video
That
was the deep uncanny mine of souls.
Like
veins of silver ore, they silently
moved
through its massive darkness. Blood welled up
among
the roots, on its way to the world of men,
and
in the dark it looked as hard as stone.
Nothing
else was red.
There
were cliffs there,
and
forests made of mist. There were bridges
spanning
the void, and that great gray blind lake
which
hung above its distant bottom
like
the sky on a rainy day above a landscape.
And
through the gentle, unresisting meadows
one
pale path unrolled like a strip of cotton.
Down
this path they were coming.
In
front, the slender man in the blue cloak —
mute,
impatient, looking straight ahead.
In
large, greedy, unchewed bites his walk
devoured
the path; his hands hung at his sides,
tight
and heavy, out of the failing folds,
no
longer conscious of the delicate lyre
which
had grown into his left arm, like a slip
of
roses grafted onto an olive tree.
His
senses felt as though they were split in two:
his
sight would race ahead of him like a dog,
stop,
come back, then rushing off again
would
stand, impatient, at the path’s next turn, —
but
his hearing, like an odor, stayed behind.
Sometimes
it seemed to him as though it reached
back
to the footsteps of those other two
who
were to follow him, up the long path home.
But
then, once more, it was just his own steps’ echo,
or
the wind inside his cloak, that made the sound.
He
said to himself, they had to be behind him;
said
it aloud and heard it fade away.
They
had to be behind him, but their steps
were
ominously soft. If only he could
turn
around, just once (but looking back
would
ruin this entire work, so near
completion),
then he could not fail to see them,
those
other two, who followed him so softly:
The
god of speed and distant messages,
a
traveler’s hood above his shining eyes,
his
slender staff held out in front of him,
and
little wings fluttering at his ankles;
and
on his left arm, barely touching it: she.
A
woman so loved that from one lyre there came
more
lament than from all lamenting women;
that
a whole world of lament arose, in which
all
nature reappeared: forest and valley,
road
and village, field and stream and animal;
and
that around this lament-world, even as
around
the other earth, a sun revolved
and
a silent star-filled heaven, a lament-
heaven,
with its own, disfigured stars —:
So
greatly was she loved.
But
now she walked beside the graceful god,
her
steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain,
gentle, and without impatience.
She
was deep within herself, like a woman heavy
with
child, and did not see the man in front
or
the path ascending steeply into life.
Deep
within herself. Being dead
filled
her beyond fulfillment. Like a fruit
suffused
with its own mystery and sweetness,
she
was filled with her vast death, which was so new,
she
could not understand that it had happened.
She
had come into a new virginity
and
was untouchable; her sex had closed
like
a young flower at nightfall, and her hands
had
grown so unused to marriage that the god’s
infinitely
gentle touch of guidance
hurt
her, like an undesired kiss.
She
was no longer that woman with blue eyes
who
once had echoed through the poet’s songs,
no
longer the wide couch’s scent and island,
and
that man’s property no longer.
She
was already loosened like long hair,
poured
out like fallen rain,
shared
like a limitless supply.
She
was already root.
And
when, abruptly,
the
god put out his hand to stop her, saying,
with
sorrow in his voice: He has turned around —,
she
could not understand, and softly answered
Who?
Far
away,
dark
before the shining exit-gates,
someone
or other stood, whose features were
unrecognizable.
He stood and saw
how,
on the strip of road among the meadows,
with
a mournful look, the god of messages
silently
turned to follow the small figure
already
walking back along the path,
her
steps constricted by the trailing graveclothes,
uncertain,
gentle, and without impatience.
Translation by Stephen
Mitchell.
…
Δεν υπάρχουν σχόλια:
Δημοσίευση σχολίου