sábado, 26 de junho de 2010

Monotony


One monotonous day follows another
identically monotonous. The same things
will happen to us again and again,
the same moments come and go.

A month passes by, brings another month.
Easy to guess what lies ahead:
all of yesterday's boredom.
And tomorrow ends up no longer like tomorrow.


Constantine P. Cavafy

*Constantine P. Cavafy, also known as Konstantin or Konstantinos Petrou Kavafis, or Kavaphes (Greek Κωνσταντίνος Π. Καβάφης) (April 29, 1863 – April 29, 1933) was a renowned Greek poet who lived in Alexandria and worked as a journalist and civil servant. In his poetry he examined critically some aspects of Christianity, patriotism, and homosexuality, though he was not always comfortable with his role as a nonconformist. He published 154 poems; dozens more remained incomplete or in sketch form. His most important poetry was written after his fortieth birthday.

sábado, 19 de junho de 2010

José Saramago


"I don't think we did go blind, I think we are blind, Blind but seeing, Blind people who can see, but do not see."

(Jose Saramago)
(1922-2010)

quarta-feira, 9 de junho de 2010

The Sorrow of Love

The quarrel of the sparrow in the eaves,
The full round moon and the star-laden sky,
And the loud song of the ever-singing leaves,
Had hid away earth's old and weary cry.

And then you came with those red mournful lips,
And with you came the whole of the world's tears,
And all the sorrows of her labouring ships,
And all the burden of her myriad years.

And now the sparrows warring in the eaves,
The curd-pale moon, the white stars in the sky,
And the loud chaunting of the unquiet leaves,
Are shaken with earth's old and weary cry.

William Butler Yeats
(1892)

'The Sorrow of Love'


The brawling of a sparrow in the eaves,
The brilliant moon and all the milky sky,
And all that famous harmony of leaves,
Had blotted out man's image and his cry.

A girl arose that had red mournful lips
And seemed the greatness of the world in tears,
Doomed like Odysseus and the labouring ships
And proud as Priam murdered with his peers;

Arose, and on the instant clamorous eaves,
A climbing moon upon an empty sky,
And all that lamentation of the leaves,
Could but compose man's image and his cry.


William Butler Yeats
(Revised text of 1925)

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939) was born in Dublin. His father was a lawyer and a well-known portrait painter. Yeats was educated in London and in Dublin, but he spent his summers in the west of Ireland in the family's summer house at Connaught. The young Yeats was very much part of the fin de siècle in London; at the same time he was active in societies that attempted an Irish literary revival. His first volume of verse appeared in 1887, but in his earlier period his dramatic production outweighed his poetry both in bulk and in import. Together with Lady Gregory he founded the Irish Theatre, which was to become the Abbey Theatre, and served as its chief playwright until the movement was joined by John Synge. His plays usually treat Irish legends; they also reflect his fascination with mysticism and spiritualism. The Countess Cathleen (1892), The Land of Heart's Desire (1894), Cathleen ni Houlihan (1902), The King's Threshold (1904), and Deirdre (1907) are among the best known.

Yeats is one of the few writers whose greatest works were written after the award of the Nobel Prize. Whereas he received the Prize chiefly for his dramatic works, his significance today rests on his lyric achievement. His poetry, especially the volumes The Wild Swans at Coole (1919), Michael Robartes and the Dancer (1921), The Tower (1928), The Winding Stair and Other Poems (1933), and Last Poems and Plays (1940), made him one of the outstanding and most influential twentieth-century poets writing in English. His recurrent themes are the contrast of art and life, masks, cyclical theories of life (the symbol of the winding stairs), and the ideal of beauty and ceremony contrasting with the hubbub of modern life.

terça-feira, 8 de junho de 2010

"Nightbound"

"I sip the nights,
I'm the restless longings
of past sheperds & ancient bards

(an elated sleepless zombie
eternally wandering , am I? )

the spell of sleeping waves,
the tranquility seas, the mystery capes,
the arboreal secretive design,

I'm Orion's hunter and magi,
the nocturnal, inebriating wine,

I'm the one who drinks and weeps
amber beads at night,
some Gods' wink -
Hush! - but a dream ? -
I'm the moons’ transfigured light ...."


(F. Campanella)


"Nightbound"

Eu sorvo as noites
Eu sou inquietas saudades
De esquecidos pastores
E bardos primordiais

(um extático zumbi
Eternamente vagando, seria eu?)

a magia de ondas adormecidas,
os mares de tranqüilidade
os cabos misteriosos
o desenho incógnito das árvores

eu sou de Orion o caçador
E os magos , o vinho noturno
Inebriado

o que bebe e lacrimeja
gotas de âmbar à noite,

algum piscar dos deuses

- Silêncio! – apenas um sonho? –

eu sou da lua a luz transfigurada.


Fernando Campanella

sábado, 5 de junho de 2010

Sonnet VIII


How many masks wear we, and undermasks,
Upon our countenance of soul, and when,
If for self-sport the soul itself unmasks,
Knows it the last mask off and the face plain?
The true mask feels no inside to the mask
But looks out of the mask by co-masked eyes.
Whatever conciousness begins the task
The task's accepted use to sleepness ties.
Like a child frighted by its mirrored faces,
Our souls, that children are, being thought-losing,
Foist otherness upon their seen grimaces
And get a whole world on their forgot causing;
And, when a thought would unmask our soul's masking,
Itself goes not unmasked to the unmasking.

Fernando Pessoa
In "35 Sonnets-(1.918)