Zbigniew Herbert, «Calígula»

Lendo velhas crónicas, poemas e vidas, o Sr. Cogito experimenta por vezes uma sensação de presença física de pessoas há muito falecidas

Diz Calígula:

de entre todos os cidadãos de Roma

amei apenas um

Incitato – o cavalo

quando entrou no senado 

a irrepreensível toga do seu pêlo

brilhava imaculadamente entre covardes assassinos orlados de púrpura

Incitato era só virtudes

nunca discursava

natureza estóica

creio que de noite no estábulo lia os filósofos

ameio-o tanto que um dia resolvi crucificá-lo

mas a sua nobre anatomia não o permitiu

aceitou com indiferença a dignidade de cônsul

exercia a autoridade da melhor forma possível

isto é não a exercia de todo

não se pôde convencê-lo a manter relações amorosas estáveis

com a minha querida esposa Cesónia

e assim tristemente não surgiu uma linhagem de Césares-centauros

por isso Roma caiu

decidi proclamá-lo um deus
mas no nono dia antes das calendas de Fevereiro
Quereia Cornélio Sabino e outros idiotas frustraram as
minhas piedosas intenções

recebeu com tranquilidade a nova da minha morte

expulsaram-no do palácio e condenaram-no ao exílio

suportou este golpe com dignidade

morreu sem descendência
abatido por um rude açougueiro do lugarejo de Âncio

sobre o destino póstumo da sua carne
Tácito cala-se

Zbigniew Herbert

tradução de Izabela Stapor, José Pedro Moreira e Tatiana Faia

ítaca 3, Lisboa, 2012

Ver e descarregar os poemas de Herbert traduzidos na ítaca 3 aqui.

"Porquê os Clássicos": Herbert, Ítaca, bolinhos polacos e vinho

As fotografias da sessão de poesia dedicada a Zbigniew Herbert (FLUL, 21.6.'11) já se encontram disponíveis aqui.

Porquê os Clássicos?

Na próxima terça-feira, pelas 19:00, estaremos no Anfiteatro 2 da F.L.U.L. para falar um pouco sobre as traduções de Herbert publicadas neste número da Ítaca. Apareçam. Clicar para aumentar a imagem.

Ítaca 3

Um poema de Zbigniew Herbert na Ítaca 3.

Herbert segundo Herling

Herbert was more or less my contemporary, though he’s dead now. He was writing as a poet during the Communist regime in Poland. He was not only a great and esteemed poet, but a fierce anti-Communist. He didn’t make concessions; he had no use for Ketman and so forth—so relations between Herbert and Milosz were always rather cool. He was one of the few writers in Poland who was, shall we say, Conradian in his refusal to compromise with the regime. He was a very great poet. As much as I like Szymborska personally—she’s an extremely nice woman—I was very sorry that she, rather than Herbert, got the Nobel prize.

Gustav Herling, in Paris Review, n.º156, Outono de 2000

Landscape

A windy night and on this lonely road the prince of Parma's army
has left carcasses of horses
on a bald hill the bones of a recently conquered castle are glowing
there's only stone sand waste and a wind without purpose or color

What enlivens the landscape is a moon sharply inprinted on the sky
and a few soiled shadows bellow
as well as a white gallows for hanging from it are the thin pods
of bodies in which a wind blows life this wind without trees and clouds.

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

Ballad: that we do not perish

They who sailed at dawn
but now will never return
left their trace on a wave -

a shell lovely as a fossil mouth
sinks to the depths of the sea

Those who trod the sandy road
but never reached the sutters
though they could see rooftops -

will find shelter in the air's bell

and those who will orphan only
a chilly room a couple of books
an empty inkwell a blank page

verily did not wholly die

they whisper in wallpaper groves
their flat heads live on the ceiling
their paradise is made of air water
of lime of earth an angel of winds

will chafe their bodies in his hand
they will
waft across pastures of this world

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

Anabasis

The condottieri of Cyrus the Foreign Legion
crafty and ruthless - to be sure - murdered
two hundred and fifteen daylong marches
- please kill us we can't go any farther -
thirty-four thousand six hundred fifty stadia

harrowed by insomnia they traversed wild countries
tricky fords snowy mountain passes and salty plains
hacking a path through the living bodies of peoples
it's good they didn't claim to be defending civilization

the famous cry on the mountains of Teches
is interpreted incorrectly by sentimental poets
they had just found the sea a way out of the dungeon

they journeyed without Bible prophets burning bushes
without signs on earth without signs from the heavens
with the terrible consciousness that life is momentous.

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

we look into hunger's face the face of fire face of death
the worst of all - the face of betrayal

and only our dreams have not been humiliated

1982

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

To the river

O river - hourglass of water figure of eternity
I step in your stream more and more changed
so thath I might be a cloud a fish or stone cliff
and you are changeless like a clock measuring
the body's metamorphoses and the spirit's fall
the gradual disintegration of tissues and love

I born of clay
want to be your pupil
to know the heart of Olympian string
cool procession murmuring column
bedrock of my faith and my despair

teach me stuborness and endurance
so that I shall deserve in the last hour
to repose in the shade of a great delta
in a holy triangle of beginning and end

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

To Apollo

1
He went in a rustle of stone robes
he cast a shadow a glow of laurels

his breaths were light as a statue's
but his movements like a flower's

rapt by the sound of his own song
he raised a lyre to the height of silence

immersed in himself
his pupils white as a stream

stone
from his sandals
to the ribbons in his hair

I imagined your fingers
had faith in your eyes
the unstrung instrument
the arms without hands

give me back
youth's shout
arms held out
and my head
in an immense crest of delight

give me back my hope
speechless white head

silence -
a fissured neck
silence -
a broken song

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

Zibgniew Herbert segundo Seamus Heaney

Isto vale a pena ouvir.
(Estabelecemos desde já que Zbigniew Herbert é um poeta que amo.)

Lines of a pantheist

Destroy me star
- says the poet -
pierce me with distance's arrow

drink me source
- says a drinker -
to the dregs drink me to nullity

let sharp eyes deliver me
to devouring landscapes

words meant to save the body
may they bring me precipices

a star will sink its root in my forehead
the source will lend my face humanity

and you'll awaken silent
in the palms of stillness
at the heart of the thing

Zbigniew Herbert, Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Ecco, Alissa Valles (trad.), 2007

Home

A home above the year's seasons
a home for children beasts apples
a square block of empty space
under an absent star

home was childhood's telescope
home was feeling's skin
a sister's cheek
a tree's branch

a flame blew out of cheek
a bullet struck out the branch
a homeless footsoldier's song
over the scattered ash of a nest

home is a childhood's cube
home is feeling's die

a burnt sister's wing
a dead tree's leaf

Zbigniew Herbert, The Collected Poems 1956 - 1998, Alissa Valles, Ecco, 2007

Landscape - opções de tradução

A wind-ridden night and an empty road where the army of the Prince of Parma
Left the horses' bodies behind
There atop the mountain blaze the bones of the newly razed castle
There is only stone sand dung and a colorless aimless wind

This is a landscape brought to life by a sharpened moon jammed in the sky
And grungy shadows down below
Along with a white gallows that dangles gaunt pods
Of flesh revived by the wind that shadowless cloudless wind

(O original)

Krajobraz

Jest wietrzna noc i pusta droga na której armia księcia Parmy
pozostawiła trupy końskie
na łysej górze świeca kości niedawno zdobytego zamku
jest tylko kamień piasek gnój i wiatr bez celu i koloru

To co ożywia ten krajobraz to księżyc ostro wbity w niebo
i trochę brudnych cień w dole
a także biała szubienica bo na niej wiszą chude strąki
ciał którym wiatr przywraca życie ten wiatr bez drzew i bez obłoków

Zbigniew Herbert

A versão portuguesa pode ser encontrada aqui. A versão inglesa foi tirada de um blogue que me deixa completamente puzzled, este.