diurnal . poetry . news . writerature
Testking - Certification Guaranteed, The Easy Way!
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Translations of 'Swansong of the sea' into Italian by Mario Rigli and into Arabic by Nizar Sartawi
Il canto di cigno del mare
di Santiago Villafania
(Traduzione di Mario Rigli)
Quella notte ho sentito il canto di cigno del mare
le erolalia (*) di amanti senza nome
che rubano paradiso ed eternità
è stato il grido di un uccello pellegrino
che ha punteggiato il silenzio della notte
ma i venti e le onde hanno sussurrato quiete
Ho aspettato il risveglio del giorno
ho sentito al di sotto il respiro della terra,
le palpitazioni della Via Lattea
poi Atlante ha mosso un dito
e rotazioni sono scaturite
e improvviso tremore
E il mare aveva le ali di uno tsunami!
La morte è giunta senza preavviso e ragione
a coloro che ascoltavano i salmi dell'oblio
e poi ho sentito il canto di cigno del mare
. . . e le grida di chi se ne è andato via.
(*) Erolalia è un termine coniato dal Dr. Robert Chartham nel suo libro la “La coppia sensuale” per definire l'insieme di gemiti, grida, suoni e sospiri che escono alla coppia durante il rapporto sessuale.
Swansong of the sea
By Santiago Villafania
(Published in the Manila Times / Sunday Magazine, 20 March 2011)
That night I heard the swansong of the sea
the erolalias of nameless lovers
stealing a heaven and eternity
there was a crysong of a pilgrim bird
that punctuated the silence of the night
but the winds and the waves whispered a hush
I waited for the waking of the day
feeling the breathing of the earth beneath
the palpitations of the Milky Way
then Atlas moved a finger and it came
the gyrations and the
sudden trembling
O the sea had wings of a tsunami!
death came without warning or a reason
to those who heard the psalms of oblivion
and then I heard the swansong of the sea
. . .and the crysongs of those who went away
أغنية البحر الوداعية
شعر سانتياغو فيلافانيا
ترجمة نزار سرطاوي
في تلك الليلة سمعت أغنيةَ البحر الوداعية
...أنّاتِ وغنجاتِ وصرخاتِ عشّاقٍ بلا أسماء
تسرق الفردوس والخلود
وشقّت سكون الليل
أغنية طائرٍ في طريقه إلى الحجّ لكن الرياح والأمواج همست بالسكون
انتظرتُ صحوة النهار
شعرتُ بأنفاس الأرض من تحتي
وخفقات درب اللبانة
ثم حرك أطلس أحد أصابعه وحيندئذٍ جاءت
حركات الدوران
وفجأةً رجفت الراجفة
آه، كانت للبحر أجنحةٌ تسونامية!
حضر الموت بلا نذير وبلا سبب
إلى أولئك الذين سمعوا مزامير النسيان
ثم سمعت أغنية البحر الوداعية
. . . والصرخات الأخيرة لأولئك الذين مضوا بعيداً
Translated by Nizar Sartawi
This poem rests uneasily between memorial and epic (I exhort you to go to Villafania's piece, from which this is an excerpt.) As a poem standing at the beginning of a longer piece, it exudes history and tradition, and, in particular, the invocation of the muse which is, for Villafania, going to be one of both destruction and transcendence: a kind of Christian paradox of life through death, or perhaps one of those Virgilian prefigurations.
What really stuns about Villafania's piece, however, is just the lyricism, completely unashamed good-sounding words strung together on a line, the exacting choices he makes so that the hard p and growling g come after the vowely "crysong" to rescue it from sentimentality. This is a piece whose excellence comes from making the difficult look simple.
There is more to be said about Villafania's epic reach, the way in which his narrative can effortlessly encompass both Atlas and the "palpitations of the Milky Way" (look at how that palpitation reduces down our galaxy to a little throbbing thing, a kind of toy for the poem to play with, a counter, almost on a checkerboard.) The way, in particular, a kind of circumlocution, a kind of epithet, merges seamlessly into the language: "stealing a heaven and eternity."
The theme of death as listening, death as coming to those who have paid attention, is just one aspect of the paradoxes that simmer just under the melifluous prosody here; one of the sharper points to notice is the way in which only the speaker himself emerges unscathed, Ishmael-like to tell the story having heard the "psalms of oblivion."
(from the Rhubard is Susan Review, April 25, 2005)
permaLink |
0
comments
A Tao 道 Sign
Santiago B. Villafania, a bilingual Filipino poet who writes in English and in his native language of Pangasinan, is the author of poetry collections Balikas na Caboloan (Voices from Caboloan) published by the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts (NCCA) under its UBOD New Authors Series (2005) and Malagilion: Sonnets tan Villanelles (2007). He has been published in several countries and translated into several languages. Villafania is one of the 11 Outstanding Pangasinenses conferred with the 2010 Asna Award for the Arts and Culture (literature) during the first Agew na Pangasinan and also the 430th Foundation Day of the province on April 2010. He is a member of Philippine PEN. Read more »
Post a Comment