The suicide of Atzesivano, disciple of Budha

Irreproachbly Atzesivano
took up the knife, his soul
at that moment a white dove.
And as a star at night
glides from the sky's inmost sanctuary
or as an apple blossom falls in the gentle breeze,
so his spirit took wing from his breast.

Deaths like this are not wasted.
Because only those who love lufe
in its mystical first glory
can reap by themselves
the great harvest of their existence -
spent now - with a divine tranquility.

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996

κι ὁ μὸχτος/τοῦ νοῦ μου ἀρμενιστὴς στὴ μέση ἀπ' τ' ἄστρα

...I held the great pearl in my hand, took spring
into my heart, and felt the scarlet roses
of my fever suddenly become
a crown, felt my black bed become a ship,
the unhurried ship of God, and my struggle
the navigator of my mind among the stars...

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996

Because I deeply praised

Because I deeply praised and trusted earth
and did not spread my secret wings in fligh
but rooted in the stillness all my mind,
the spring again has risen to my thirst,
the dancing spring of life, my own's joy spring.

Because I never questioned how and when
but plunged my thought into each passing hour
as though its boundless goal lay hidden there,
no matter if I live in calm or storm,
the rounded moment shimmers in my mind,
the fruit falls from the sky, falls deep inside me.

Because I did not say: "here life starts, here ends,"
but "days of rain bring on a richer light
and earthquakes give the world a firmer base,
for a secret is earth's live creative pulse,"
all fleeting things dissolve away like clouds,
great Death itself has now become my kin.

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996

The horses of Achilles

Field of asphodels, beside you
two horses neighed
as they went by at gallop.
Their backs gleamed like a wave;
they came up out of the sea,
tore over the desert sand,
necks straining high, towering,
white foam at the mouth, stallion strong.
In their eyes
lightning smoldered;
and, waves themselves, they plundged again
into the waves,
foam into the sea's foam,
and vanished. I recognized
those stallions: one of them
took on a human voice to prophesy.
The hero held the reins;
he spurred, hurling
his godlike youth forward...

Sacred stallions, fate
has kept you indestructible,
fixing on you pure black foreheads,
charm against the profane eye,
a large and pure talisman.

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996

The first rain*

We leaned out the window.
Everything around us
was one with our soul.
Sulphur-pale, the clouds
darkened the field, the vines;
wind moaned in the trees
with a secret turbulence,
and the quick swallow went
breasting across the grass.
Suddendly the thunder broke,
the wellhead broke,
and dancing came the rain.
Dust leaped into the air.
We, our nostrils quivering,
opened our lips to drink
the earth's heavy smell,
to let it like a spring
water us deep inside
(the rain had already wet
our thirsting faces,
like the olive and the mullein).
And shoulder touching shoulder,

we asked: "What smell is this
that cuts through the air like a swarm of bees?
From balsam, pine, acanthus,
from osier or thyme?"
So many the scents that, breathing out,
I became a lyre caressed
by the breath's profusion.
Sweetness filled my palate;
and as I met your gaze again
all my blood sang out.
I bent down to the vine,
its leaves shaking, to drink in
its honey and its flower;
and - my thoughts like heavy grapes,
bramble-thick my breath -
I could not, as I breathed,
choose among the scents,
but culled them all, and drank them
as one drinks joy or sorrow
suddenly sent by fate;
I drank them all,
and when I touched your waist,
my blood became a nightingale,
became like the running waters.

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996

*Texto copiado em intenção do Uncle Vânia

Return

Holy, lionlike sleep
of the return, on the sand's
vast spaciousness.
In my heart my eyelids closed;
and radiance, like a sun, fills me.

The sea's sound floods my veins,
above me the sun
grinds like a milestone,
the wind beats its full wings;
the world's axle throbs heavily.
I cannot bear my deepest breath,
and the sea grows calm to the sand's edge
and spreads deep inside me.

The infinite caress exalts it
into a high-domed wave;
the cool seaweed
freshens me deep down;
the foam's lucid spindrift
breaks into spray in the pebbles;
beyond, where the cicadas stridulate,
the leaves' rustle dies away.

From far off comes a sound
that suddenly beats,
as a sail when the yardarm breaks:
it is the wind approaching,
it is the sun setting before me -
and one who is pure opens to its white presence
eyes that are kindred to it.

I leap up. My lightness
is equal to my strenght.
My cool forehead glows,
in the spring sunset
my body stirs deeply.
I gaze around me: the Ionian sea,
and my delivered land!

Angelos Sikelianos, Selected Poems, Edmund Keeley e Philip Sherrard (trad.), Denise Harvey, 1996