Behind the Seen
Grave of William Butler Yeats; Drumcliff, Co. Sligo, Ireland
______________
پشت مشتای اینجا
___
August 1, 1819 was the birthday of Herman Melville, the great American novelist who reinvigorated the genre of the novel of the high seas and adventure in the tropics - but really wrote about the psychology of man under extreme conditions…
(Photo via NYPL)
Pictured above, the well-known portrait of Percy Bysshe Shelley (born 4 August, 1792; died 8 July, 1822), painted in 1819 by Amelia Curran (1775-1847), now in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery, London
Mutability, by Percy Bysshe Shelley
We are as clouds that veil the midnight moon;
How restlessly they speed, and gleam, and quiver,
Streaking the darkness radiantly!—yet soon
Night closes round, and they are lost for ever;
Or like forgotten lyres, whose dissonant strings
Give various response to each varying blast,
To whose frail frame no second motion brings
One mood or modulation like the last.
We rest. — A dream has power to poison sleep;
We rise. — One wandering thought pollutes the day;
We feel, conceive or reason, laugh or weep;
Embrace fond woe, or cast our cares away:
It is the same!—For, be it joy or sorrow,
The path of its departure still is free:
Man’s yesterday may ne’er be like his morrow;
Nought may endure but Mutability.
(first published in 1816)
Pictured above, an 1868 photograph of the Ponte al Mare, Pisa, the subject of the 1821 poem ‘Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa’, by Percy Bysshe Shelley (born 4 August, 1792; died 8 July, 1822)
Evening: Ponte Al Mare, Pisa
I
The sun is set; the swallows are asleep;
The bats are flitting fast in the gray air;
The slow soft toads out of damp corners creep,
And evening’s breath, wandering here and there
Over the quivering surface of the stream,
Wakes not one ripple from its summer dream.
II
There is no dew on the dry grass to-night,
Nor damp within the shadow of the trees;
The wind is intermitting, dry, and light;
And in the inconstant motion of the breeze
The dust and straws are driven up and down,
And whirled about the pavement of the town.
III
Within the surface of the fleeting river
The wrinkled image of the city lay,
Immovably unquiet, and forever
It trembles, but it never fades away;
Go to the …
You, being changed, will find it then as now.
IV
The chasm in which the sun has sunk is shut
By darkest barriers of cinereous cloud,
Like mountain over mountain huddled — but
Growing and moving upwards in a crowd,
And over it a space of watery blue,
Which the keen evening star is shining through.
(published posthumously in 1824)
Pictured above, a Victorian photograph (from the collection of Doug Small) of Lechlade, Gloucestershire, dominated by the spire of St. Lawrence’s Church, where in August 1815 Percy Bysshe Shelley (born 4 August, 1792; died 8 July, 1822) composed his poem, “A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire”
A Summer Evening Churchyard,
Lechlade, Gloucestershire
The wind has swept from the wide atmosphere
Each vapour that obscured the sunset’s ray,
And pallid Evening twines its beaming hair
In duskier braids around the languid eyes of Day:
Silence and Twilight, unbeloved of men,
Creep hand in hand from yon obscurest glen.
They breathe their spells towards the departing day,
Encompassing the earth, air, stars, and sea;
Light, sound, and motion, own the potent sway,
Responding to the charm with its own mystery.
The winds are still, or the dry church-tower grass
Knows not their gentle motions as they pass.
Thou too, aerial pile, whose pinnacles
Point from one shrine like pyramids of fire,
Obey’st I in silence their sweet solemn spells,
Clothing in hues of heaven thy dim and distant spire,
Around whose lessening and invisible height
Gather among the stars the clouds of night.
The dead are sleeping in their sepulchres:
And, mouldering as they sleep, a thrilling sound,
Half sense half thought, among the darkness stirs,
Breathed from their wormy beds all living things around,
And, mingling with the still night and mute sky,
Its awful hush is felt inaudibly.
Thus solemnized and softened, death is mild
And terrorless as this serenest night.
Here could I hope, like some enquiring child
Sporting on graves, that death did hide from human sight
Sweet secrets, or beside its breathless sleep
That loveliest dreams perpetual watch did keep.
Those Winter Sundays by Robert E. Hayden (Aug. 4, 1913 - 1980)
Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
__
Today’s great musical birthday is that of Satchmo - Louis Armstrong, American jazz trumpetist and vocalist: b. Aug. 4, 1901 (d. 1971)
Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong - Dream a Little Dream of Me
Guy de Maupassant (born 5 August, 1850; died 6 July, 1893), pictured above in the 1888 photograph by Félix Nadar (1820-1910), in the collection of the Bibliothèque Nationale de Paris
A very short story by Guy de Maupassant:
Ugly
Certainly, at this blessed epoch of Equality of mediocrity, of rectangular abomination, as Edgar Poe says, at this delightful period, when everybody dreams of resembling everybody else, so that it has become impossible to tell the President of the Republic from a waiter; in these days, which are the forerunners of that promising, blissful day, when everything in this world will be of a dully, neuter uniformity, certainly at such an epoch, one has the right, or rather it is one’s duty, to be ugly.
He, however, assuredly, exercised that right with the most cruel vigor, and he fulfilled that duty with the fiercest heroism, and to make matters worse, the mysterious irony of fate had caused him to be born with the name of Lebeau, while an ingenious godfather, the unconscious accomplice of the pranks of destiny, had given him the Christian name of Antinous.
Even among our contemporaries, who were already on the high road to the coming ideal of universal ugliness, Antinous Lebeau was remarkable for his ugliness, and one might have said that he positively threw zeal, too much zeal, into the matter, though he was not hideous like Mirabeau, who made the people exclaim: “Oh! the beautiful monster!”
Alas! No. He was without any beauty, even without the beauty of ugliness. He was ugly, that was all; nothing more nor less; in short, he was uglily ugly. He was not humpbacked, nor knock-kneed, nor pot-bellied; his legs were not like a pair of tongs, and his arms were neither too long nor too short, and yet, there was an utter lack of uniformity about him, not only in painters’ eyes, but also in everybody’s, for nobody could meet him in the street without turning to look after him, and thinking: “Good heavens! What an object.”
His hair was of no particular color; a light chestnut, mixed with yellow. There was not much of it, but still, he was not absolutely bald, but quite bald enough to allow his butter-colored pate to show. Butter-colored? Hardly! The color of margarine would be more applicable, and such pale margarine.
His face was also like margarine, but of adulterated margarine, certainly. By the side of it, his cranium, the color of unadulterated margarine, looked almost like butter, by comparison.
There was very little to say about his mouth! Less than little; the sum total was—nothing. It was a chimerical mouth.
But take it, that I have said nothing about him, and let us replace this vain description by the useful formula: Impossible to describe him. But you must not forget that Antinous Lebeau was ugly, that the fact impressed everybody as soon as they saw him, and that nobody remembered ever having seen an uglier person; and let us add, that as the climax of his misfortune, he thought so himself.
From this you will see that he was not a fool, but, then, he was not ill-natured, either; but, of course, he was unhappy. An unhappy man thinks only of his wretchedness, and people take his night cap for a fool’s cap, while, on the other hand, goodness is only esteemed when it is cheerful. Consequently, Antinous Lebeau passed for a fool, and an ill-tempered fool, and he was not even pitied because he was so ugly.
He had only one pleasure in life, and that was to go and roam about the darkest streets on dark nights, and to hear the street-walkers say:
“Come home with me, you handsome, dark man!”
It was, alas! a furtive pleasure, and he knew that it was not true. For, occasionally, when the woman was old or drunk and he profited by the invitation, as soon as the candle was lighted in the garret, they no longer murmured the fallacious: handsome, dark man; and when they saw him, the old women grew still older, and the drunken women got sober. And more than one, although hardened against disgust, and ready for all risks, said to him, and in spite of his liberal payment:
“My little man, you are most confoundedly ugly, I must say.”
At last, however, he renounced even that lamentable pleasure, when he heard the still more lamentable words which a wretched woman could not help uttering when he went home with her:
“Well, he must have been very hungry!”
Alas! He was hungry, unhappy man; hungry for love, for something that should resemble love, were it ever so little; he longed not to live like a pariah any more, not to be exiled and proscribed in his ugliness. And the ugliest, the most repugnant woman would have appeared beautiful to him, if she would only have not consented to think him ugly, or, at any rate, not to tell him so, and not to let him see that she felt horror at him on that account.
The consequence was, that, when he one day met a poor, blear-eyed creature, with her face covered with scabs, and bearing evident signs of alcoholism, with a driveling mouth, and ragged and filthy petticoats, to whom he gave liberal alms, for which she kissed his hand, he took her home with him, had her clean dressed and taken care of, made her his servant, and then his housekeeper. Next he raised her to the rank of his mistress, and, finally, of course, he married her.
She was almost as ugly as he was! She really was; but only, almost. Almost, but certainly not quite; for she was hideous, and her hideousness had its charm and its beauty, no doubt; that something by which a woman can attract a man. And she had proved that by deceiving him, and she let him see it better still, by seducing another man.
That other was actually uglier than he was.
He was certainly uglier, that collection of every physical and moral ugliness, that companion of beggars whom she had picked up among her former vagrant associates, that jailbird, that dealer in little girls, that vagabond covered with filth, with legs like a toad’s, with a mouth like a lamprey, and a death’s head, in which the nose had been replaced by two holes.
“And you have wronged me with a wretch like that,” the poor cuckold said. “And in my own house! and in such a manner that I might catch you in the very act! And why, why, you wretch? Why, seeing that he is uglier than I am?”
“Oh! no,” she exclaimed. “You may say what you like, but do not say that he is uglier than you are.”
And the unhappy man stood there, vanquished and overcome by her last words, which she uttered without understanding all the horror which he would feel at them.
“Because, you see, he has his own particular ugliness, while you are merely ugly like everybody else is.”
(translated from the French for a 1909 edition of Maupassant’s stories; translator unknown)
Che si può fare, the sixth aria in the Opus 8, Arie a voce sola, published in 1644 by Barbara Strozzi (baptised 6 August, 1619; died 11 November, 1677), setting a poem by Gaudenzio Brunacci (a poet, astrologer and alchemist); performed here by Mariana Flores, soprano, with the Cappella Mediterranea, directed by Leonardo Garcia Alarcon, in a 2009 recording
(The English translation below comes from the excellent website of Candace Magner, Barbara Strozzi, La Virtuosissima Cantatrice, and presumably is by Ms. Magner.)
Che si può fare
le stelle
rubelle
non hanno pietà
che s’el cielo non da
un influso di pace
al mio penare
che si può fare.
Che si può dire
da gl’astri
disastri
mi piovano ogn’or;
che si può dire
che le perfido
amer un respiro
di niega al mio martire
che si può dire.
Così va rio destin forte
tiranna gl’innocenti
con danna
così l’oro più fido
di costanza e di fè
lasso convienelo raffini d’ogn’or
fuoco di pene.
Sì, sì, sì, sì penar
deggio che darei sospiri
deggio trarne i respiri.
In aspri guai per eternarmi
il ciel niega mia sorte
al periodo vital
punto di morte.
Voi spirti dannati
ne sete beati
s’ogni eumenide ria
sol’ è intenta a crucciar
l’anima mia.
Se sono sparite
le furie di Dite
voi ne gl’elisi eterni
i di trahete
io coverò gl’inferni.
Così avvien a chi tocca
calcar l’orme d’un cieco
alfin trabbocca.
What can one do
if the rebel stars
have no pity;
what can be done
if heaven has
no peaceful influence
to soothe my sorrows;
what can one say
from the stars disasters
rain upon me at all hours;
what can be said
if perfidious love
denies the slightest repose
to my martyrdom;
what can be said?
That is how it goes with perverse destiny,
that condemns the innocent,
so too constancy that most trusted gold
and, oh, it nonetheless need be
purified at every hour
by the flames of my sorrows.
Yes, yes I should suffer,
yes, yes, from my sighs
I should hold back my breath.
In bitter misfortunes so as to prolong
my being, the heavens deny me my destiny,
that my life’s course
should lead to death.
Cursed spirits,
you do rejoice indeed,
when each of the perverse furies
has as its only goal
the torment of my soul.
If the furies of Dis
were to vanish,
you would spend your days
in the eternal Elysia,
while I perish in the underworld.
So it happens to him who must
follow the example of the blind man:
in the end he falls to the ground.
Rainer Maria Rilke :
“We discover that we do not know our own role; we look for a mirror; we want to remove our make-up and take off what is false and be real.
But somewhere a piece of disguise that we forgot still sticks to us. A trace of exaggeration remains in our eyebrows; we do not notice that the corners of our mouths are bent.
And so we walk around, a mockery and a mere half: neither having achieved being nor actors.”
Samuel Beckett, London, 1980 - John Minihan
“
Jorge Luis Borges, 1971 - by Gisèle Freund
___________
English translations:
1 (literal).
The translucent hands of the Jew
Work in the penumbra, crystals
& the evening, dying, is dread & chill.
(Evenings to evenings are equal.)
The hands & space of hyacinth
Waning in the confines of the Ghetto
Almost do not exist for the man so quiet
Who is dreaming a clear labyrinth.
He’s not perturbed by fame, that reflection
Of dreams in the dream of another mirror,
Nor by the timorous love of maidens.
Free from metaphor & myth
He works a hard crystal: the Infinite
Map of That which totals His stars.
2.
The Jew’s hands, translucent in the dusk,
polish the lenses time and again.
The dying afternoon is fear, is
cold, and all afternoons are the same.
The hands and the hyacinth-blue air
that whitens at the Ghetto edges
do not quite exist for this silent
man who conjures up a clear labyrinth—
undisturbed by fame, that reflection
of dreams in the dream of another
mirror, nor by maidens’ timid love.
Free of metaphor and myth, he grinds
a stubborn crystal: the infinite
map of the One who is all His stars.
Great German-born film director Wim Wenders turns 65 today…
“Film is a very, very powerful medium. It can either confirm the idea that things are wonderful the way they are, or it can reinforce the conception that things can be changed.” - W.W.
The furthest distance in the world
The furthest distance in the world
Is not between life and death
But when I stand in front of you
Yet you don’t know that I love you.
The furthest distance in the world
Is not when I stand in front of you
Yet you can’t see my love
But when undoubtedly knowing the love from both
Yet cannot
Be together.
The furthest distance in the world
Is not being apart while being in love
But when plainly can not resist the yearning
Yet pretending You have never been in my heart.
The furthest distance in the world
Is not
But using one’s indifferent heart
To dig an uncrossable river
For the one who loves you.
Cult poet and novelist Charles Bukowski - Aug. 16, 1920 - 1994:
It appears that certain people think that poetry should be a certain way. For these, there will be nothing but troubled years. More and more people will come along to break their concepts. It’s hard I know, like having somebody fuck your wife while you are at work, but life, as they say, goes on. — Buk
sure, I know that you are tired of hearing about it, but
most repeat the same theme over and over again, it’s
as if they were trying to refine what seems so strange
and off and important to them, it’s done by everybody
because everybody is of a different stripe and form
and each must work out what is before them
over and over again because
that is their personal tiny miracle
their bit of luck
like now as like before and before I have been slowly
drinking this fine red wine and listening to symphony after
symphony from this black radio to my left
some symphonies remind me of certain cities and certain rooms,
make me realize that certain people now long dead were able to
transgress graveyards
and traps and cages and bones and limbs
people who broke through with joy and madness and with
insurmountable force
in tiny rented rooms I was struck by miracles
and even now after decades of listening I still am able to hear
a new work never heard before that is totally
bright, a fresh-blazing sun
there are countless sub-stratas of rising surprise from the
human firmament
music has an expansive and endless flow of ungodly
exploration
writers are confined to the limit of sight and feeling upon the
page while musicians leap into unrestricted immensity
right now it’s just old Tchaikowsky moaning and groaning his
way through symphony #5
but it’s just as good as when I first heard it
I haven’t heard one of my favorites, Eric Coates, for some time
but I know that if I keep drinking the good red and listening
that he will be along
there are others, many others
and so
this is just another poem about drinking and listening to
music
repeat, right?
but look at Faulkner, he not only said the same thing over and
over but he said the same
place
so, please, let me boost these giants of our lives
once more: the classical composers of our time and
of times past
it has kept the rope from my throat
maybe it will loosen
yours
from “Third Lung Review” - 1992
Birthday of Ted Hughes, English poet of renown (and the squarest jaw on record) - Aug. 17, 1930 - 1998…
Pike
Pike, three inches long, perfect
Pike in all parts, green tigering the gold.
Killers from the egg: the malevolent aged grin.
They dance on the surface among the flies.
Or move, stunned by their own grandeur,
Over a bed of emerald, silhouette
Of submarine delicacy and horror.
A hundred feet long in their world.
In ponds, under the heat-struck lily pads-
Gloom of their stillness:
Logged on last year’s black leaves, watching upwards.
Or hung in an amber cavern of weeds
The jaws’ hooked clamp and fangs
Not to be changed at this date:
A life subdued to its instrument;
The gills kneading quietly, and the pectorals.
Three we kept behind glass,
Jungled in weed: three inches, four,
And four and a half: red fry to them-
Suddenly there were two. Finally one
With a sag belly and the grin it was born with.
And indeed they spare nobody.
Two, six pounds each, over two feet long
High and dry and dead in the willow-herb-
One jammed past its gills down the other’s gullet:
The outside eye stared: as a vice locks-
The same iron in this eye
Though its film shrank in death.
A pond I fished, fifty yards across,
Whose lilies and muscular tench
Had outlasted every visible stone
Of the monastery that planted them-
Stilled legendary depth:
It was as deep as England. It held
Pike too immense to stir, so immense and old
That past nightfall I dared not cast
But silently cast and fished
With the hair frozen on my head
For what might move, for what eye might move.
The still splashes on the dark pond,
Owls hushing the floating woods
Frail on my ear against the dream
Darkness beneath night’s darkness had freed,
That rose slowly toward me, watching.
Antonio Salieri, in an 1825 portrait by Joseph Willibrod Mahler (1810-1905)
________________
La No: non vacillerà…Sukke mie tempie, an aria from the satirical opera La secchia rapita by Antonio Salieri (born 18 August, 1750; died 7 May, 1825), first performed in 1772, in Vienna; performed here by Cecilia Bartoli, mezzo-soprano, with The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, directed by Adam Fischer
Federico García Lorca, Spanish poet - shot this day in 1936 by Fascists…
Green, how I love you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I love you green…
____________
Ysaÿe: Sonata for solo violin; Op. 27, no. 3 - Ballade (Dedicated to Enescu)
Performed by Vincenzo Bolognese
________
No comments:
Post a Comment