Pois

The snares of the world were its ways of sin. He would fall. He had not yet fallen but he would fall silently, in an instant. Not to fall was too hard, too hard: and he felt the silent lapse of his soul, as it would be at some instant to come, falling, falling but not yet fallen, still unfallen but about to fall.


James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, Oxford University Press, 2000.

Fim de dia (6)

Ferro

[O] ferro em brasa tinha queimado em nós aquele lugar de onde podem vir a dor, o amor, a vida, os sonhos. Aquela zona sensível sem nome que faz de uma pessoa um ser humano.

Christa Wolf, Cassandra, João Barrento (trad.), Livros Cotovia, 1989.

Um dos mais maravilhosos filmes de sempre está no Youtube

The man with the beautiful eyes

Do not become PREDESTINED

Let waves of birds over the rigging of the lemon tree
With the steady white blast of a new way of walking
And then the angels of the wind shall come
in body like swans which are immaculate, soft, unchanging
Among the streamrollers of the emporia and cyclones of the market-gardens
When women's eyes turned to coals
and the chestnut sellers broke their hearts
When the harvest was over and the hopes of the cricket began.

And because of this I would have you, young men,
To go down naked into the rivers
With wine and kisses and leaves in your mouth
To sing of Barbary
as the carpenter follows the track of the wood's grain

As the viper moves out from the gardens of the barley
With her proud eyes furious
And as the strokes of the lightning thresh the young

And do not laugh, do not cry, do not be glad
Do not lace your shoes up wrong as if you were planting a plane tree
Do not become PREDESTINED
Because the golden eagle is not a drawer locked up
It is not the tear of a wild plum
nor the smile of a water-lily
Nor the vest of a dove nor a sultan's mandolin
Nor a silken hat for the head of a whale
It is the sea's hacksaw cutting gulls in pieces
It is the pillow of a carpenter, is the beggar's watch
Is fire in a forge mocking vicar's wives, and singing lilies to sleep
It is the relationship by marriage to the Turks, is a fiesta of Australians
Is a den of thieves in Hungary
Where the hazel trees go secretly to meet in autumn

Nikos Gatsos, Amorgos, Sally Purcell (trad.), Anvil Press Poetry, 1998

Um blogue para vós

Fãs de Dostoiévski.

Notas para uma definição de chorar no fim

Kingus

Hemingway e um respeitável felídeo anónimo

Princípio

Their country is tied in their sails
and oars hang on the wind
Shipwrecked sailors lie quiet as dead goats
in winding-sheets of sponges
But the eyes of the seaweed
are turned on the sea
Lest the sound wind bring them home
with new colour on their canvas

Nikos Gatsos, Amorgos, Sally Purcell (trad.), Anvil Press Poetry, 1998

Come and See, 1985

Ao lado deste retrato da destruição nazi na Bielorrússia, o Apocalypse Now, o Full Metal Jacket ou o Platoon são comédias pipoca.

Fim de dia (5)

I know you are

I know you are a bare vein under the frightful stare of the wind a deaf spark among the glistening multitude of stars. No one observes you, no one stops to listen to your breathing but you in your heavy pacing through the pride of nature shall come one day to the leaves of the apricot tree shall climb into the bending bodies of the little shrubs and shall roll down from the eyes of the beloved like an adolescent moon. There is an imortal stone once in passing a human angel wrote his name on it and a song no one knows yet not the maddest boys not the wisest nightingales.

(Το ξέρω εἰσαι μιὰφλέβα γυμνὴ κάτω απο τὸφοβερὸβλέμμα του ἀνεμου εἰσαι μιὰσπίθα βουβὴ μέσα στο λαμπερο πληθος των αστρων. Δὲσὲπροσέχει κανεις κανεις δε σταματα ν´ ακούσει την ανάσα σου μὰσυ μὲτὸβαρύ σου περπάτημα μες στὴνἀγέωχη φύση θα φτάσεις μιὰμέρα στὰφύλλα της βερυκοκας θ'ανέβεις στα λυγερὰκορμιὰτων μικρων σπάρτων και θὰκυκλήσεις απὸτὰμάτια μιας αγαπητικιας σαν εφηβικὸφεγγάρι. Υπάρχει μιὰπέτρα αθάνατη ποὺκάποτε περαστικος ἑνας ανθρώπινος ἀγγελος ἐγραψε τ´ονομά του απάνω της κι ἑνα τραφούδι ποὺδεν τὸξέρει ακόμα κανεις οὐτε τὰπιὸτρελα παιδιὰοὐτε τα πιὸσοφὰ τ´ αηδόνια.)*

Nikos Gatsos, Amorgos, Sally Purcell (trad.), Anvil Press Poetry, 1998

*Desculpa a acentuação esquisita, Miguel - pressa.

De Amorgos

My friends perhaps the memory of my forefathers may be a deeper consolation and a more honourable company than a handful of rose-scented water and the intoxication of beauty nothing other than the sleeping rose of the Eurotas. Goodnight then I see crowds of falling stars rocking your dreams but I am holding in my fingers the music for a better day. Travellers from the Indies have more to tell you than the Byzantine chroniclers.

Nikos Gatsos, Amorgos, Sally Purcell (trad.), Anvil Press Poetry, 1998

Nikos Gatsos e Amorgos

Nikos Gatsos profoundly mysterious and magnetic poem Amorgos, named after a greek island he never visited and written during the Nazi occupation, is the single work on which his reputation rests. It is a wonderful incantation on the theme of loss and hope - a unique blend of surrealism, symbolism and folk song - lyrical and erotic, sometimes celebratory, sometimes bitter. It was much admired by the Nobel laureates Odysseus Elytis and George Seferis, and was hugely influential on the post-war generation of Greek poets. However, after its publication in 1943, Gatsos abandoned poetry, and wrote only popular songs, for which he was later renowned.

Eugene Aranitsis, sobre Nikos Gatsos.

Abraão, a estrela de de Judas

Mas Abraão acreditava e não duvidava, acreditava no irrazoável. Se Abraão houvesse duvidado, haveria de ter feito uma outra coisa, grande e magnífica; pois que outra coisa poderia Abraão fazer que não fosse grande ou magnífica! Teria partido para o monte Moriá, teria rachado a lenha, acendido a fogueira, puxado a faca — e teria bradado a Deus: «não desprezes este sacrifício! não é o melhor que possuo, sei-o bem; pois de que vale um velho homem face ao filho da promessa! Mas é o melhor que te posso dar. Faz com que Isaac nunca chegue a saber; possa ele encontrar consolo na sua juventude.» E cravaria a faca no seu próprio peito. Seria admirado no mundo e o seu nome não haveria de ser esquecido; mas uma coisa é ser admirado e outra coisa é tornar-se uma estrela que guia e salva os angustiados.

Kierkegaard. Temor e Tremor. Elisabete M. de Sousa (trad). Relógio d'Água: 2009

imagem: Rembrandt. Sacrifício de Abraão. (1655)

Os Gregos

Quase tomando o título (embora decerto não propositadamente, de um dos livros mais cool de toda a história da scholarship em cultura clássica), o diário Câmara Clara dedicou um programa aos Gregos. Por momentos senti-me de volta aos últimos meses de 2009 e a um seminário que dava pelo nome de Cultura Bizantina, onde aprendi que os Bizantinos só podem ter sido a principal inspiração para os Groovy Greeks das Horrible Histories.
A minha parte favorita é aquela em que a sra. apresentadora afirma que, se a civilização grega floresceu entre Homero e Aristóteles (sensivelmente do séc. IX-VIII ao séc. IV a.C.), então tinha durado mais ou menos dois séculos e Frederico Lourenço responde que talvez um pouco mais. À parte isso, uma excelente iniciativa.
A Grécia entretanto continua on fire.

Notas para uma definição de chorar no fim