Mihai Eminescu (1850-1889)

 

 

 

1. Glossa

          2. Gazel

        3. Calin(pages from a tale)-fragments

        4. And if

                                                              Romanian version

                                                           

 

Glossa*

 

Time goes by, time comes along,

All is old and all is new;

What is right and what is wrong,

You must think and ask of you;

Have no hope and have no fear,

Waves that rise can never hold;

If they urge or if they cheer,

You remain aloof and cold.

 

 

To our sight so much will glisten,

Many sounds will reach our ear…

Can we take the time to listen

And remember all we hear?

Keep aside from all that patter,

Seek yourself, far from the throng,

When with loud and idle clatter

Time goes by, time comes along.

 

 

Nor forget the tongue of reason

Or its even scales depress

When the moment, changing season,

Wears the mask of happiness —

It is born of reason’s slumber

And may last a wink as true:

For the one who knows its number

All is old and all is new.

 

 

          Be as to a play, spectator,

As the world unfolds before:

You will know the heart of matter

Should they act two parts or four;

When they cry or tear asunder

From your seat enjoy along

And you’ll learn from art to wonder

What is right and what is wrong.

 

 

Past and future, ever blending,

Are the twin sides of same page:

New start will begin with ending

When you know to learn from age;

All that was or be tomorrow

We have in the present, too,

But what’s vain and futile sorrow

You must think and ask of you.

 

 

For the living cannot sever

From the means we’ve always had:

Now, as years ago, and ever,

Men are happy or are sad:

Other masks, same play repeated;

Diff’rent tongues, same words to hear;

Of your dreams so often cheated,

Have no hope and have no fear.

 

 

Hope not when the villains cluster

By success and glory drawn:

Fools with perfect lack of luster

Will outshine Hyperion!

Fear it not, they’ll push each other

To reach higher in the fold,

Do not side with them as brother,

Waves that rise can never hold.

 

 

        Sounds of siren songs call steady

Toward golden nets, astray;

Life attracts you into eddies

To change actors in the play;

Steal aside from crowd and bustle,

Do not look, seem not to hear

From your path, away from hustle,

If they urge or if they cheer;

 

 

If they reach for you, go faster,

Hold your tongue when slanders yell,

Your advice they cannot master,

Don’t you know their measure well?

Let them talk and let them chatter,

Let all go past, young and old:

Unattached to man or matter,

You remain aloof and cold.

 

 

You remain aloof and cold

If they urge or if they cheer;

Waves that rise can never hold,

Have no hope and have no fear;

You must think and ask of you

What is right and what is wrong;

All is old and all is new,

Time goes by, time comes along.

 

*Fixed Latin form of lyric verse, generally used for poems of philosophic      character, wherein each line of the first stanza is commented in subsequent stanzas ending with that line. The last stanza repeats the first in reverse order.       (Translator’s note)

        

                                                              Romanian version

 

Published for the first time in the volume "Poesii", december 1883,       p.143-147

 

 

                                          Translated by Adrian George Săhlean

                                               ( www.luceafarul.com )      

 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 

 

Gazel

 

Autumn leaves are wandering,

Chirps a cricket on a beam,

Pitifull wind in windows knocking,

With its fingers shivering,

By the stove you sit , my darling,

Silent sleep is slowly slipping,

In your dreams why do you startle,

You have heard some one tip-toeing,

It`s your lover who is coming,

In his arms to hug your waist,

And in front of you, sweet beauty,

He will hold a glass reflecting,

Your beloved and pretty face,

Lost in dreams, happily smiling.

                                                         Romanian version

                                             

 

 

 

Călin (pages from a tale): Fragments

 

I

 

Over millenary forest, on a hill the moon ascends,

Silvering the lonesome castle with it`s hearth of burning brands,

And the rivers` water twinkles running to the foamy fall,

Further, in the peacefull valley, glides the bell`s 

lamenting call.(...)

 

 

 

VIII

 

If you cross the copper forest, fading from afar you see,

And you hear a glorious singing, silver forest`s melody,

Yonder, not far from the sources, the grass seems as snow,      

down there,

Light blue flowers quiver moistened in the incense scented air,

Even the aeternal trunks, conceal souls under the rind,

Weeping softly through the branches with sad voices, in the wind,

Through the deep and splendid darkness of the silver 

forest, thou,

Might perceive the shaken rivers twinkling in their rapid flow,

And they pass with busy waves in the flowers softly dripping,

As they roam the lofty hills with a blithesome, sweetfull rippling,

Somersault in fluid balls over the blackwater`s gravel,

And the wise moon lies all over, water`s nest, the spinning ravel.

Tons of bees cheerly buzzing, thousands of blue butterflies,

Float in brilliant river under your highly delighted eyes,

In the cool and perfumed air of the summer`s splendid evening

Thou can hear the swarm of flies, flighty feasts light 

hearted droning,

Near to the lake that trembles in the dreamy, peacefull night,

Thou will see a too wide table, milky with the torces light,

Emperors and empresses, from all over the world, there,

Came to celebrate the wedding of the lovely, royal pair,

Dragons with their iron scales, Fet-Frumos* with golden hair,

The bearded astrologers, Pepele*, the devil-dare...

On the royal chair leaning, there is the bridegroom`s father,

On his head he bears a mitre and his tendrils are combed rather

Well-with the scepter in his hand, stiff, in feather pillows` pit

And with baughs a page protects him from the flies 

and from the heat...

Here is Calin the bridegroom, hand in hand coming aside,

From the dense and darkened forest, with his blonde 

and gentle bride,

Rustless dryly on the leaves the tail of her wedding gown,

Her long hair of soft gold it is almost reaching down:

And it falls over her shoulders, over her arms nude and white,

Like an apple, red, her face is, and with joy her 

moist eyes bright.

Thus she`s coming willowy, wearing her amazing fair,

On her brow she has a star, light blue flowers in her hair.

At the head of the long table, the bride`s father asks to come,

Godmother the wondrous moon, godfather the splendid sun,

By the age and by the standing, everybody took a seat.

Mildly the fiddle is playing and the cobza follows it.

What`s the din that spread`s all over like the 

buzzing of beehives?

The guests wandered looked all over, they don`t know whence 

it arrives.

Finally, they see the cobweb, like a bridge betwixt the shrubs,

Over which it crowds a people giving rise to gay hubbubs,

The ants pass carrying in mouthes, stuffed with flour bulky bags,

Rings to make from it the carious, ironsmith, whose hand is fast.

Here comes the wedding all, headman is a little grig,

And the fleas are hopping forward , horseshoed in their iron rig,

In velvet clothed, a bumblebee, with a stately swollen belly,

Through his nose like popes is singing a slow sermon, drowsily;

A filbert`s shell the locusts draw and the bridges lightly lean,

With twisted moustaches idles the butterfly groom, within,

Butterflies of different nations after come in serried lines,

All are playfull and light hearted all are philanders and fines,

Gnats musicians slowly pass, cockchaffers, the party all,

And the bride, the violet waits for them behind the door.

A young cricket, lively herald, on the royal table bounces,

He coughs buttoning his attire wholely filled with golden laces;

Rised upon two feet he bows, clapping softly from his spur:

“You won`t mind, distinguished boyards, if we’ll start the 

feasts together.”

 

                                                             Romanian version

* Characters of Romanian folk-tales    

 

(Published for the first time in "Convorbiri literare" X, nr. 8, november 1, 1876, p309-313)

 

 

 

 

  And if

 

                And if the poplars start to tremble

          And leaves all fly apart,

          This is in order to remember

          And keep you in my heart.

 

                  And if the stars fall in the ocean,

          And depths are shining through,

          This is to soothe all my emotion

          And never forget you.

 

          And if the thick clouds disappear

          And soon the moon will raise,

          This is to always have you near,

          Enlightening my days.

                                                        Romanian version

 

(Published for the first time in "Familia", XIX, no. 46, 13/25november 1883, p.549.)

 

                                   

Translations by Paul Doru Mugur