Cântico negro ”Vem por aqui” — dizem-me alguns com os olhos doces
Estendendo-me os braços, e seguros
De que seria bom que eu os ouvisse
Quando me dizem: ”vem por aqui!”
Eu olho-os com olhos lassos,
(Há, nos olhos meus, ironias e cansaços)
E cruzo os braços,
E nunca vou por ali…
A minha glória é esta:
Criar desumanidades!
Não acompanhar ninguém.
— Que eu vivo com o mesmo sem-vontade
Com que rasguei o ventre à minha mãe
Não, não vou por aí! Só vou por onde
Me levam meus próprios passos…
Se ao que busco saber nenhum de vós responde
Por que me repetis: ”vem por aqui!”?
Prefiro escorregar nos becos lamacentos,
Redemoinhar aos ventos,
Como farrapos, arrastar os pés sangrentos,
A ir por aí…
Se vim ao mundo, foi
Só para desflorar florestas virgens,
E desenhar meus próprios pés na areia inexplorada!
O mais que faço não vale nada.
Como, pois, sereis vós
Que me dareis impulsos, ferramentas e coragem
Para eu derrubar os meus obstáculos?…
Corre, nas vossas veias, sangue velho dos avós,
E vós amais o que é fácil!
Eu amo o Longe e a Miragem,
Amo os abismos, as torrentes, os desertos…
Ide! Tendes estradas,
Tendes jardins, tendes canteiros,
Tendes pátria, tendes tetos,
E tendes regras, e tratados, e filósofos, e sábios…
Eu tenho a minha Loucura !
Levanto-a, como um facho, a arder na noite escura,
E sinto espuma, e sangue, e cânticos nos lábios…
Deus e o Diabo é que guiam, mais ninguém!
Todos tiveram pai, todos tiveram mãe;
Mas eu, que nunca principio nem acabo,
Nasci do amor que há entre Deus e o Diabo.
Ah, que ninguém me dê piedosas intenções,
Ninguém me peça definições!
Ninguém me diga: ”vem por aqui”!
A minha vida é um vendaval que se soltou,
É uma onda que se alevantou,
É um átomo a mais que se animou…
Não sei por onde vou,
Não sei para onde vou
Sei que não vou por aí!
*
Black Chant
”Come this way” — some tell me with sweet eyes,
streching their arms to me, and sure
it would be good for me to hear them
when they tell me ”Come this way”!
I look to them, with loose eyes,
(there are, in my eyes, ironies and weariness)
And I cross my arms,
And never go through there…
This is my glory:
To create inhumanity!
Go along with no one.
— For I live with the same lack of will
with wich I tore my mother’s womb!
No, I won’t go through there! I’ll only go through where
my own footsteps lead me!
If for what I seek to know none of you can answer
why do you repeat at me ”Come this way”?
I prefer to slip on muddy alleys
Swirl in the winds,
Like rags, dragging their bleeding feet,
Than go through there.
If I came into the world, was
Only to deflower virgin forests,
And draw my own feet in the sand unexplored!
The most I do is worth nothing.
How, then, will you be,
Who give me axes, tools and courage,
For me to overcome my obstacles??…
Flows, through your veins, old grandparent’s blood
And you love what is easy!
I love the Far, and the Mirage,
I love the abyss, the torrents, the deserts…
Go! You have roads,
You have gardens, you have flower beds,
you have nations, you have cielings,
And you have rules, and treaties, and philosophers, and sages.
I got my madness!
I rise it, like a torch, burning in the dark night,
And feel foam and blood, and songs on the lips…
God and the Devil are the ones guiding me, no one else.
All had father, all had mother,
But I, who never begin or end,
Was born out of the love that is between God and the Devil.
Arte Poética
Mirar el río hecho de tiempo y agua
Y recordar que el tiempo es otro río,
Saber que nos perdemos como el río
Y que los rostros pasan como el agua.
Sentir que la vigilia es otro sueño
Que sueña no soñar y que la muerte
Que teme nuestra carne es esa muerte
De cada noche, que se llama sueño.
Ver en el día o en el año un símbolo
De los días del hombre y de sus años,
Convertir el ultraje de los años
En una música, un rumor y un símbolo,
Ver en la muerte el sueño, en el ocaso
Un triste oro, tal es la poesía
Que es inmortal y pobre. La poesía
Vuelve como la aurora y el ocaso.
A veces en las tardes una cara
Nos mira desde el fondo de un espejo;
El arte debe ser como ese espejo
Que nos revela nuestra propia cara.
Cuentan que Ulises, harto de prodigios,
Lloró de amor al divisar su Itaca
Verde y humilde. El arte es esa Itaca
De verde eternidad, no de prodigios.
También es como el río interminable
Que pasa y queda y es cristal de un mismo
Heráclito inconstante, que es el mismo
Y es otro, como el río interminable.
*
The Art Of Poetry To gaze at a river made of time and water
And remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.
To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.
To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.
To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness–such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.
Sometimes at evening there’s a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.
They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.
Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.
El tango ¿Dónde estarán? Pregunta la elegía
De quienes ya no son como si hubiera
Una región, en que el Ayer pudiera
Ser el Hoy, el Aún y el Todavía.
¿Dónde estará (repito) el malevaje
Que fundó, en polvorientos callejones
De tierra o en perdidas poblaciones,
La secta del cuchillo y del coraje?
¿Dónde estarán aquellos que pasaron
Dejando a la epopeya un episodio,
Una fábula al tiempo, y que sin odio
Lucro o pasión de amor se acuchillaron?
Los busco, en su leyenda, en la postrera
Brasa que, a modo de una vaga rosa
Guarda algo de esa chusma valerosa
De los Corrales y de Balvanera.
¿Qué oscuros callejones o qué yermo
Del otro mundo habitará la dura
Sombra de aquél que era una sombra oscura
Muraña, ese cuchillo de Palermo?
¿Y ese Iberra fatal (de quien los santos
se apiaden) que en un puente de la vía,
Mató a su hermano el Ñato, que debía
Más muertos que él, y así igualó los tantos?
Una mitología de puñales
Lentamente se anula en el olvido;
Una canción de gesta se ha perdido
En sórdidas noticias policiales.
Hay otra brasa, otra candente rosa
De la ceniza que los guarda enteros;
Ahí están los soberbios cuchilleros
Y el peso de la daga silenciosa.
Aunque la daga hostil o esa otra daga,
El tiempo, los perdieron en el fango,
Hoy, más allá del tiempo y de la aciaga
Muerte, esos muertos viven en el tango.
En la música están, en el cordaje
De la terca guitarra trabajosa,
Que trama en la milonga venturosa
La fiesta y la inocencia del coraje.
Gira en el hueco la amarilla rueda
De caballos y leones, oigo el eco
De esos tangos de Arolas y de Greco,
Que yo he visto bailar en la vereda.
En un instante que hoy emerge aislado,
Sin antes ni después, contra el olvido,
Y que tiene el sabor de lo perdido,
De lo perdido y lo recuperado.
En los acordes hay antiguas cosas:
El otro patio y la entrevista parra.
(Detrás de las paredes recelosas
El Sur guarda un puñal y una guitarra)
Esa ráfaga, el tango, esa diablura,
Los atareados años desafía;
Hecho de polvo y tiempo, el hombre dura
Menos que la liviana melodía.
Que sólo es tiempo. El tango crea un turbio
Pasado irreal que de algún modo es cierto.
Un recuerdo imposible de haber muerto
Peleando, en una esquina del suburbio.
Alle fronde dei salici
E come potevano noi cantare
con il piede straniero sopra il cuore,
fra i morti abbandonati nelle piazze
sull’erba dura di ghiaccio, al lamento
d’agnello dei fanciulli, all’urlo nero
della madre che andava incontro al figlio
crocifisso sul palo del telegrafo?
Alle fronde dei salici, per voto,
anche le nostre cetre erano appese,
oscillavano lievi al triste vento.
*
On the Willow Branches
And how could we sing
with the foreign foot upon our heart,
among the dead abandoned in the squares
on the grass hard with ice, to the children’s
lamb lament, to the black howl
of the mother gone to meet her son
crucified on the telegraph pole?
On the the willow branches, by our vow,
our lyres, too, were hung,
lightly they swayed in the sad wind.
James Joyce reads an excerpt from Anna Livia Plurabelle (from Finnegans Wake, Book 1, Chapter 8)
A recording from 1929.
Anna Livia Plurabelle
Well, you know or don’t you kennet or haven’t I told you
every telling has a taling and that’s the he and the she of it. Look,
look, the dusk is growing! My branches lofty are taking root.
And my cold cher’s gone ashley. Fieluhr? Filou! What age is at?
It saon is late. ‘Tis endless now senne eye or erewone last saw
Waterhouse’s clogh. They took it asunder, I hurd thum sigh.
When will they reassemble it? O, my back, my back, my bach!
I’d want to go to Aches-les-Pains. Pingpong! There’s the Belle
for Sexaloitez! And Concepta de Send-us-pray! Pang! Wring out
the clothes! Wring in the dew! Godavari, vert the showers! And
grant thaya grace! Aman. Will we spread them here now? Ay,
we will. Flip! Spread on your bank and I’ll spread mine on mine.
Flep! It’s what I’m doing. Spread! It’s churning chill. Der went is
rising. I’ll lay a few stones on the hostel sheets. A man and his bride
embraced between them. Else I’d have sprinkled and folded them
only. And I’ll tie my butcher’s apron here. It’s suety yet. The
strollers will pass it by. Six shifts, ten kerchiefs, nine to hold to
the fire and this for the code, the convent napkins,twelve, one
baby’s shawl. Good mother Jossiph knows, she said. Whose
head? Mutter snores? Deataceas! Wharnow are alle her childer,
say? In kingdome gone or power to come or gloria be to them
farther? Allalivial, allalluvial! Some here, more no more, more
again lost alla stranger. I’ve heard tell that same brooch of the
Shannons was married into a family in Spain. And all the Dun-
ders de Dunnes in Markland’s Vineland beyond Brendan’s herring
pool takes number nine in yangsee’s hats. And one of Biddy’s
beads went bobbing till she rounded up lost histereve with a
marigold and a cobbler’s candle in a side strain of a main drain
of a manzinahurries off Bachelor’s Walk. But all that’s left to the
last of the Meaghers in the loup of the years prefixed and between
is one kneebuckle and two hooks in the front. Do you tell me.
that now? I do in troth. Orara por Orbe and poor Las Animas!
Ussa, Ulla, we’re umbas all! Mezha, didn’t you hear it a deluge of
times, ufer and ufer, respund to spond? You deed, you deed! I
need, I need! It’s that irrawaddyng I’ve stoke in my aars. It all
but husheth the lethest zswound. Oronoko! What’s your trouble?
Is that the great Finnleader himself in his joakimono on his statue
riding the high hone there forehengist? Father of Otters, it is
himself! Yonne there! Isset that? On Fallareen Common? You’re
thinking of Astley’s Amphitheayter where the bobby restrained
you making sugarstuck pouts to the ghostwhite horse of the
Peppers. Throw the cobwebs from your eyes, woman, and spread
your washing proper! It’s well I know your sort of slop. Flap!
Ireland sober is Ireland stiff Lord help you, Maria, full of grease,
the load is with me! Your prayers. I sonht zo! Madammangut!
Were you lifting your elbow, tell us, glazy cheeks, in Conway’s
Carrigacurra canteen? Was I what, hobbledyhips? Flop! Your
rere gait’s creakorheuman bitts your butts disagrees. Amn’t I
up since the damp tawn, marthared mary allacook, with Corri-
gan’s pulse and varicoarse veins, my pramaxle smashed, Alice
Jane in decline and my oneeyed mongrel twice run over, soaking
and bleaching boiler rags, and sweating cold, a widow like me,
for to deck my tennis champion son, the laundryman with the
lavandier flannels? You won your limpopo limp fron the husky
hussars when Collars and Cuffs was heir to the town and your
slur gave the stink to Carlow. Holy Scamander, I sar it again!
Near the golden falls. Icis on us! Seints of light! Zezere! Subdue
your noise, you hamble creature! What is it but a blackburry
growth or the dwyergray ass them four old codgers owns. Are
you meanam Tarpey and Lyons and Gregory? I meyne now,
thank all, the four of them, and the roar of them, that draves
that stray in the mist and old Johnny MacDougal along with
them. Is that the Poolbeg flasher beyant, pharphar, or a fireboat
coasting nyar the Kishtna or a glow I behold within a hedge or
my Garry come back from the Indes? Wait till the honeying of
the lune, love! Die eve, little eve, die! We see that wonder in
your eye. We’ll meet again, we’ll part once more. The spot I’ll
seek if the hour you’ll find. My chart shines high where the blue
milk’s upset. Forgivemequick, I’m going! Bubye! And you,
pluck your watch, forgetmenot. Your evenlode. So save to
jurna’s end! My sights are swimming thicker on me by the sha-
dows to this place. I sow home slowly now by own way, moy-
valley way. Towy I too, rathmine.
Ah, but she was the queer old skeowsha anyhow, Anna Livia,
trinkettoes! And sure he was the quare old buntz too, Dear Dirty
Dumpling, foostherfather of fingalls and dotthergills. Gammer
and gaffer we’re all their gangsters. Hadn’t he seven dams to wive
him? And every dam had her seven crutches. And every crutch
had its seven hues. And each hue had a differing cry. Sudds for
me and supper for you and the doctor’s bill for Joe John. Befor!
Bifur! He married his markets, cheap by foul, I know, like any
Etrurian Catholic Heathen, in their pinky limony creamy birnies
and their turkiss indienne mauves. But at milkidmass who was
the spouse? Then all that was was fair. Tys Elvenland! Teems of
times and happy returns. The seim anew. Ordovico or viricordo.
Anna was, Livia is, Plurabelle’s to be. Northmen’s thing made
southfolk’s place but howmulty plurators made eachone in per-
son? Latin me that, my trinity scholard, out of eure sanscreed into
oure eryan! Hircus Civis Eblanensis!He had buckgoat paps on
him, soft ones for orphans. Ho, Lord! Twins of his bosom. Lord
save us! And ho! Hey? What all men. Hot? His tittering daugh-
ters of. Whawk?
Can’t hear with the waters of. The chittering waters of. Flitter-
ing bats, fieldmice bawk talk. Ho! Are you not gone ahome?
What Thom Malone? Can’t hear with bawk of bats, all thim liffey-
ing waters of. Ho, talk save us! My foos won’t moos. I feel as old
as yonder elm. A tale told of Shaun or Shem? All Livia’s daughter-
sons. Dark hawks hear us. Night! Night! My ho head halls. I feel
as heavy as yonder stone. Tell me of John or Shaun? Who were
Shem and Shaun the living sons or daughters of? Night now!
Tell me, tell me, tell me, elm! Night night! Telmetale of stem or
stone. Beside the rivering waters of, hitherandthithering waters
of. Night!
This recording of Joyce reading was made in 1929 by C.K. Ogden (the linguist, philosopher, and inventor of Basic English) in the studio of the Orthological Society in Cambridge. Ogden boasted of the two biggest recording machines in the world and wanted to do a better recording of Joyce than the Ulyssesrecording of 5 years earlier which he regarded as being of very poor quality.
Blackberry Picking
Late August, given heavy rain and sun
For a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
Among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
Like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
Leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
Picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
Sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
Where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
We trekked and picked until the cans were full,
Until the tinkling bottom had been covered
With green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
Like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
With thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
A rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
The fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
That all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.
Det är vackrast när det skymmer
Det är vackrast när det skymmer.
All den kärlek himlen rymmer
ligger samlad i ett dunkelt ljus
över jorden,
över markens hus.
Allt är ömhet, allt är smekt av händer.
Herren själv utplånar fjärran stränder.
Allt är nära, allt är långt ifrån.
Allt är givet
människan som lån
Allt är mitt, och allt skall tagas från mig,
inom kort skall allting tagas från mig.
Träden, molnen, marken där jag går.
Jag skall vandra
ensam utan spår.
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