Read Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology Online
Authors: Paula Deitz
Mary Jane White, with its ironic title considering the poem’s length and its
endlessly microscopic examination of how two lovers break apart and their
relationship slowly dissolves.
All of the salient interests of English and American poet-translators of
the past sixty-fi ve years and more are here in
Poets Translate Poets
: classical Greek and Latin; Medieval Chinese; Old and Medieval English; Medieval,
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I n t r o d u c t i o n
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Renaissance, and Modern European; and Southeast Asian. A complete
anthology of poems in translation from the
Hudson Review
could supply a book three or four times the length of this one. But this selection has been
made according to the advice Ezra Pound gave to Marianne Moore when
translating La Fontaine, and is an attempt to include only the best.
I n t roduc t ion
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Poets Tr anslate Poets
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B u l g a r i a n
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K r a ssin Him m ir sk y
(ca. 1939)
Th
e Cricket
In vain we tried to banish him.
Th
e roar of engines did not drive him away,
nor the asphalt with which we covered the fi elds.
We put up steel fences, walls of cement
and concrete.
Darkened the air with gas fumes
and shut ourselves in highrise buildings.
But he, like a password,
crossed every barrier unharmed.
And when we claimed victory
in the shade of a leaf, unseen
his fi ne string music started again.
Its tone reeled off our forgotten friends,
our forgotten homes,
our souls.
It recalled to mind
the world’s forgotten beauty.
Th
en we looked for him,
meaning to speak in friendship at last,
but in vain.
He was nowhere visible.
And only within us
still rang and rang his refrain.
Denise Levertov, 1983
K r a s si n H i m m i r sk y
3
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C h i n e s e
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T u Fu
(712–70)
Adviser to the Court
Working All Night in Springtime
When day begins to darken
Flowers along the wall
Merge into the shadows.
Skyward the birds chirp soft ly
Searching for a roost.
Ten thousand common households
Are illumined by the stars.
Th
e fi rmament of Heaven
Is drenched in all the moonlight
Of this most brilliant night.
So quiet! I hear keys turning
In gold locks of the Palace doors.
Th
e wind, a faint jingle, sounding
Like the Imperial horses
As they shake their pendants of jade.
I must present a memorial
To the Th
rone-room, in the morning.
Sleepless now, whether I work or not,
All night I measure the hours
Of all night, in my mind. . . .
Reply to a Friend’s Advice
Leaving the Audience by the quiet corridors,
Stately and beautiful, we pass through the Palace gates,
Turning in diff erent directions: you go to the West
With the Ministers of State. I, otherwise.
T u F u
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On my side, the willow-twigs are fragile, greening.
You are struck by scarlet fl owers over there.
Our separate ways! You write so well, so kindly,
To caution, in vain, a garrulous old man.
On the Way Out
Last year I rejoined the Emperor by this road
When the barbarians swarmed over the Western suburbs.
I’m so far from having recovered from my fear
Th
at shreds of my soul still dangle in the air.
Dangling and wandering, as I do now,
Close to the Th
rone, yet I am driven away
To a vast, distant province! Surely His Majesty
Could not have intended this. What, I, betrayed?
Ruin! As talent fails and I grow old.
My steadfastness in trying times has aged me.
I pull on my horse’s reins, and pausing,
Gaze for a fi nal time on the Palace walls.
Banishment
Too Much Heat, Too Much Work
It’s the fourteenth of August, and I’m too hot
To endure food, or bed. Steam and the fear of scorpions,
Keep me awake. I’m told the heat won’t fade with Autumn.
Swarms of fl ies arrive. I’m roped into my clothes.
In another moment I’ll scream down the offi
ce
As the paper mountains rise higher on my desk.
Oh those real mountains to the south of here!
I gaze at the ravines kept cool by pines.
If I could walk on ice, with my feet bare!
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C h i n e s e
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Reunion
Joy in this meeting grieves our two white heads
Knowing they greet each other a fi nal time.
We nod through the long night watches, still resenting
Th
e speed with which the candle shrinks and pales.
I dread the hour the Milky Way dries up forever.
Let us fi ll our cups and drain them, over and over
While we can, before the world returns with dawn
When we blot our eyes and turn our backs on each other.
Carolyn Kizer, 1964
T u F u
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O l d E n g l i s h
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A non ymous
Th
e Fire-Drake, from
Beowulf
Lines 2510–2709
Now Beowulf spoke his last battle-boast:
“In boyhood I braved bitter clashes;
still in old age I would seek out strife
and gain glory guarding my folk
if the man-bane comes from his cave to meet me.”
Th
en he turned to his troop for the fi nal time,
bidding farewell to bold helmet-bearers,
fast in friendship: “No sword would I wear,
no weapon at all to ward off the worm
if I knew how to fi ght this fi endish foe
as I grappled with Grendel one bygone night.
But here I shall fi nd fi erce battle-fi re
and breath envenomed, therefore I bear
this mail-coat and shield. I shall not shy
from standing my ground when I greet the hoard-guard,
follow what will at the foot of his wall.
I shall face the fi end with a fi rm heart.
Let every man’s Ruler reckon my fate:
words are worthless against the war-fl yer.
Bide by the barrow, safe in your byrnies,
and watch, my warriors, which of us two
will better bear the brunt of our clash.
Th
is war is not yours; it is meted to me,
matching my strength, man against monster.
I shall do this deed undaunted by death
and shall get you gold or else get my ending,
borne off in battle, the bane of your lord.”
A non y mou s
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Th
e hero arose, helmed and hardy,
a war-king clad in shield and corslet.
He strode strongly under the stone-cliff :
no faint-hearted man, to face it unfl inching!
Stalwart soldier of so many marches,
unshaken when shields were crushed in the clash,
he saw between stiles an archway where steam
burst like a boiling tide from the barrow,
woeful for one close to the worm-hoard.
He would not linger long unburned by the lurker
or safely slip through the searing lair.
Th
en a battle-cry broke from Beowulf’s breast
as his rightful rage was roused for the reckoning.
His challenge sounded under stark stone
where the hateful hoard-guard heard in his hollow
the clear-voiced call of a man coming.
No quarter was claimed; no quarter given.
First the beast’s breath blew hot from the barrow
as battle-bellows boomed underground.
Th
e stone-house stormer swung up his shield
at the ghastly guardian. Th
en the dragon’s grim heart
kindled for confl ict. Uncoiling, he came
seeking the Stalwart; but the swordsman had drawn
the keen-edged blade bequeathed him for combat,
and each foe confronted the other with fear.
His will unbroken, the warlord waited
behind his tall shield, helm and hauberk.
With fi tful twistings the fi re-drake hastened
fatefully forward. His fender held high,
Beowulf felt the blaze blister through
hotter and sooner than he had foreseen.
So for the fi rst time fortune was failing
the mighty man in the midst of a struggle.
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Ol d E n g l i s h
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Wielding his sword he struck at the worm
and his fabled blade bit to the bone
through blazoned hide: bit and bounced back,
no match for the foe in this moment of need.
Th
e peerless prince was hard-pressed in response,
for his bootless blow had maddened the monster
and fatal fl ames shot further than ever,
lighting the land. No praise for the warlord’s
prowess in battle: the blade he brandished
had failed in the fray though forged from iron.
No easy end for the son of Ecgetheow:
against his will he would leave this world
to dwell elsewhere, as every man must
when his days are done. Swift ly the death-dealer
moved to meet him. From the murderous breast
bellows of breath belched fresh fl ames.
Enfolded in fi re, he who formerly
ruled a whole realm had no one to help him
hold off the heat, for his hand-picked band
of princelings had fl ed, fearing to face
the foe with their lord. Loving honor
less than their lives, they hid in the holt.
But one among them grieved for the Geats
and balked at quitting his kinsman, the king.
Th
is one was Wiglaf, son of Weostan,
beloved shield-bearer born in Scylf-land.
Seeing his liege-lord suff ering sorely
with war-mask scorched by the searing onslaught,
the thankful thane thought of the boons
his kinsman bestowed: the splendid homestead
and folk-rights his father formerly held.
No shirker could stop him from seizing his shield
A non y mou s
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of yellow linden and lift ing the blade
Weostan won when he slew Eanmund,
son of Othere. Spoils of that struggle,
sword and scabbard, smithwork of giants,
a byrnie of ring-mail and bright-burnished helm
were granted as gift s, a thane’s war-garb,