immutable azure from which tears never fall.
No sky stops me, no place holds me,
And in all countries I remain a stranger;
But everywhere of the absent my soul remembers.
My love is constant, if my wing is light,
And, without fear of oblivion, the crazy passenger
From one end of the world to the other the same heart returns.
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
(translated from French)
OF IMMENSITY
'Tis thou, O Spirit, dost within my soul
This weakly thought with thine own life amend;
Rejoicing, dost thy rapid pinions lend
Me, and dost wing me to that lofty goal
Where secret portals ope and fetters break,
And thou dost grant me, by thy grace complete,
Fortune to spurn, and death; O high retreat,
Which few attain, and fewer yet forsake!
Girdled with gates of brass in every part,
Prisoned and bound in vain, 'tis mine to rise
Through sparkling fields of air to pierce the skies,
Sped and accoutred by no doubting heart,
Till, raised on clouds of contemplation vast,
Shine, leader, law, Creator, I attain at last.
GIORDANO BRUNO
(translated from Latin)
COMPENSATION
The moth beholds not death as forth he flies
Into the splendor of the living flame;
The hart athirst to crystal water hies,
Nor heeds the shaft, nor fears the hunter's aim;
The timid bird, returning from above
To join his mate, deems not the net is nigh;
Unto the light, the fount, and to my love,
Seeing the flame, the shaft, the chains, I fly;
So high a torch, shines in the skies,
Consumes my soul; and with this bow divine
Of piercing sweetness what terrestrial vies?
This net of dear delight doth prison mine;
And I to life's last day have this desire
Be mine thine arrows, love, and mine thy fire.
GIORDANO BRUNO
(translated from Italian)
GOOD NIGHT
Good night? ah! no; the hour is ill
Which severs those it should unite;
Shall we remain together still,
Then it will be good night.
How can I call the lone night good,
Though thy sweet wishes wing its flight?
Be it not said, thought, understood
Then it will be good night.
To hearts which near each other move
From evening close to morning light,
The night is good; because, my love,
They never say good night.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
CYCLE
I am a spark without goal, without direction,
Thrown into the universe as my journey began,
Before long another sun bound itself to me
And turning I lived for an unmeasured while,
A kernel of life, empty in itself,
Full of the energy that around me spun.
O that I could without knowing for centuries
Turn within the ungrasped radiating rose.
Endless world, unfinished universe
And without beginning, but where each part
Image is of the whole and a lightshow
Along the eternal ways, tell me, shall once, shall
Ever there be an end to your steady fire,
You, a diamond in the hollow of a hand?
ALBERT VERWEY
(translated from Dutch)
BY THE SEA
The moon of his distracted hands
Dropped from the air
Its large sequined fan
On the blue carpet of the sea.
To get him back she bends down
And stretches out her beautiful silver arm;
But the fan flees his white hand,
By the flow that passes carried away.
To the bitter abyss to return it to you,
Moon, I would throw myself away,
If you wanted to descend from the sky,
To heaven if I could climb!
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
(translated from French)
SO, WE'LL GO NO MORE A ROVING
So, we'll go no more a roving
So late into the night,
Though the heart be still as loving,
And the moon be still as bright.
For the sword outwears its sheath,
And the soul wears out the breast,
And the heart must pause to breathe,
And love itself have rest.
Though the night was made for loving,
And the day returns too soon,
Yet we'll go no more a roving
By the light of the moon.
GEORGE GORDON BYRON
THERE IS A PLEASURE IN THE PATHLESS WOODS
(segment from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage)
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes,
By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:
I love not Man the less, but Nature more,
From these our interviews, in which I steal
From all I may be, or have been before,
To mingle with the Universe, and feel
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.
GEORGE GORDON BYRON
Segment from POEMS IN TERZA RIMA, Franco’s response to a man
---
I want to have a real reason for loving you
and I leave it up to you to decide,
so that you have no right to complain.
There'll be no gap between merit and reward
if you'll give me what, though in my opinion
it has great value, costs you not a thing;
your reward from me will be
not only to fly but to soar so high
that your hope will match your desires.
And my beauty, such as it is,
which you never tire of praising,
I'll then employ for your contentment;
sweetly lying at your side,
I will make you taste the delights of love
when they have been expertly learned;
And doing this, I could give you such pleasure
that you could say you were fully content,
and at once fall more deeply in love.
So sweet and delicious do I become,
when I am in bed with a man
who, I sense, loves and enjoys me,
that the pleasure I bring excels all delight,
so love, however tight
it seemed before, is tighter still.
---
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
Segment from POEMS IN TERZA RIMA, Franco's response, in which she advises the poet to write in praise of Venice
---
Venice was built upon the waters
according to supernatural, heavenly intent:
In her the King of heaven took pleasure
in founding the secure, eternal nest
of his faith, which elsewhere lay oppressed,
and for his own delight he placed on this shore
all the beauty and all the sweetness
that is most acclaimed and praised on earth.
Nowhere else in the world is used to the joy
that heaven bestowed so abundantly on Venice,
so that whoever does not know her cannot appreciate her.
---
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
Segment from POEMS IN TERZA RIMA, elegiac verses written by Franco away from Venice
---
This your faithful Franca writes you,
tender, well-bred, and gallant lover,
she who in misery is far away from you.
---
Fortunate dwelling of mine, which still enfolds
the man to whom I always return in thought,
from whom I am at such distance and pain!
I implore the little god, blindfolded archer,
who wounded my heart and stole me away,
to show that man how I perish for love of him
---
The tears that I shed quench the fire, in part,
and I exist only in the hope
of seeing you soon again, in that sweet place.
The moment I reach the room I have longed for,
I will bow down, my knees on the ground,
before my Apollo in knowledge and beauty.
Then, vanquished by him in loving war,
I'll follow after him, my soul freed from fear,
on valor's path, from which he never strays.
This is the man I love, who surpasses
every other man in enduring pain,
and whose faithfulness leaves all others behind.
---
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
THE CLOUD
A cloud shows on the horizon,
Shaping its form in the blue,
It appears like a naked virgin,
Born of lake-water, and dew.
Upright on her nacrous shell,
She sails through the azure sky,
Like an Aphrodite, ethereal,
Arisen from sea-foam, on high.
She varies her graceful pose,
Her torso’s contour uncertain,
As dawn spreads its tint of rose,
On shoulders of blanched satin.
The hues of whiteness and snow,
Highlight her languorous beauty,
As Correggio’s chiaroscuro
Does Antiope’s sleeping body.
Than Alpine crests, in the light,
Or Apennine hills, she’ll hover,
Primal Grace caught in flight,
The Eternal Feminine’s sister.
My soul desires, once again,
Lifted high, on wings of passion,
To clasp her form, though in vain,
In the manner displayed by Ixion.
Reason says: ‘Smoke and vapor
Imitate what we see in dream,
Things of which wind’s the shaper,
Bubbles that burst on the stream.’
Feeling replies: ‘What matter?
What is beauty of form or scene,
But a lovely, vanishing spectre,
Nothing more, once it has been!
Let the heavens above fill your heart,
To the Ideal, now, open your soul;
Love a cloud, a person, a work of art,
But love! That alone’s the true goal!
THÉOPHILE GAUTIER
(translated from French)
WHEN THE TWO PARTED
When we two parted
In silence and tears,
Half broken-hearted
To sever for years,
Pale grew thy cheek and cold,
Colder thy kiss;
Truly that hour foretold
Sorrow to this.
The dew of the morning
Sunk chill on my brow
It felt like the warning
Of what I feel now.
Thy vows are all broken,
And light is thy fame;
I hear thy name spoken,
And share in its shame.
They name thee before me,
A knell to mine ear;
A shudder comes o'er me
Why wert thou so dear?
They know not I knew thee,
Who knew thee too well
Long, long shall I rue thee,
Too deeply to tell.
In secret we met
In silence I grieve,
That thy heart could forget,
Thy spirit deceive.
If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?
With silence and tears.
GEORGE GORDON BYRON
Segment from
POEMS IN TERZA RIMA,
Franco, to a man who has insulted a woman
---
View with the eyes of your good sense
and see for yourself how unworthy of you
it is to insult and injure women.
Unfortunate sex, always led about
by cruel fortune, because you are always
subjected and without freedom!
But this has certainly been no fault of ours,
because, if we are not as strong as men,
like men we have a mind and intellect.
And virtue does not lie in bodily strength
but in the vigor of the soul and mind,
through which all things come to be known;
and I am certain that in this respect
women lack nothing, but, rather, have given
more than one sign of being greater than men.
But if you think us inferior to you,
perhaps it's because in modesty and wisdom
we are more adept and better than you.
And do you want to know what the truth is?
That the wisest person should be the most patient
squares with reason and with what is right;
insolence is the mark of the madman,
but the stone that the wise man draws from the well
was thrown in by a foolish, imprudent man.
---
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
Segment from POEMS IN TERZA RIMA, challenge to a poet
---
I do not know if you think it a trifling risk
to enter the field to joust with a woman,
but though you once fooled me, I warn you now
that if on one hand it might be unseemly
for a strong man to contend with a woman,
on the other, it's thought a weighty event.
When we women, too, have weapons and training,
we will be able to prove to all men
that we have hands and feet and hearts like yours;
and though we may be tender and delicate,
some men who are delicate also are strong,
and some, though coarse and rough, are cowards
Women so far haven't seen this is true;
for if they'd ever resolved to do it,
they'd have been able to fight you to the death.
And to prove to you that I speak the truth,
among so many women I will act first,
setting an example for them all to follow.
On you, who are so savage to us all,
I turn, with whatever weapon you choose,
with the hope and will to throw you to the ground.
And I undertake to defend all women
against you, who despise them so
that rightly I'm not alone to protest.
It is certain that you miss great pleasure
by being unable to savor our sweetness,
and I blame your bad habits for being the cause.
Feminine beauty is a gift from heaven,
intended to be a source of joy
to every man with a gentle heart.
But where is my thought wandering and roaming
by speaking of matters related to love
now that I'm about to make war?
I return to the purpose from which I have strayed,
and I now challenge you to single combat:
gird yourself with weapons and valor.
I'll show you how far the female sex
excels your own. Arm yourself however you please
and take good heed for your survival,
for I will answer you with blows.
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
Segment from POEMS IN TERZA RIMA, in her defence
---
"Verily unique," among other things, you called me,
alluding to Veronica, my name,
and in your discourse you blamed me severely.
But, according to my dictionary, I fail to see
how one can properly call something "unique"
in a critical sense, by way of condemnation.
Perhaps you're speaking in an ironic way,
but amphibology fails to communicate
the point you evidently want to make.
A woman whose fame makes her right to be proud,
who stands out for beauty or for courage,
and far exceeds all others in virtue
such a woman is rightly called "unique";
and art, without irony, chooses to bestow
this word, selected from others, upon her.
"Unique" is used in praise and esteem
by those who know; and whoever speaks otherwise
digresses from the true meaning of words.
It is not, sir, merely mistaken emphasis,
when one hurls abuse and insult at someone,
to use a term meant for most excellent things.
---
VERONICA FRANCO
(translated from Italian)
OZYMANDIAS
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
