Gaspara Stampa
Voi, ch’ascoltate in queste meste rime,
in questi mesti, in questi oscuri accenti
il suon degli amorosi miei lamenti
e de le pene mie tra l’altre prime,
ove fia chi valor apprezzi e stime,
gloria, non che perdon, de’ miei lamenti
spero trovar fra le ben nate genti,
poi che la lor cagione è sì sublime.
E spero ancor che debba dir qualcuna:
- Felicissima lei, da che sostenne
Per sì chiara cagion danno sì chiaro!
Deh, perché tant’amor, tanta fortuna
Per s’ nobil signor a me non venne,
ch’anch’io n’andrei con tanta donna a paro?
översättningne blir tråkig (och språket närmast banalt), men läs den högt, och upplev hur fantastisk mjuk den blir.
Robert Frost
One of my wishes is that those dark trees,
so old and firm they scaresly show the breeze,
were not, as 'tware, the merest mask of gloom,
but stretched away unto the edge of doom.
I should not be withheld, but that some day,
into their vastness, I should steal away,
fearless of ever finding open land,
or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand.
I do not see whay I should e'er turn back,
or those should not set forth upon my track
to overtake me, who should miss me hear
and long to know if still I held them dear.
They would not find me changed from him they new,
Only more sure, of things I thought I new.
Barndomsfavorit, men fortfarande en som känns behaglig. Dess tanklösa längtan till äventyr är underbar.
Den Gränslöse Baudilaire har en hel hög med fantastsiska stycken. Sed Non Satiata -
Bizarre déité, brune comme les nuits,
Au parfum mélangé de musc et de havane,
Oeuvre de quelque obi, le Faust de la savane,
Sorcière au flanc d'ébène, enfant des noirs minuits,
Je préfère au constance, à l'opium, au nuits,
L'élixir de ta bouche où l'amour se pavane;
Quand vers toi mes désirs partent en caravane,
Tes yeux sont la citerne où boivent mes ennuis.
Par ces deux grands yeux noirs, soupiraux de ton âme,
Ô démon sans pitié! verse-moi moins de flamme;
Je ne suis pas le Styx pour t'embrasser neuf fois,
Hélas! et je ne puis, Mégère libertine,
Pour briser ton courage et te mettre aux abois,
Dans l'enfer de ton lit devenir Proserpine!
(i översättning: Strange goddess, brown as evening to the sight,
Whose scent is half of musk, half of havanah,
Work of some obi, Faust of the Savanah,
Ebony witch, and daughter of the night.
By far preferred to troth, or drugs, or sleep,
Love vaunts the red elixir of your mouth.
My caravan of longings seeks in drouth
Your eyes, the wells at which my cares drink deep.
Through those black eyes, by which your soul respires,
Pitiless demon! pour less scorching fires.
I am no Styx nine times with flame to wed.
Nor can I turn myself to Proserpine
To break your spell, Megera libertine!
Within the dark inferno of your bed.)
Om albatrossar: Often our sailors, for an hour of fun,
Catch albatrosses on the after breeze
Through which these trail the ship from sun to sun
As it skims down the deep and briny seas.
Scarce have these birds been set upon the poop,
Than, awkward now, they, the sky's emperors,
Piteous and shamed, let their great white wings droop
Beside them like a pair of idle oars.
These wingèd voyagers, how gauche their gait!
Once noble, now how ludicrous to view!
One sailor bums them with his pipe, his mate
Limps, mimicking these cripples who once flew.
Poets are like these lords of sky and cloud,
Who ride the storm and mock the bow's taut strings,
Exiled on earth amid a jeering crowd,
Prisoned and palsied by their giant wings.
Om förebilder Rubens, river of oblivion, garden of indolence,
Pillow of cool flesh where one cannot love,
But where life moves and whirls incessantly
Like the air in the sky and the tide in the sea;
Leonardo, dark, unfathomable mirror,
In which charming angels, with sweet smiles
Full of mystery, appear in the shadow
Of the glaciers and pines that enclose their country;
Rembrandt, gloomy hospital filled with murmuring,
Ornamented only with a large crucifix,
Lit for a moment by a wintry sun,
Where from rot and ordure rise tearful prayers;
Angelo, shadowy place where Hercules' are seen
Mingling with Christs, and rising straight up,
Powerful phantoms, which in the twilights
Rend their winding-sheets with outstretched fingers;
Boxer's wrath, shamelessness of Fauns, you whose genius
Showed to us the beauty in a villain,
Great heart filled with pride, sickly, yellow man,
Puget, melancholy emperor of galley slaves;
Watteau, carnival where the loves of many famous hearts
Flutter capriciously like butterflies with gaudy wings;
Cool, airy settings where the candelabras' light
Touches with madness the couples whirling in the dance
Goya, nightmare full of unknown things,
Of fetuses roasted in the midst of witches' sabbaths,
Of old women at the mirror and of nude children,
Tightening their hose to tempt the demons;
Delacroix, lake of blood haunted by bad angels,
Shaded by a wood of fir-trees, ever green,
Where, under a gloomy sky, strange fanfares
Pass, like a stifled sigh from Weber;
These curses, these blasphemies, these lamentations,
These Te Deums, these ecstasies, these cries, these tears,
Are an echo repeated by a thousand labyrinths;
They are for mortal hearts a divine opium.
They are a cry passed on by a thousand sentinels,
An order re-echoed through a thousand megaphones;
They are a beacon lighted on a thousand citadels,
A call from hunters lost deep in the woods!
For truly, Lord, the clearest proofs
That we can give of our nobility,
Are these impassioned sobs that through the ages roll,
And die away upon the shore of your Eternity.
Om Skönhetens självbild Je suis belle, ô mortels! comme un rêve de pierre,
Et mon sein, où chacun s'est meurtri tour à tour,
Est fait pour inspirer au poète un amour
Eternel et muet ainsi que la matière.
Je trône dans l'azur comme un sphinx incompris;
J'unis un coeur de neige à la blancheur des cygnes;
Je hais le mouvement qui déplace les lignes,
Et jamais je ne pleure et jamais je ne ris.
Les poètes, devant mes grandes attitudes,
Que j'ai l'air d'emprunter aux plus fiers monuments,
Consumeront leurs jours en d'austères études;
Car j'ai, pour fasciner ces dociles amants,
De purs miroirs qui font toutes choses plus belles:
Mes yeux, mes larges yeux aux clartés éternelles!
...Sedan har vi förståss mästaren själv - Rumi
God has given us a dark wine so potent that,
drinking it, we leave the two worlds.
God has put into the form of hashish a power
to deliver the taster from selfconciousness.
God has made sleep
so that it erases every thought.
God made Majun love Layla so much
that just her dog would cause confucion in him.
There are thousends of whines
that can take over our minds.
Don't think that all ecstasies are the same.
Jesus was lost in his love for God,
his donkey was drunk on barley.
Drink from the presence of saints,
not from those other jars.
Every object, every being,
is a jar full of delight.
Be a connoisseur and
taste with caution.
Any wine will get you high,
Judge like a king, and choose the purest
The one unadulturated with fear,
or some urgency about "whats needed"
Drink the wine that moves you,
like a camel moves when it's been untied
and is just ambling about.
...
Sedan finns det också fantastisk lyrik som inte är fullt så intellektuell - Säg thomas wyatt, politikern och diplomaten som fuskade i lyrik (likt andra motsvarande skönandar, fast kanske lite vassare). Stora delar av hans verk är visserligen överdramatiska
Forget not yet the tried intent
Of such a truth as I have meant
My great travail so gladly spent
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet when first began
The weary life ye knew, since whan
The suit, the service, none tell can,
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet the great assays,
The cruel wrongs, the scornful ways,
The painful patience in denays
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet, forget not this,
How long ago hath been, and is,
The mind that never means amiss;
Forget not yet.
Forget not yet thine own approved,
The which so long hath thee so loved,
Whose steadfast faith yet never moved,
Forget not this.
...eller bittra...
Lux, my fair falcon, and your fellows all,
How well pleasant it were your liberty.
Ye not forsake me that fair might ye befall,
But they that sometime liked my company,
Like lice away from dead bodies they crawl.
Lo, what a proof in light adversity.
But ye, my birds, I swear by all your bells,
Ye be my friends, and so be but few else.
men det finns verkliga guldkorn bland dem, såsom
Avising the bright beams of those fair eyes,
Where he abides that mine oft moisteth and washeth ;
The wearies mind straight from the heart departeth,
To rest within his worldly paradise,
And bitter finds the sweet, under his guise.
What webs there he hath wrought, well he perceiveth :
Whereby then with himself on love he plaineth,
That spurs with fire, and bridleth eke with ice.
In such extremity thus is he brought :
Frozen now cold, and now he stands in flame :
'Twixt woe and wealth, betwixt earnest and game,
With seldom glad, and many a diverse thought,
In sore repentance of his hardiness,
Of such a root, lo, cometh fruit fruitless.
Sen hör det väl till saken att jag gillar lyrik i allmänhet - herre, jag och fästmön har vid tillfällen roat oss med att läsa Percy Bysshe-Shelley för varandra - acend the car och allt det där - så jag vet inte om jag är något vidare smakråd. Kul tråd!
