Thursday, December 20, 2007

Poetry Readings I: Abdication, by Fernando Pessoa


ABDICAÇÃO

Toma-me, ó noite eterna, nos teus braços
E chama-me teu filho... eu sou um rei
que voluntariamente abandonei
O meu trono de sonhos e cansaços.

Minha espada, pesada a braços lassos,
Em mão viris e calmas entreguei;
E meu cetro e coroa - eu os deixei
Na antecâmara, feitos em pedaços

Minha cota de malha, tão inútil,
Minhas esporas de um tinir tão fútil,
Deixei-as pela fria escadaria.

Despi a realeza, corpo e alma,
E regressei à noite antiga e calma
Como a paisagem ao morrer do dia.

*******************************
ABDICATION

Take me, O eternal night, in your arms
and call me your son.... I am a king
who willingly forsook
my throne of dreams and fatigues.

My sword, heavy in tired arms,
I entrusted to virile and calm hands;
my scepter and crown-I have left them
in the antechamber, broken in pieces.

My chain mail, so useless,
my spurs of so futile tingling
I have left them on the cold staircase.

I dismissed royalty, body and soul,
and went back to the ancient and calm night,
like the landscape at the end of the day.

Fernando Pessoa, 1913

Translated from the original by Polymathicus, the 18th December AD 2007

PS F. Pessoa will appear again in this blog, but not as the great gnostic poet he most certainly was. Instead, he will crop up as a remarkable example of accomplished personality shifter.

2 comments:

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- Daniel