Half of Life

Hälfte des Lebens

Friedrich Hölderlin (1770-1843)

Hälfte des Lebens was one of the poems offered on the website of the wonderful magazine Modern Poetry in Translation as a project for translators. I contributed these three versions: one is in Latin elegiac couplets and one is a lipogram, avoiding the letter E.
Hälfte des Lebens
Mit gelben Birnen hänget Und voll mit wilden Rosen Das Land in den See, Ihr holden Schwäne, Und trunken von Küssen Tunkt ihr das Haupt Ins heilignüchterne Wasser. Weh mir, wo nehm’ ich, wenn Es Winter ist, die Blumen, und wo Den Sonnenschein, Und Schatten der Erde? Die Mauern stehn Sprachlos und kalt, im Winde Klirren die Fahnen. DIMIDIUM VITAE flava pirus, rosa silvarum: defertur onusta terra superficie lapsa lacustris aquae. suaviolis olor ebrius it: fas dedere collum: sobrius in sacrum dat caput ire lacum. e nive qua capiam flores, vim solis, et umbram? signa aquilone sonant; moenia muta rigent.
Half of Life
Golden pears, roses wild, slippety–slip, land leaning lakeward; swans’–faces, kissy–drunk, dippety–dip, depth sober–sacred. O how’ll I find, come winter, flowers, sunbeams, earth–shadow? Walls dumb and numb, banners and vanes shake, clack and rattle. A HALF OF LIVING Gold Williams fruit and wild triantaphylls: Land tilts towards Loch Lomond, almost spills: You snazzy swans, half–cut with kissing bills, In pious prosy liquid dunk your skulls! O how’ll I find blossoms among snowfalls, Warm rays of sun, shadows that land on soils? Our flaps and flags clack; dumb and numb our walls.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

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The Pyrenees

Les Pyrénées

Guillaume, Sieur du Bartas (1544-90)

The Lord of Salluste was a Huguenot who fought for Henry of Navarre (Henri IV of France). His epic poem on the Creation of the World was hugely admired, not least by Milton and Goethe. Nerval hailed him as a precursor, an ‘ancestor’. One of his many translators was James VI of Scotland: he was sent there to try for a marriage of James to Henry’s sister. He also went to Denmark. Honneyman speculated that some of Shakespeare’s Sonnets are translations of suppressed work by Agrippa d’Aubigné, a poet at the Navarrese court: that Henry himself was the Fair Friend, his Queen Marguerite the Dark Lady, and du Bartas the Rival Poet. I wrote an old–fashioned version and a modern version. Only on this website have they appeared together!
Les Pyrénées
François, arreste–toi, ne passe la campagne Que Nature mura de rochers d’un costé, Que l’Auriège entrefend d’un cours précipité; Campagne qui n’a point en beauté de compagne. Passant, ce que tu vois n’est point une montagne: C’est un grand Briarée, un géant haut monté Qui garde ce passage, et défend, indomté, De l’Espagne la France, et de France l’Espagne. Il tend à l’une l’un, à l’autre l’autre bras, Il porte sur son chef l’antique faix d’Atlas, Dans deux contraires mers il pose ses deux plantes. Les espaisses forests sont ses cheveux espais; Les rochers sont ses os; les rivières bruyantes L’éternelle sueur que luy cause un tel faix. François, arreste–toi, ne passe la campagne Que Nature mura de rochers d’un costé, Que l’Auriège entrefend d’un cours précipité; Campagne qui n’a point en beauté de compagne. Passant, ce que tu vois n’est point une montagne: C’est un grand Briarée, un géant haut monté Qui garde ce passage, et défend, indomté, De l’Espagne la France, et de France l’Espagne. Il tend à l’une l’un, à l’autre l’autre bras, Il porte sur son chef l’antique faix d’Atlas, Dans deux contraires mers il pose ses deux plantes. Les espaisses forests sont ses cheveux espais; Les rochers sont ses os; les rivières bruyantes L’éternelle sueur que luy cause un tel faix.
The Pyrenees
published in Outposts: Frenchman, hold hard, nor pass beyond that land That nature fortified with rocky walls, That Ariège thrusts through with headlong falls, Land garlanded, most gallant and most grand. What thou seest, passing here, is no high–land; Rather a mighty Briareus, a giant Set high to guard this passage, and, defiant, Spain’s way to France, France’s to Spain command. One arm to France, t’other to Spain is spread; Upon his crest sits Atlas’ ancient weight; His feet the two opposing seas betread. The thickets are the thick hairs of his head; The rocks his bones; the roaring mountain–spate, The sweat his burthen ever makes him shed. published in Modern Poetry in Translation: FRENCH NATIONALS STOP HERE. NO TRANSIT through The Ariège (Dept. no. 9). A natural break: cascade, scarp, anticline. No contest: champion country. Get that view! VISITORS THIS IS NOT A MOUNTAIN CHAIN. You’re looking at a brontosaurus which Has got across the middle of the pitch Showing a No Way card to France and Spain. Ne passez pas. No pase el paso usted. His spiky neck is what jacks up the sky; Feet in the Bay of Biscay and the Med; The forest canopy tops out his head; His bones are rocks. The long–term power supply? Sweat, leached from stress–points on the watershed.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

More poems by Guillaume, Sieur du Bartas...

To the Winds, from a Winnower

D’un Vanneur de Blé aux Vents

Joachim du Bellay (1522-60)

D’un Vanneur de Blé aux Vents
A vous troppe legere, Qui d’aele passagere Par le monde volez, Et d’un sifflant murmure L’ombrageuse verdure Doulcement esbranlez, J’offre ces violettes, Ces lis et ces fleurettes, Et ces roses icy, Ces vermeillettes roses, Tout freschement écloses, Et ces œilletz aussi. De vostre double halaine Eventez ceste plaine, Eventez ce sejour: Ce pendant que j’ahanne A mon blé, que je vanne A la chaleur du jour.
To the Winds, from a Winnower
To you lighter than light Who with fugitive flight At liberty flutter, Who lovingly muffle Your whispers, and ruffle The sheltering verdure: I offer these violets, Lilies and flowerets, Roses I hold, These little red roses Newly unfurled, And pink gillyflowers. Let a breath of your breeze Come play on the plain As long as I stay, Come play as I strain At my winnowing-fan In the heat of the day.

Translation: Copyright © Timothy Adès

More poems by Joachim du Bellay...