Читать книгу In Praise of Poetry - Ольга Седакова - Страница 63

6. A WOUNDED TRISTAN DRIFTS IN A BOAT

Magnificence burns bright,

like a pearl dissolved

in a pitched and darkened bottle.

Yet in the depths of earthly hurts,

it starts to speak like a mighty wave,

like ancient Pontus unsurpassed.

O, my deathly longing, you want

to rise like a seawall from the fog,

to embrace yourself from far away

with the hands of the ocean.

Now with Bran’s silver wand

and the prophetic cry of the reed

confusing what we hear,

for ages you have been learning,

that like a sweetly aching wound,

life is vast at parting.

I like Tristan when from the tower

he jumps into the sea:

his deed is really like a star.

How else can we run from grief

but with courage purer then water?

I like the blood from a deep wound,

how it adorns every caress.

Que faire? I like an epilogue

where the ocean can be heard,

I love its every mask.

O, drift like wounded Tristan,

plucking at restless strings,

playing the music of free suffering

up to the heavens where a hurricane roams.

And within the vast ocean’s longing

the hero’s hushed yearning

is like a hamlet beneath a mountain,

like a household that’s early to bed,

outside a blizzard blowing.

And the blizzard gazes like a pale beast

through a thousand eyes of lashes

watching people sleep, while craftswomen

spin the common flax,

and of the ancient Fleece of Colchis

fate’s spindle whirs its tale.

“We shall not find it.”

“It matters not.”