James Gregory

Anthology of Poetry in Translation

The following poems in translation were chosen and arranged so the greatest variety might be exhibited

with the least incoherence. Each section has one degree of tonal separation from that which it follows or precedes.

Thus, the despair of the Mesopotamian Fragments lulls to the disquiet of Pessoa; the loneliness of Pessoa lilts to the

lovesickness of Sappho; Sappho’s foretaste of death grinds into the executions of Voloshin; the machineguns of

Voloshin purr into early German lullabies; the lament of the Landsknechts darkens to the Book of the Dead; the

Papyrus of Ani scintillates upon the whetstone of Boulus; the knife of Boulus slivers into the tender frenzy of

Tyutchev; the tempests of Tyutchev wake those of The Zohar; the Zohar tremors beneath Celan’s terror; and Celan,

at last, rekindles the tragic romance of the Rhine.

Within each section, I have tried to provide the best of its class, insofar as is possible within the arc of the

anthology. I hope I may be forgiven for any deficits in the more esoteric sections; it would be difficult to overstate

my blind spots in Babylonian, Aramaic, and Egyptian poetry.

One of the many figures I have neglected to include is Pindar. At the time of my compilation of this

Anthology, I possessed no translation which I believed to have done him justice. After some investigation, I learned

of a recent translation by Anthony Verity which is allegedly superior to those which I have seen: I have thus ordered

his version of the Odes, and shall submit a selection as an addendum if I find any to surpass their predecessors. If

this is the case, I shall also include some romantic Greek elegies and pre-Islamic Arabian lyrics to counterpoint

Pindar’s celestial inhumanity ( to paraphrase Horace’s description:

monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres

quem super notas aluere ripas,

fervet immensusque ruit profundo

Pindarus ore.i )

Now, a few words on the poets who I have included. The authors of the Mesopotamian Fragments are

unknown. I have drawn them from Julian Jaynes’s The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral

Mind, wherein they are given by Jaynes as evidence of the withdrawal of hallucinated gods from a formerly

schizophrenic mankind. From these we go to Fernando Pessoa, renowned by his countrymen as Portugal’s greatest

writer. I have included two poems and one prose piece, for despite the caliber of his translated poetry, I think his

i A river bursts its banks and rushes down aMountain with uncontrollable momentum,Rain-saturated, churning, chanting thunder –There you have Pindar's style.

prose translates better and is, in this case, technically poetry (it is patterned language with a unit of repetition). From

Pessoa we visit Sappho; it is the pulse of Pessoa, yet at its lyric tension, beating in a different blood. Sappho’s ghost

invokes Voloshin, a Russian poet whom I had only read within The Education of Lev Navrozov: A Life in the Closed

World Once Called Russia; I sought out what else I could, but to retain some semblance of brevity included nothing

else, for it has not been as well translated. For the sake of retaining the same semblance, I shall merely list that

which follows: early German ballads, incantations from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, a poem by the late Iraqi

poet Sargon Boulus, passages from The Zohar, poems by the German poet Paul Celan, and at the close two early

German odes.

This anthology includes no living writers. I shall thus leave the last words of the introduction to the

masterwork of survival, the Arabian Nights:

“There is no writer that shall not perish; but what his hand

hath written endureth for ever.

Write therefore nothing but what will please thee when thou

shalt see it on the day of resurrection.”

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Mesopotamian Fragments

from various Mesopotamian Cuneiform tablets Translated by Wilfred George Lambert

One who has no god, as he walks along the street,Headache envelops him like a garment.…

My god has forsaken me and disappeared,My goddess has failed me and keeps at a distance.The good angel who walked beside me has departed.…

My god has not come to the rescue in taking me by the hand,Nor has my goddess shown pity on me by going at my side.…

May the gods who have thrown me off give help,May the goddess who has abandoned me show mercy.

Incantation Translated by H. W. F. Saggs

Incantation. That one that has approached the house scares me from my bed, rends me, makes me see nightmares. To the god Bine, gatekeeper of the underworld, may they appoint him, by the decree of Ninurta prince of the underworld. By the decree of Marduk who dwells in Esagilia in Babylon. Let door and bolt know that I am under the protection of the two Lords. Incantation.

Omen Text Translated by H. W. F. Saggs

If a town is set on a hill, it will notbe good for the dweller within that town.

If black ants are seen on the foundationswhich have been laid, that house will getbuilt; the owner of that house will live togrow old.

If a horse enters a man’s house, and biteseither an ass or a man, the owner of thehouse will die and his household will bescattered.

If a fox runs into the public square,that town will be devastated.

If a man unwittingly treads on a lizardand kills it, he will prevail over his adversary.

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Fernando Pessoa

Translations by Richard Zenith

The Tobacco Shop

I’m nothing.I’ll always be nothing.I can’t want to be something.But I have in me all the dreams of the world.

Windows of my room,The room of one of the world’s millions nobody knows(And if they knew me, what would they know?),You open onto the mystery of a street continually crossed by people,A street inaccessible to any and every thought,Real, impossibly real, certain, unknowingly certain,With the mystery of things beneath the stones and beings,With death making the walls damp and the hair of men white,With Destiny driving the wagon of everything down the road of nothing.

Today I’m defeated, as if I’d learned the truth.Today I’m lucid, as if I were about to dieAnd had no greater kinship with thingsThan to say farewell, this building and this side of the street becomingA row of train cars, with the whistle for departureBlowing in my headAnd my nerves jolting and bones creaking as we pull out.

Today I’m bewildered, like a man who wondered and discovered and forgot.Today I’m torn between the loyalty I oweTo the outward reality of the Tobacco Shop across the streetAnd to the inward reality of my feeling that everything’s a dream.

I failed in everything.Since I had no ambition, perhaps I failed in nothing.I left the education I was given,Climbing down from the window at the back of the house.I went to the country with big plans.But all I found was grass and trees,And when there were people they were just like the others.I step back from the window and sit in a chair. What should I think about?

How should I know what I’ll be, I who don't know what I am?Be what I think? But I think of being so many things!And there are so many who think of being the same thing that we can’t all be it!Genius? At this momentA hundred thousand brains are dreaming they’re geniuses like me,And it may be that history won’t remember even one,All of their imagined conquests amounting to so much dung.No, I don’t believe in me.Insane asylums are full of lunatics with certainties!Am I, who have no certainties, more right or less right?No, not even me …In how many garrets and non-garrets of the worldAre self-convinced geniuses at this moment dreaming?

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How many lofty and noble and lucid aspirations– Yes, truly lofty and noble and lucidAnd perhaps even attainable –Will never see the light of day or find a sympathetic ear?The world is for those born to conquer it,Not for those who dream they can conquer it, even if they’re right.I've done more in dreams than Napoleon.

I’ve held more humanities against my hypothetical breast than Christ.I’ve secretly invented philosophies such as Kant never wrote.But I am, and perhaps will always be, the man in the garret,Even though I don’t live in one.I’ll always be the one who wasn’t born for that;I’ll always be merely the one who had qualities;I’ll always be the one who waited for a door to open in a wall without doorsAnd sang the song of the Infinite in a chicken coopAnd heard the voice of God in a covered well.Believe in me? No, not in anything.Let Nature pour over my seething headIts sun, its rain, and the wind that finds my hair,And let the rest come if it will or must, or let it not come.Cardiac slaves of the stars,We conquered the whole world before getting out of bed,But we woke up and it’s hazy,We got up and it’s alien,We went outside and it’s the entire earthPlus the solar system and the Milky Way and the Indefinite.

(Eat your chocolates, little girl,Eat your chocolates!Believe me, there's no metaphysics on earth like chocolates,And all religions put together teach no more than the candy shop.Eat, dirty little girl, eat!If only I could eat chocolates with the same truth as you!But I think and, removing the silver paper that’s tinfoil,I throw it on the ground, as I’ve thrown out life.)

But at least, from my bitterness over what I’ll never be,There remains the hasty writing of these verses,A broken gateway to the Impossible.But at least I confer on myself a contempt without tears,Noble at least in the sweeping gesture by which I flingThe dirty laundry that's me – with no list – into the stream of things,And I stay at home, shirtless.

(O my consoler, who doesn’t exist and therefore consoles,Be you a Greek goddess, conceived as a living statue,Or a patrician woman of Rome, impossibly noble and dire,Or a princess of the troubadours, all charm and grace,Or an eighteenth-century marchioness, decollete and aloof,Or a famous courtesan from our parent’s generation,Or something modern, I can’t quite imagine what –Whatever all of this is, whatever you are, if you can inspire, then inspire me!My heart is a poured-out bucket.In the same way invokers of spirits invoke spirits, I invokeMy own self and find nothing.

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I go to the window and see the street with absolute clarity.I see the shops, I see the sidewalks, I see the passing cars,I see the clothed living beings who pass each other.I see the dogs that also exist,And all of this weighs on me like a sentence of exile,And all of this is foreign, like everything else.)

I’ve lived, studied, loved, and even believed,And today there’s not a beggar I don’t envy just because he isn’t me.I look at the tatters and sores and falsehood of each one,And I think: perhaps you never lived or studied or loved or believed(For it’s possible to do all of this without having done any of it);Perhaps you’ve merely existed, as when a lizard has its tail cut offAnd the tail keeps on twitching, without the lizard.I made of myself what I was no good at making,And what I could have made of myself I didn’t.I put on the wrong costumeAnd was immediately taken for someone I wasn’t, and I said nothing and was lost.When I went to take off the mask,It was stuck to my face.When I got it off and saw myself in the mirror,I had already grown old.I was drunk and no longer knew how to wear the costume hat I hadn’t taken off.I threw out the mask and slept in the closetLike a dog tolerated by the managementBecause it’s harmless,And I’ll write down this story to prove I’m sublime.

Musical essence of my useless verses,If only I could look at you as something I had madeInstead of always looking at the Tobacco Shop across the street,Trampling on my consciousness of existing,Like a rug a drunkard stumbles onOr a doormat stolen by gypsies and it’s not worth a thing.

But the Tobacco Shop Owner has come to the door and is standing there.I look at him with the discomfort of a half-twisted neckCompounded by the discomfort of a half-grasping soul.He will die and I will die.He’ll leave his signboard, I’ll leave my poems.His sign will also eventually die, and so will my poems.Eventually the street where the sign was will die,And so will the language in which my poems were written.Then the whirling planet where all of this happened will die.

On other planets of other solar systems something like peopleWill continue to make things like poems and to live under things like signs,Always one thing facing the other,Always one thing as useless as the other,Always the impossible as stupid as reality,Always the inner mystery as true as the mystery sleeping on the surface.Always this thing or always that, or neither one thing nor the other.

But a man has entered the Tobacco Shop (to buy tobacco?),And plausible reality suddenly hits me.I half rise from my chair – energetic, convinced, human –

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And will try to write these verses in which I say the opposite.

I light up a cigarette as I think about writing them,And in that cigarette I savor a freedom from all thought.My eyes follow the smoke as if it were my own trailAnd I enjoy, for a sensitive and fitting moment,A liberation from all speculationAnd an awareness that metaphysics is a consequence of not feeling very well.Then I lean back in the chairAnd keep smoking.As long as Destiny permits, I’ll keep smoking.

(If I married my washwoman's daughterPerhaps I would be happy.)I get up from the chair. I go to the window.

The man has come out of the Tobacco Shop (putting change into his pocket?).Ah, I know him: it’s unmetaphysical Esteves.(The Tobacco Shop Owner has come to the door.)As if by divine instinct, Esteves turns around and sees me.He waves hello, I shout back “Hello, Esteves!” and the universeFalls back into place without ideals or hopes, and the Owner of the Tobacco Shop smiles.

5 May 1928

At the wheel of the Chevrolet on the road to Sintra,In the moonlight and in a dream, on the deserted road,I drive alone, I drive almost slowly, and it almostSeems, or I make myself think it seems,That I’m going down another road, another dream, anotherworld,That I’m going without Lisbon lying behind me and Sintraup ahead,That I’m going, and what’s in it besides not stopping, justgoing?

I’ll spend the night in Sintra since I can’t spend it in Lisbon,But when I get to Sintra I’ll be sorry I didn’t stay in Lisbon.Always this irrational, irrelevant, useless fretfulness,Always, always, alwaysThis exaggerated mental anxiety over nothing,On the road to Sintra, on the road of dreaming, on the roadof life…

Responsive to my subconscious movements at the wheel,The borrowed car bounds forward beneath me, with me.As I think about the symbol and turn right, I smile.How many borrowed things I’ve used to go forward in theworld!How many borrowed things I’ve driven as if theywere mine!Alas, how much I myself am what I’ve borrowed!

On the left side of the road there’s a cabin – yes, a cabin.On the right the open country, with the moon in the

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distance.The car, which so recently seemed to be giving me freedom,Is now something that closes me in,Something I can only drive if I’m closed inside it,Something I control only if I’m part of it, if it’s part of me.

Behind me on the left the humble – more than humble –cabin…Life there must be happy, just because it isn’t mine.If anyone saw me from the cabin window, they’re no doubtthinking: That guy is happy.Perhaps to the child peering out the top-floor windowI looked (with my borrowed car) like a dream, a magicalbeing come to life.Perhaps to the girl, who as soon as she heard the motorlooked out the kitchen windowOn the ground floor,I’m something like the prince of every girl’s heart,And she’ll keep glancing through the window until I vanisharound the curve.Will I leave dreams behind me, or is it the car that leavesthem?I the driver of the borrowed car, or the borrowed car I’mdriving?

On the road to Sintra in the moonlight, in sadness, withfields and the night before me,Driving the borrowed Chevrolet and feeling forlorn,I lose myself on the road to come, I vanish in the distance I’mcovering,And on a sudden, frantic, violent, inexplicable impulseI accelerate…But my heart is still back at that heap of stones I skirtedwhen I saw it without seeing it,At the door of the cabin,My empty heart,My dissatistfied heart,My heart that’s more human than I, more exact than life.

On the road to Sintra, close to midnight, in the moonlight,at the wheel,On the road to Sintra, exhausted just from imagining,On the road to Sintra, ever closer to Sintra,On the road to Sintra, even farther from myself…

Entry from The Book of DisquietIt’s a hopelessly bad lithograph. I stare at it without knowing if I see it. It’s one among others in the shop

window – in the middle of the window under the steps.She holds Spring against her breast and stares at me with sad eyes. Her smile shines, because the paper’s

glossy, and her cheeks are red. The sky behind her is the colour of light blue cloth. She has a sculpted, almost tiny mouth, and above its postcard expression her eyes keep staring at me with an enormous sorrow. The arm holding the flowers reminds me of someone else’s. Her dress or blouse has a low neck that reveals one shoulder. Her eyes are genuinely sad: they stare at me from the depth of the lithographic reality with a truth of some sort. She came with Spring. Her eyes are large, but that’s not what makes them sad. I tear myself from the window with violent steps. I cross the street and turn around with impotent indignation. She still holds the Spring she was given, and her eyes are sad like all the things in life I’ve missed out on. Seen from a distance, the lithograph turns out to be more colourful.

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The figure’s hair is tied at the top by a pinker than pink ribbon; I hadn’t noticed. In human eyes, even in lithographic ones, there’s something terrible: the inevitable warning of consciousness, the silent shout that there’s a soul there. With a huge effort I pull out of the sleep in which I was steeped, and like a dog I shake off the drops of dark fog. Oblivious to my departure, as if bidding farewell to something else, those sad eyes of the whole of life – of this metaphysical lithograph that we observe from a distance – stare at me as if I knew something of God. The print, which has a calendar at the bottom, is framed above and below by two flatly curved, badly painted black strips. Within these upper and lower limits, above 1929 and an outmoded calligraphic vignette adorning the inevitable 1st of January, the sad eyes ironically stare at me.

Funny where I knew that figure from. In the corner at the back of the office there’s an identical calendar which I’ve seen countless times, but due to some lithographic mystery, or some mystery of my own, the eyes of the office copy express no sorrow. It’s just a lithograph. (Printed on glossy paper, it sleeps away its subdued life above the head of left-handed Alves.)

All of this makes me want to smile, but I feel a profound anxiety. I feel the chill of a sudden sickness in my soul. I don’t have the strength to balk at this absurdity. What window overlooking what secret of God am I confronting against my will? Where does the window under the stairs lead to? What eyes stared at me from out of the lithograph? I’m practically trembling. I involuntarily raise my eyes to the far corner of the office where the real lithograph is. I keep raising my eyes to that corner of the office where the real lithograph is. I keep raising my eyes to that corner.

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Sappho

Fragment 31. Translated by A. S. Kline

He’s equal with the Gods, that manWho sits across from you,Face to face, close enough to sipYour voice’s sweetness, And what excites my mind,Your laughter, glittering. So,When I see you, for a moment,My voice goes, My tongue freezes. Fire,Delicate fire, in the flesh.Blind, stunned, the soundOf thunder, in my ears. Shivering with sweat, coldTremors over the skin,I turn the colour of dead grass,And I’m an inch from dying.

Fragment 68. Translated by J. W. MacKail

Sometime thou shalt lie dead, and no memory of thee shall be either then or afterward, for thou hast no part in roses from Pieria ; but even in the chambers of Death thou shalt pass unknown flitting forth among the dim ghosts.

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Maximilian Alexandrovich Kirienko-Voloshin

“The Terms” Translated by Lev Navrozov

They used to come to work in the evening.They read denunciations, reports, cases.Then they signed the sentences.They yawned. They drank wine.Vodka was issued to the soldiers.By candlelight they read out the names of men and women.They drove the men and women into a dark backyard,Took off their shoes, clothes, underwear,Tied these up in bundles and put onto carts.Then they divided the rings and watches.At night they drove the men and women barefootOver the ice-crusted land,Under a north-east wind,To the wasteland beyond the city limits.They bayonetted the men and women to the edge of a ravine,And lit up the targets by flashlights.The machine-guns worked for half a minute.They finished off with bayonets those who were still aliveOr just pushed the dying into the pit.Quickly they threw some earth over.Then they went home, singing a soulful Russian song.And at dawn the wives, mothers, dogsStole to the same ravines.Clawed away the earth. Gnawed, snarling, the bones.Kissed the dear flesh.

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Early German Ballads, Vol. 1, 1280 to 1619

Translated by Hilde and Arthur Kevess and Maurice Riedman

from “The Peasant Army of Florian Geyer”

We are the earth-sprung hordes of Florian Geyer,We want to fight the tyrants,

Lances drawn,We sally forth,Set the monasteries afire.

When Adam dug and Eve span,Where was then a nobleman?

Near Weinsberg the battle raged to and fro,Many were those who scaled the battlements.

We want to petition our Lord in HeavenTo permit us to slay the priests.

The nobleman’s children –We sent them to Hell.

Beaten, we march home,Our grandchildren will fight the battle out better.

“A Landsknecht Song”

Oh Magdeburg, hold steadfast,Alien guests are comingWho want to drive youOut of your well built house.

The Gospel they want to quench,Brand it as lies,Against this we want to fight.As long as there is life in us.

To the Emperor we want to render,Now and forever,That which is his,And not what belongs to God.

In Magdeburg, the fortress,There are fine young maidensWho pray for good ChristiansAnd hate the Spaniards.

In Magdeburg, the free,There is many a tender child,They cry to God in HeavenTo keep the city safe.

On the bridge in Magdeburg

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Are two puppies barking,Before them all must bowWho want to cross.

On the walls in MagdeburgAre many splendid guns,And many a heart is saddenedBecause they haven’t yet been used.

In the tower in MagdeburgSit three maidens fine,Every morning they weaveThree garlands of reeds.

One shall be for Duke Hansen,Him of noble birth,The other shall be forCount Albrecht of Mansfeld.

The third one has been bespokenFor a still unknown heroWho leaves nought unavenged,He risks his lands and men.

Grant God, he be successfulWith the help of Christ, thy Son,That the foe will not compel himTo go against Thy Word!

This little song was sungBy a landsknecht boldWho kept saying, while coins were clinking at his feetThat the Lord was on our side.

“Peasants War Story” (about 1525)

The peasants wanted to be free,But this they could not achieve,Pour out the red wine, pour out the white,Then I will sing you the Carmen (song).

Frundsberg was our leader,‘Neath his banner we fought,Then our standard bearer lost heart and handIn the battle for the flag.

There we lay with unseeing eyes,Our trusty blades beside us,May the Lord Almighty restore usThe flag we lost in battle.

There on the bloody battlefield we layIn spite of sacraments and cross,Some are glad (their lives are over) and some are sorryBut no one moves again.

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Today we swill the last glass of wineAnd roll out the last pair of diceWe are fated to be the lost bandAnd await the single for the next attack.

Then we will sing the song of the war drums,The banners will arise once more,This despite the curses of priests,For the love of God and the peasants.

“A Landsknecht’s Lament” (about 1467)

The snow has fallenThough it’s a bit early for that;Boys throw snowballs at me,The road is covered with snow.

My house has no gable,It’s become decrepit,The bolts are broken,My little room is cold.

O darling, have mercy on me,I am so miserable.Take me in your arms,Then winter will go away.

“Lullaby from the Thirty Years War” (1618-48)

Hear child, hear how the storm wind blows,And shakes the bay window.When the soldier from Braunschweig is outsideHe shakes us even harder.Learn to pray, child, and fold your hands piouslySo God may keep the “mad Christian” away from us.

Sleep, child, sleep, it’s time to sleep.Time also to die.When you’re big, the drumsWill carry you far and wide.Run after the drums, my child, listen to your mother’s advice,If you fall in battle,No soldier will be after you.Sleep, child, sleep. Sleep, child, sleep.

Landsknecht’s Farewell (about 1539)

Innsbruck, I must leave you,From these my native streetsI fare into foreign lands.All my joy is gone,I don’t know what to do,I’m in such misery.

Great sorrow I must bear,I do complain

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To my dearly beloved only,O love, let your heartHave mercy on me,For I must be far away.

To you, my solace,I want to be faithful forever,Steady, honorable, true.Now God keep youIn all your virtueUntil I come back.

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Papyrus of Ani: Chapters of Coming Forth By Day (The Egyptian Book of the Dead)

Translated by Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge

from “The Chapter Of Not Dying A Second Time.” What manner of land is this unto which I have come? It hath not water, it hath not air; it is depth unfathomable, it is black as the blackest night, and men wander helplessly therein.

from “The Chapter Of Not Rotting In Khert-Neter.” O thou who art motionless, O thou who art motionless, O thou whose members are motionless, like unto those of Osiris. Thy members shall not be motionless, they shall not rot, they shall not crumble away, they shall not fall into decay. My members shall be made undying for me as if I were Osiris.

from “The Chapter Of Lifting Up The Feet, And Of Coming Forth On The Earth.” O I am helpless. O I am helpless. I would walk. I am helpless. I am helpless in the regions of those who plunder in Khert-Neter, I the Osiris Ani, whose word is truth...

from “The Chapter Of Opening The Mouth Of The Osiris Ani.” To be said: – The god Ptah [the celestial blacksmith, who forged the human body] shall open my mouth, and the god of my town shall unfasten the swathings, the swathings which are over my mouth. Thereupon shall come Thoth, who is equipped with words of power in great abundance, and shall untie the fetters, even the fetters of the god Set which are over my mouth. And the god Tem shall cast them back at those who would fetter me with them, and cast them at him. Then shall the god Shu open my mouth, and make an opening into my mouth with the same iron implement wherewith he opened the mouth of the gods.

from “Making The Transformation Into A Hawk of Gold.” The Osiris Ani saith: – I have risen up out of the seshett chamber, like the golden hawk which cometh forth from his egg. I fly, I alight like a hawk with a back of seven cubits, and the wings of which are like unto the mother-of-emerald of the South. I have come forth from the Sektet Boat, and my heart hath been brought unto me from the mountain of the East. I have alighted on the Atet Boat, and there have been brought unto me those who dwelt in their substance, and they bowed in homage before me. I have risen, I have gathered myself together like a beautiful golden hawk, with the head of the Benu, and Ra hath entered in to hear my speech. I have taken my seat among the great gods, the children of Nut. I have settled myself, the Sekhet-hetepet [the Field of Offerings] is before me. I eat therein, I become a Spirit-soul therein, I am supplied with food in abundance therein, as much as I desire. The Grain-god Nepra hath given unto me food for my throat, and I am master over myself and over the attributes of my head.

from “Making The Transformation Into A Divine Hawk.” I have made myself perfect. O grant thou that I may be held in fear. Create thou awe of me. Let the gods of the Tuat be afraid of me, and let them fight for me in their halls. Permit not thou to come nigh unto me him that would attack me, or would injure me in the House of Darkness. Cover over the helpless one, hide him.

[…] Osiris, grant thou that that which cometh forth from thy mouth may circulate to me. Let me see thine own Form. Let thy Souls envelop me. Grant thou that I may come forth, and that I may be master of my legs, and let me live there like Nebertcher upon his throne. Let the gods of the Tuat hold me in fear, and let them fight for me in their halls. Grant thou that I may move forward with him and with the Ariu gods, and let me be firmly stablished on my pedestal like the Lord of Life.

[…] I, even I, am a Spirit-soul, a dweller in the Light-god, whose form hath been created in divine flesh. I am one of those Spirit-souls who dwell in the Light-god, who were created by Tem himself, and who exist in the blossoms of his Eye.

[…] I am one of the worms which have been created by the Eye of the Lord One. And behold, when as yet Isis had not given birth to Horus, I was flourishing, and I had waxed old, and had become pre-eminent among the Spirit-souls who had come into being with him. I rose up like a divine hawk, and Horus endowed me with a Spirit-body with his soul, so that I might take possession of the property of Osiris in the Tuat. He shall say to the twin Lion-gods for me, the Chief of the House of the Nemes Crown, the Dweller in his cavern: Get thee back to the heights of

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heaven, for behold, inasmuch as thou art a Spirit-body with the creations of Horus, the Nemes Crown shall not be to thee: but thou shalt have speech even to the uttermost limits of the heavens.

[…] All the gods who guard the shrine of the Lord One are smitten with terror at [my] words.

[…] I know the Light-god, his winds are in my body. The Bull which striketh terror [into souls] shall not repulse me. I come daily into the House of the twin Lion-gods. I come forth therefrom into the House of Isis. I look upon the holy things which are hidden. I see the being who is therein. I speak to the great ones of Shu, they repulse him that is wrathful in his hour. I am Horus who dwelleth in his divine Light. I am master of his crown. I am master of his radiance. I advance towards the Henti boundaries of heaven. Horus is upon his seat. Horus is upon his thrones. My face is like that of a divine hawk. I am one who is equipped [like] his lord. I shall come forth to Tetu. I shall see Osiris. I shall live in his actual presence.... Nut. They shall see me. I shall see the gods [and] the Eye of Horus burning with fire before my eyes. They shall reach out their hands to me. I shall stand up. I shall be master of him that would subject me to restraint. They shall open the holy paths to me, they shall see my form, they shall listen to my words.

[…] [Homage] to you, O ye gods of the Tuat, whose faces are turned back, whose powers advance, conduct ye me to the Star-gods which never rest. Prepare ye for me the holy ways to the Hemat house, and to your god, the Soul, who is the mighty one of terror. Horus hath commanded me to lift up your faces; do ye look upon me. I have risen up like a divine hawk. Horus hath made me to be a Spirit-body by means of his Soul, and to take possession of the things of Osiris in the Tuat. Make ye for me a path. I have travelled and I have arrived at those who are chiefs of their caverns, and who are guardians of the House of Osiris. I speak unto them his mighty deeds. I made them to know concerning his victories. He is ready [to butt with his] two horns at Set.

[…] Travel thou on thy way safely, cry out the gods of the Tuat to me. O ye who make your names pre-eminent, who are chiefs in your shrines, and who are guardians of the House of Osiris, grant, I pray you, that I may come to you. I have bound up and I have gathered together your Powers. I have directed the Powers of the ways, the wardens of the horizon, and of the Hemat House of heaven. I have stablished their fortresses for Osiris. I have prepared the ways for him. I have performed the things which [he] hath commanded. I come forth to Tetu. I see Osiris. I speak to him concerning the matter of his Great Son, whom he loveth, and concerning [the smiting of] the heart of Set. I look upon the lord who was helpless. How shall I make them to know the plans of the gods, and that which Horus did without the knowledge of his father Osiris?

[…] Hail, Lord, thou Soul, most awful and terrible, behold me. I have come, I make thee to be exalted! I have forced a way though the Tuat. I have opened the roads which appertain to heaven, and those which appertain to the earth, and no one hath opposed me therein. I have exalted thy face, O Lord of Eternity.

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Sargon Boulus

“The Knife Sharpener” Translated by a friend The world is an openingguarded byshards of a mirroron a ballast of mudthrough which passvariousformsof creation:Everyone comesto sauntertoward this alley

**

Dervishes comewho lived for some time in caveswith scorpions and serpents, dogsfollowthe cars ofa wedding procession…The departed arrivesand the arrival departs:the accusedthe witnessand the judge.

**

The worldis a porter moaningunder a flour sackAnd he isThe salt merchantAnd the rababa playerthe wanderer from door to door.

**

This gap in my memoryWhen I follow a shadowTakes meAcross the seasonsAnd I listenTo a semi-buried melodyThat repeatsIn a place far removedFrom myself…This white eternityThat swims in my headThis crow thatComesTo invade its whiteness…

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**

Invades itCreeping from houseTo house at the peak of siestaAnd there is no one but a childPlaying in the shadeAnd a woman offering grassTo the lambTied to a stakeWhen the world rustsAnd the ones fasting in the housesDreamOf who knows what feastIn what festival

**

He appearsWithout warningWith his hard face atThe mouth of the alleyOn his backThe hone of skin and stoneAnd on his eyesThe dark spectacles of the blind, a manButHe is a specter of his place of originA mutant hungry for the taste of ironNourished by the sun…

**

The knife sharpener appearsIn the kingdom of rusty thingsLike a prophecyWe have forgotten Crushing between his handsThe stoneScreaming to the sleepers that he has comeHe has comeTo sharpen the knives.

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Fyodor Ivanovich Tyutchev

“I love your eyes, my darling friend” Translation from the subtitles of Andrei Tarkovsky’s “Stalker”

I love your eyes, my darling friend,Their play so passionate and bright’ning,When a sudden stare up you send,And like a heaven-blown lightning,I’d take in all from end to end.

But there’s more that I admire:Your eyes when they're downcastIn bursts of love-inspired fireAnd through the eyelash goes fastA somber, dull call of desire…

“Night Wind” Prose translation by Dimitri Obolensky

What are you wailing about, night wind, what are you lamenting so frantically? What does your strange voice, now muffled and plaintive, now loud, signify? In a language intelligible to the heart you speak of torment past comprehension, and you dig and at times stir up frenzied sounds in the heart!

Oh, do not sing these fearful songs about ancient, native chaos! How avidly the world of night within the soul listens to the lovely story! It longs to burst out of the mortal breast and to merge with the Unbounded… Oh, do not wake the sleeping tempests: beneath them chaos stirs.

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The Zohar

Translated by Daniel C. Matt

From 1:83a

He opened, saying, “My soul desires You in the night, the spirit within me seeks You at dawn.” They have established this verse and so have we, but come and see: When a person climbs into bed, his soul leaves him and ascends on high. Now, if you say that they all ascend, not every one sees the face of the King. Rather, the soul departs, and in the body remains nothing but a trace of a pint of the heart’s vitality. The soul proceeds, seeking to ascend, countless rungs upon rungs to climb. Flying, she encounters those hooded, hunchbacked, dazzling demons of defilement. If she is pure, not having been defiled during the day, she ascends; if not, she is defiled among them, clings to them, ascends no higher. There they divulge information to her, and she grasps what is imminent. Sometimes they toy with her, disseminating deceptions. She drifts this way all night long until the person awakes and she returns to her place.”

From 1130a

“If one is unworthy, when he sleeps and his soul departs, she soars – penetrating these impure spirits, who all proclaim: ‘Make way, make way! This is not one of ours!” Then she ascends among those holy ones, who divulge to her a word of truth. As she descends, all those ravaging bands of truculent stingers seek to grasp that words – divulging other words – and that word she absorbed amid those holy ones lies among the others like grain mingled with straw. Who can attain more while still existing in this world?”

From 1:7a

“They went on. They reached a certain mountain, as the sun was inclining. The branches of the tree on the mountain began lashing one another, emitting a song. As they were walking, they heard a resounding voice proclaim: “Holy sons of God, dispersed among the living of the world! Luminous lamps, initiates of the Academy! Assemble at your places to delight with your Lord in Torah!”

They were frightened, stood in place, then sat down. Meanwhile a voice called out as before, proclaiming: “Mighty boulders, towering hammers, behold the Master of Colors, embroidered in figures, standing on a dais. Enter and assemble!” That moment, they heard the branches of the trees resounding intensely, proclaiming: The voice of YHVH breaks cedars. Rabbi El’azar and Rabbi Abba fell on their faces, immense fear falling upon them. They rose hastily, went on, and heard nothing. Leaving the mountain, they walked on.

From 1:16a

Darkness is black fire, potent in color; red fire, potent in appearance; green fire, potent in shape; white fire, embracing all. Darkness, most powerful fire, empowers tohu. Darkness is fire but not dark fire until it empowers tohu. This is the mystery of: His eyes were too dim to see, and he called Esau… Darkness – face of evil, for he greeted evil with a friendly face.

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Paul CelanNocturne

Sleep not. Be on your guard.The poplars sing and stridewith war troops by their side.The ditch runs with your blood.

Green skeletons are dancing.One tears the cloud away:wind-beaten, battered, icy,your dream bleeds from the lances.

The world’s a laboring beastcreeps stark under night sky.God is its howling. I fear for me and freeze.

A Song in the Wilderness

A garland was wound out of blackening leaves in the region of Akra:I reined my dark stallion around and stabbed out at death with my dagger.From the deep wooden vessels I drank of the ashes from wells there at Akra,and charged straight ahead at the ruins of heaven with firmly set visor.

The angels are dead and the Lord has gone blind in the region of Akra,and no one will guard for me those who have gone to their sleep and are resting.The moon has been hacked into bits, the flow’r of the region of Akra:Like dark russet thorntrees they blossom, those hands wearing rings that are rusting.

So now at the last I must bend for a kiss when they’re praying in Akra…O scant was the breastplate of night, the blood through its buckles is oozing!Now I am their brother and smiling, the ironclad cherub of Akra.And still do I utter the name and still on my cheek feel the blazing.

WHAT’S WRITTEN goes hollow, what’sspoken, seagreen,burns in the bays,

dolphins racethroughliquefied names,

here in forever Nowhere,in a memory of out-crying bells in – but where?,

whoin thisshadow quadrantis gasping, whounderneathglimmers up, glimmers up, glimmers up?

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Darkness

The urns of stillness are empty.

In branchesthe swelter of speechless songschokes black.

Blunt hourpostsgrope towards a strange time.

A wingbeat whirls.

For the owls in the heartdeath dawns.Treason falls into your eyes –

My shadow strives with your scream –

The east smokes after this night…Only dyingsparkles.

ASPEN TREE, your leaves glance white into the dark.My mother’s hair never turned white.

Dandelion, so green is the Ukraine.My fair-haired mother did not come home.

Rain cloud, do you linger at the well?My soft-voiced mother weeps for all.

Rounded star, you coil the golden loop.My mother’s heart was hurt by lead.

Oaken door, who hove you off your hinge?My gentle mother cannot return.

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Early German Ballads, Vol. II, 1536 to 1800Translated by Hilde and Arthur Kevess and Maurice Riedman

“By My Beloved’s Head” (Orig. 1536, revised 1780)

By my beloved’s headThere stands a golden shrine,If God would let me have the keyI’d throw it into the Rhine.If I were with my beloved,How wonderful I’d feel!

By my beloved’s feetA cold brook flows,He who drinks from itBecomes younger, does not grow old.From this little brookI have drunk quite a few drinks,But I would much ratherKiss my beloved’s red lips.

In my beloved’s gardenTwo trees stand,One bears nutmegs,The other bears cloves,The nutmegs are sweet,The cloves are tart,I give them to my beloved,So he won’t forget me.

It was two stonemasonsIn the town of FreiburgWho sang us this rhyme so well.Over mead and cool wineThey sand to us so nicely,And sitting there with usWas the innkeeper’s daughter.

“The Heath Is Getting Dark” (East Prussia, 1750)

The heath is getting dark already,Let us go home:We’ve cut the cornWith our bare swords.

I heard the rustling of the sickle,It rustled through the field,I heard a maiden lamentThat she had lost her love.

Have you lost your sweetheart?I still have mine,So let us, together, wind ourselvesA little garland.

A garland of roses,

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A bouquet of clover,The snow lies deepAt Frankfurt on the bridge.

The snow has melted,The water flows away,You disappear from my sight,You disappear from my mind.

In my father’s garden,There stand two little trees,One of them bears nutmegs,The other one brown cloves.

Nutmegs, they are sweet,And cloves, they are lovely,We both must part,And parting hurts.

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