Tag: Translation

Posted on

In the Eyes of a Dumb Beast

In the eyes of a dumb beast
I glimpsed deep peace
offered without surcease,
nature’s impartial feast.

To fear all creatures respond.
Animals move on, knowing how
on the hunt to browse
on the here and now,
which tastes of nothing beyond.

After Rainer Maria Rilke (original in French, Vergers n° 54 Pléiade p. 1007)

J’ai vu dans l’œil animal
la vie paisible qui dure,
le calme impartial
de l’imperturbable nature.

La bête connaît la peur ;
mais aussitôt elle avance
et sur son champ d’abondance
broute une présence,
qui n’a pas le goût d’ailleurs.


Posted on

Gallowsong

Let molecules race along
rolling their rounds of dice.
Forget fiddling, being precise.
Just ecstasy, please, all night long.

After Christian Morgenstern, Galgenlieder

Laß die Moleküle rasen, 
was sie auch zusammenknobeln! 
Laß das Tüfteln, laß das Hobeln, 
heilig halte die Ekstasen.

***
This is tough. Knobeln is to game, tüfteln is to do finicky work, but hobeln is to plane, as in carpentry. It’s nonsense verse but makes sense nonetheless. This ditty is drawn from Morgenstern’s own Introduction, but did not make it into Walter Arndt’s Songs from the Gallows, which dates from a now distant epoch when even guardians of high culture allowed for a little levity from time to time.