Poets Translate Poets: A Hudson Review Anthology (29 page)

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She bore more generously, and larger things besides. Back then,

When the Earth was in her fi rst bloom, she provided wretched men

With many foods, more than enough to eat, though rustic fare.

And springs and rivers beckoned them to slake their dry throats there,

As now tall waterfalls cascading down the mountainside

Th

underously call the thirsty creatures far and wide.

Th

en men took up the wooded haunts of nymphs, places they’d found

During their wanderings, where they knew water to abound,

Trickling from a spring and slipping over stones, across

Th

e slippery damp stones, and dripping on the verdant moss,

Welling up here and there, and on the broad plain widening out.

Th

ey did not know how to treat things with fi re, or know about

Th

e use of hides, or how to dress in skins despoiled from kills.

Th

ey dwelt in glades and forests and in caverns in the hills.

When lashing wind and rain made them seek shelter from the sky,

Th

ey hid their dirt-caked bodies under thickets to keep dry.

Th

ey could not look out for the common weal. Th

ere were not then

Laws or customs governing the ways men dealt with men;

But each man seized what plunder Chance put in his way. To thrive,

Each learned to watch out for himself, his own will to survive.

Th

en Venus wedded the bodies of lovers in a sylvan bower.

Man won his mate by shared desire, or he would overpower

Her with his violent strength and lust—or wooed her with a treat

Of acorns and arbutus fruits, or fi ne ripe pears to eat.

And relying on the wondrous abilities of hands and feet,

Th

ey chased their quarry of forest animals, and felled their prey

With stones or cudgels. Many they slew—from some, they ran away

By fl eeing into their lairs. And like the wild and bristly boar,

When night caught up with them, they lay down on the forest fl oor

Rolling their naked, woodland-dwelling limbs up in a nest

Of foliage and the boughs of trees. Th

ey did
not
go in quest

Of the vanished sun when day was done, shivering with fright,

Roaming the fi elds with loud lament through shadows of the night;

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But quiet, tombed in sleep, they waited for the sun to rise

Again and with his rosy torch illuminate the skies.

For since they had been used to seeing the alternating change

Of light and dark since childhood, it could never have seemed strange,

Nor could it make them fear that on the earth, eternal night

Held sway, and that the sun would never come back with his light.

What worried wretched man instead was, when asleep, he lay

At the mercy of the tribes of wild animals, easy prey.

At times he fl ed, evicted from his rocky dwelling, when

A wild boar frothing at the mouth or powerful lion burst in,

And in the dead of night, roused terror-stricken from his rest,

He yielded up his leafy pallet to the savage guest.

Back then the fate of an untimely death was no more rife

Th

an now, when men with moaning leave the sweet light of this life.

To be sure, each was more likely to be caught by some wild beast,

Gulped down in toothy jaws, supplying it a living feast,

Filling the groves, the hills and woods with moans, because he was

Buried alive, he found, inside a live sarcophagus.

And those who managed to escape, but with their bodies mauled,

Later placed shaking hands on suppurating sores and called

On Orcus with hair-raising cries, until the pains that racked

Th

eir fl esh released them from their lives, and all because they lacked

Aid and the know-how to dress a wound. But no one day would yield

At that time myriads of men reaped on the battlefi eld;

Neither in those days did tossing surges of the main

Shiver ships and sailors on the rocks. Blindly, in vain,

To no purpose, oft en the sea would rage with rising tide,

Th

en fi ckle as you please, would toss her empty threats aside.

Nor then could the bewitching laughter of the sparkling waves

And peaceful-seeming sea beguile men to watery graves;

Th

e perverse science of navigation still lay hid in gloom.

Back then a dearth of food sent swooning bodies to the tomb;

Now men are sunk beneath excess, and eat more than their fi ll.

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Th

en, men unwittingly ingested poison that would kill;

But now men poison others, being expert in that skill.

Th

en aft er acquiring shelter, hides, and fi re, man and wife

Were joined, and lived beneath one roof, and learned to share a life,

And realized it was their union that produced a child.

Th

at was when the race of man fi rst started to grow mild.

Th

en fi re saw to it that their shivering bodies could no more

Endure the cold beneath the vault of heaven as before,

And Venus drained their powers, and the little ones, with ease,

Broke down the stubborn pride of parents with their coaxing pleas.

Th

en neighbors began to form the bonds of friendship, with a will

Neither to be harmed themselves, nor do another ill,

Th

e safety of babes and womenfolk in one another’s trust,

And indicated by gesturing and grunting it was just

For everyone to have mercy on the weak. Without a doubt

Occasional infractions of the peace would come about,

But the vast majority of people faithfully adhered

To the pact, or else man would already have wholly disappeared;

Instead, the human race has propagated to this day.

A. E. Stallings, 2007

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C at ullus
(ca. 84 b.c.–54 b.c.)

CI

By strangers’ coasts and waters, many days at sea,

I came here for the rites of your unworlding,

Bringing for you, the dead, these last gift s of the living

And my words—vain sounds for the man of dust.

Alas, my brother,

You have been taken from me. You have been taken from me,

By cold Chance turned a shadow, and my pain.

Here are the foods of the old ceremony, appointed

Long ago for the starvelings under earth:

Take them; your brother’s tears have made them wet; and take

Into eternity my hail and my farewell.

Robert Fitzgerald, 1952

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Hor ace
(65 b.c.–8 b.c.)

I, 25

Th

e young men come less oft en—isn’t it so?—

To rap at midnight on your fastened window;

Much less oft en. How do you sleep these days?

Th

ere was a time your door gave with profi ciency

On easy hinges; now it seems apter at being shut.

I do not think you hear many lovers moaning

“Lydia, how can you sleep?

“Lydia, the night is so long!

“Oh, Lydia, I’m dying for you!”

No. Th

e time is coming when you will moan

And cry to scornful men from an alley corner

In the dark of the moon when the wind’s in a passion

With lust that would drive a mare wild

Raging in your ulcerous old viscera.

You’ll be alone and burning then

To think how happy boys take their delight

In the new tender buds, the blush of myrtle,

Consigning dry leaves to the winter sea.

Robert Fitzgerald, 1952

Prayer to Venus

iii.26

Not long ago I was alive with passion,

and not without my glory in your wars.

But now these fabled weapons, like my words,

are blunted, worthless. I give them up for good.

Hor ac e
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I hang them here in meager supplication

to you, Goddess of love, born of the sea.

Here, my crowbar, my brilliant torch, my bow—

what use are they? She has shut her doors forever.

But I ask you this, o Goddess, only this,

Queen of Cyprus, far from Th

racian snows:

Please let her feel just once what I have felt.

Raise the lash high above her arrogant head.

Craig Watson, 1999

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M a c e d o n i a n

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Bogom il Gjuzel
(b. 1939)

How the Eagle Sees It

For me, the Caucasus is just a prison, too.

Th

ough I’m unbound. No rock, aft er

all’s said and done, holds him.

I tear at his liver every day. By night,

obviously, I’m exhausted.

So then the damn thing grows back again.

And he recovers. I dream of that infi nite space

I lived in, thermalling on unfettered air,

before the gods handed me this horrid work.

Th

ey themselves have no idea what it is they want.

Th

ey’ll tell me:
Consume his innards, make him suff er,

but don’t let him croak! Taunt him every now

and then just to let him know we care . . .

Our languages, of course, are diff erent—can’t understand

a thing he tells me. How could I, how could anyone

understand the voice of such exquisite pain,

the voice inside his singing blood?

Th

ey may be gods, but they’re all doomed by ignorance.

While I ravage this titan, who screams and thrashes,

does he know I’ll never really damage him

enough? Rats gather at his feet

and slaughter one another for the pickings.

Mankind will bring him off erings, autumn

harvests and winter grains. I, meanwhile, remain

so stuff ed I cannot fl y. (A diet of liver,

forever!) Th

ose fools, they think

Prometheus is just his liver.

P. H. Liotta, 1998

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P e r s i a n

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Fa k hr a ddin Gorg a ni
(ca. Eleventh Century a.d.)

From
Vis and Ramin

Now when the nurse saw Vis’s furious face

And heard her talk of heaven and God’s grace

She searched within her scheming heart to fi nd

Some means to soothe her charge’s troubled mind:

Her demon did not rest, but wondered how

Vis and Ramin could be united now,

And how like fat and sugar they could be

Blended entirely, and inseparably.

Th

en one by one the sly nurse recollected

All the old tricks and spells that she’d collected,

And when she spoke her voice was lovelier than

Th

e frescoes at Nushad. Th

e nurse began:

“You’re dearer to me than my soul, more blessed

And virtuous even than I’d ever guessed;

May you seek justice always, may you stay

Truthful and honored, wise in every way.

Why should I need or want, dear Vis, to grieve you?

What fear or greed could drive me to deceive you?

Ramin is not my brother or my son;

And can you tell me what it is he’s done

To make me favor him, so that I’d be

His faithful friend and your sworn enemy?

I only want one thing from life, that you

Find happiness in everything you do,

And that your reputation stay intact.

But I must tell you an undoubted fact:

You are a woman, not a demon, not

A fairy, houri, or I don’t know what.

Viru has gone, and as for Mobad, well

He’s been disposed of by a clever spell:

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No one’s enjoyed your body, no one can,

You’ve never truly slept with any man.

You’ve had no joy of men, you’ve never known

A man whom you could really call your own.

You’ve married twice, but each time you’ve moved on;

Both husbands crossed the river, and they’re gone!