Desk journeys

 

Ash leaves. Frome, 18 January 2022.

Join me in a morning wander through the internet. 

Searching for other usages of a Swedish phrase I was struggling with in Dagsmeja, I came to this (in my not very considered translation):

I often toyed with the dizzying thought of being able to choose death myself. Anything else, it seemed to me, just not this degrading workshop death, this machine death with its sterile tangle of hoses, flashing lights, icy alarms and measuring instruments. 

Rather than that the quick crash death, one second of insight, then all over. 

Rather than that the tennis death, a happy step towards the decisive ball and ... 

And rather than that, to be still at the last greedily wide awake, with all my senses alert to draw out the last answer to the last question about the world that's so devilishly being taken from me. 

Bertil Torekull, The Enamelled Heart: A Son's Confessions (Det emaljerade hjärtat: En sons bekännelser, 2002)

I turned back to his epigraphs: Tomas Tranströmer, Gabriela Mistral and William Shakespeare. 

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), the Chilean poet, may have become known to Swedes of Torekull's generation because of Hjallmar Gullberg's speech when she won the Nobel Prize in 1945. (Mistral, distraught by the suicide of her nephew two years earlier, travelled to Sweden to collect the prize but only out of a sense of duty to the cause of Latin American literature; she was the first winner from that part of the world.) Around the same time Gullberg published two volumes of translations. 

I was surprised how difficult it is to track down good or reputable English translations of Gabriela Mistral poems. I only mean, of course, to read for free online, or tjuvläsa as the Swedish say it ("thief-read"). But still, it suggests a lack of interest in her poetry in the English-speaking world: Mistral translations are by fans (e.g. Ursula K. Le Guin) or with limited availability (e.g. the 2013 bilingual edition of her first book, Desolación, translated by Michael P. Predmore and Liliana Baltra).

Here's what Torekull quoted from her:

Från varje skapelse skall du avlägsna dig med blygsel över att den inte nådde upp till din dröm.

This translated part of item ten in her "Decalogue of the Artist" (1922):

X. De toda creación saldras con vergüenza, porque fué inferior a tu sueño, e inferior a ese sueño maravilloso de Dios, que es la Naturaleza.

X. Each act of creation shall leave you humble, for it is never as great as your dream and always inferior to that most marvellous dream of God which is Nature.

[Source: https://www.poemhunter.com/i/ebooks/pdf/gabriela_mistral_2012_6.pdf . English translation by Doris Dana.]

Lucila de María del Perpetuo Socorro Godoy Alcayaga published under the pseudonym Gabriela Mistral: her pseudonymous surname alluded to the Occitan poet Frédéric Mistral, and also to the Provence wind itself. Trivia fact: "Mistral" is the only surname that appears twice in the list of Nobel laureates: Frédéric Mistral was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1904.

Madre mía, en el sueño
ando por paisajes cardenosos:
un monte negro que se contornea
siempre, para alcanzar el otro monte;
y en el que siempre estás tú vagamente,
pero siempre hay otro monte redondo
que circundar, para pagar el paso
al monte de tu gozo y de mi gozo

 

Mother, in my dream
I walk purplish landscapes:
a black mountain that sways
trying to reach the other mountain;
and you are always in it vaguely,
but there is always another round mountain
to be walked around to pay the toll
to get to the mountain of your joy and mine.

(from "Muerte de mi madre" ("Death of My Mother"). Sourced from https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/gabriela-mistral -- an article by Santiago Daydí-Tolson that makes me curious to learn more.)

Ash trunks. Frome, 18 January 2022.

THE FOOTPRINT

Of the fleeing man I have

only the footprint,

the weight of his body,

and the wind that blows him...

And the thorn he leaps,

the marsh he crosses,

the bush that hides him

and the sun that reveals him, ...

And his daughter, the blood

that calls out through him: ...

the mouthless cry,

the footprint, the footprint!

Holy sands,

eat up his sign.

Dogs of mist,

cover his track.

Falling night,

swallow in one gulp

the great, sweet

mark of a man.

I see, I count

the two thousand footprints.

I go running, running

across old Earth,

mixing up his

poor tracks with mine,

or I stop and erase them

with my wild hair,

or facedown I lick

away the footprints.

But the white Earth

turns eternal,

stretches endless

as a chain,

lengthens out into a snake,

and the Lord God does not break its back.

And the footprints go on

to the end of the world.

(About half of Ursula K. Le Guin's translation of "La huella", from Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral (2003). Poem source .)

Here's one of her complete poems, with translations in English and Romanian:

BEBER

Al doctor Pedro de Alba

Recuerdo gestos de criaturas

y son gestos de darme el agua.

En el valle de Río Blanco,

en donde nace el Aconcagua,

llegué a beber, salté a beber

en el fuete de una cascada,

que caía crinada y dura

y se rompía yerta y blanca.

Pegué mi boca al hervidero,

y me quemaba el agua santa,

y tres días sangró mi boca

de aquel sorbo del Aconcagua.

En el campo de Mitla, un día

de cigarras, de sol, de marcha,

me doblé a un pozo y vino un indio

a sostenerme sobre el agua,

y mi cabeza, como un fruto,

estaba dentro de sus palmas.

Bebía yo lo que bebía,

que era su cara con mi cara,

y en un relámpago yo supe

carne de Mitla ser mi casta.

En la Isla de Puerto Rico,

a la siesta de azul colmada,

mi cuerpo quieto, las olas locas,

y como cien madres las palmas,

rompió una niña por donaire

junto a mi boca un coco de agua,

y yo bebí, como una hija,

agua de madre, agua de palma.

Y más dulzura no he bebido

con el cuerpo ni con el alma.

A la casa de mis niñeces

mi madre me llevaba el agua.

Entre un sorbo y el otro sorbo

la veía sobre la jarra.

La cabeza más se subía

y la jarra más se abajaba.

Todavía yo tengo el valle,

tengo mi sed y su mirada.

Será esto la eternidad

que aún estamos como estábamos.

Recuerdos gestos de criaturas

y son gestos de darme el agua.

[Poem source: http://www.gabrielamistral.uchile.cl/poesia/tala/saudade/Beber.html .]

This poem has been turned into a song by Maggy and Luna Negra:

English translation by H.R. Hays:

Drinking

I remember people’s gestures,

They were gestures of giving me water.

 

In the Valley of Rio Blanco

Where the Aconcagua rises,

I went to drink, I leapt to drink

In the whip of a waterfall

That fell in a stiff mane

And broke white and rigid.

I glued my mouth to the foaming

And the blessed water burnt me,

And for three days my mouth was bleeding

From that drink of the Aconcagua.

 

In the country of Mitla,

A day of cicadas, of sun and of walking,

I bent to a pool and an Indian came

To hold me over the water.

And my head, like a fruit

Was between the palms of his hands.

I drank and what I was drinking

Was my face and his face together

And in a flash I knew

That my race was the flesh of Mitla.

 

On the Island of Puerto Rico

At the time of the blue-filled siesta,

My body at rest, the waves in a frenzy,

And the palms like a hundred mothers,

A little girl gracefully opened

A cocoanut close to my mouth

And I drank as a daughter,

Her mother’s milk, milk of the palmtrees.

And I have drunk no sweeter

With the soul nor with the body.

 

In the house of my childhood,

My mother brought me water.

Between one drink and another,

I looked at her over the jar.

My head I raised higher and higher

The jar sank lower and lower.

And still I keep the valley

I keep my thirst and her look.

This shall be eternity

For we are still as we were.

 

 I remember people’s gestures,

They were gestures of giving me water.

[Poem source: http://www.divasofverse.com/2021/09/drinking-by-gabriela-mistral.html .]

Romanian translation by Paul Alexandru Georgescu:

A bea

Păstrez în amintire gesturile

Acelor ce mi-au dat – ofrandă – apa.

În valea Rio Blanco izvorăşte

neastâmpăratul Aconcagua, acolo

vroind să beau, m-am repezit la apa

unei cascade ce-n şuviţe albe

şi îngheţate-şi resfira şuvoiul.

Lipindu-mi gura fremătândă,

m-a ars ca o licoare fermecată.

Trei zile buzele mi-au sângerat de apa

Ce am sorbit atunci din Aconcagua.

În câmpul Mitla, într-o zi cu soare,

cu mers, şi greieri, m-am plecat asupra

unei fântâni, când a venit spre mine

un indian. A vrut să mă ajute

şi, sprijinindu-mă deasupra apei,

el capul mi l-a susţinut aşa cum

oferi un fruct, cu mâinile-amândouă.

Eu beau şi-n apa ceea era chipul

şi-al lui şi-al meu. Atunci înţeles-am

ca într-un fulger, că necunoscutul

din Mitla, indianul, era carne

din neamul meu străvechi, de la-nceputuri.

În insula numită Puerto Rico,

odihna copleşită de albastru,

trup liniştit, talazuri zbuciumate

şi-o sută de palmieri, părând o sută

de mame. O fetiţă-n joacă sparse

nuca de cocos, dăruindu-mi apa

palmierului, maternă, roditoare.

Şi niciodată-asemenea dulceaţă

nu am băut, cu sufletul şi trupul.

Îmi amintesc, pe când eram copilă,

Că mama-mi aducea ea însăşi, apa

între o gură şi-alta, aplecată

pe vasul de-argilă,-i vedeam faţa.

Cu cât se ridica mai tare mâna-i,

cu-atât se cobora mai jos ulciorul.

Am încă-n suflet valea înverzită,

simt setea şi privirea mamei… Poate

aceasta-i veşnicia:

să fim încă

aşa precum am fost odinioară.

Păstrez în amintire gesturile

Acelor ce mi-au dat – ofrandă – apa.

[Translation source: https://scriitoristraini.blogspot.com/2014/03/gabriela-mistral-bea.html .]

Finally, a bit of Frédéric Mistral:

“I am the fig-tree on the barren mountain;

And thou, mine own, art the reviving fountain!

Surely it would suffice me, could I feel

That, once a year, I might before thee kneel,

And sun myself in thy sweet face, and lay

My lips unto thy fingers, as to-day!”

Trembling with love, Mirèio hears him out,

And lets him wind his arms her neck about

And clasp her as bewildered. Suddenly,

Through the green walk, quavers an old wife’s cry:

“How now, Mirèio? Are you coming soon?

What will the silk-worms have to eat at noon?”

As ofttimes, at the coming on of night,

A flock of sparrows on a pine alight

And fill the air with joyous chirruping,

Yet, if a passing gleaner pause and fling

A stone that way, they to the neighbouring wood,

By terror winged, their instant flight make good;

So, with a tumult of emotion thrilled,

Fled the enamoured two across the field.

But when, her leaves upon her head, the maid

Turned silently toward the farm, he stayed,—

Vincen,—and breathless watched her in her flight

Over the fallow, till she passed from sight.

(The end of Canto II of Mirèio (1859) by Frédéric Mistral, translated by Harriet Waters Preston. The full twelve cantos are here: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/56008/56008-h/56008-h.htm .)

Gibbous moon and gingko. Frome, 14 January 2022.

*

Here's another internet wandering a couple of days later, and a bit more telescoped:

James Oswald (Scottish composer), "Ettrick Banks" (heard on Radio 3 Breakfast).

Allan Ramsay (1684 - 1758, wigmaker, poet, bookseller and creator of the first circulating library) was the first to publish the words of "Ettrick Banks", in 1724.

In the poem (text below) the lover pleads with a maid at Ettrick Water (Selkirk), to go with him to the Highlands (Loch Earn, Perthshire).

Allan Ramsay (1713 - 1784, portrait painter), eldest son of the poet.

Studied in London under Hans Hysing (1678 - 1752 or 1753), Swedish portrait painter who worked in London.

Hysing came to London in 1700 to work as studio assistant to Mikael Dahl (aka Michael Dahl), another Swedish portrait painter, (1656 or 1659 - 1743). 

Both Swedes appear in the 1735 painting by Gawen Hamilton, "A Conversation of Virtuosis at the King's Arms".

Mikael Dahl was friends with the poet Christoffer Leijoncrona (1662 - 1710), Secretary of the Swedish Legation. 

Ettrick Banks

On Ettrick banks, ae simmer's night,

⁠At gloamin', when the sheep drave hame,

I met my lassie, braw and tight,

⁠Come wading barefoot a' her lane.

My heart grew light;—I ran,—I flang

⁠My arms about her lily neck,

And kiss'd and clapp'd her there fu' lang,

⁠My words they were na monie feck.

I said, My lassie, will ye gang

⁠To the Highland hills, the Erse to learn?

I'll gi'e thee baith a cow and ewe,

⁠When ye come to the brig o' Earn:

At Leith auld meal comes in, neer fash,

⁠And herrings at the Broomielaw;

Cheer up your heart, my bonnie lass,

⁠There's gear to win ye never saw.

A' day when we ha'e wrought eneugh,

⁠When winter frosts and snaw begin

Soon as the sun gaes west the loch,

⁠At night when ye sit down to spin,

I'll screw my pipes, and play a spring:

⁠And thus the weary night will end,

Till the tender kid and lamb-time bring

⁠Our pleasant simmer back again.

Syne, when the trees are in their bloom,

⁠And gowans glent o'er ilka fiel',

I'll meet my lass amang the broom,

⁠And lead you to my simmer shiel.

Then, far frae a' their scomfu' din,

⁠That mak' the kindly heart their sport,

We'll laugh, and kiss, and dance, and sing,

⁠And gar the langest day seem short.

[Source: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Book_of_Scottish_Song/Ettrick_Banks .]

A Conversation of Virtuosis at the Kings Arms, 1734-35 painting by Gawen Hamilton

[Image source: National Portrait Gallery . Creative Commons.]

Hans Hysing (age about 56) is second from left, Mikael Dahl (age about 75, seated) third from left. Gawen Hamilton himself is second from right, wearing a cap not a wig. The King's Arms was in New Bond Street.

Mikael Dahl's portrait of Françoise (Frances) Leijoncrona, the English wife of Christoffer Leijoncrona (1700)

[Image source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mikael_Dahl#/media/Fil:Mrs_Fran%C3%A7oise_Leijoncrona_(Michael_Dahl_d.%C3%A4.)_-_Nationalmuseum_-_19803.tif .]

Grafskrifft öfwer den Stoora Biörnen hwilcken af H. K. M:tz

wäldiga arm wijdh Kongzöhr blef nederlagd

Jag i thee wilda fält ther Atlas döttrar blänkte,

uthi mitt öpna swalg thee thama diuren sänkte,

Jag skräckte all den tracht, Jag fruchta aldrig änn

för Jägar-hund och horn, och eij för strijdbar Männ;

Till thes en högre krafft mig rasand Modet stäckte

Tå Norre Werldens pracht mitt wilda hierta brächte.

Och är mitt enda roos, then hiälten mig fält haar,

Som för sin foot till Jord, stört mången hielteskar.

A poem by Christoffer Leijoncrona. The poem is an Epitaph on a Large Bear (in the bear's own voice). Seventeenth-century Swedish is a bit too tricky for me to translate, but the gist is that the bear roamed at large and had no fear of hound or horn or huntsman until he encountered a higher power: the mighty arm of Karl XI (this was at a hunt at Sickelsjö, near Arboga in Västmanland, in about 1682). The bear was stuffed and kept in the royal palace in Stockholm.  (Source and information: Daniel Möller's 2011 University of Lund thesis on animal funerary poems: https://lucris.lub.lu.se/ws/files/5447665/1963879.pdf .)

Hans Hysing's portrait of George Bubb Dodington, 1st Baron Melcombe

[Image source: https://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Hysing#/media/Fil:George_Bubb_Dodington_by_Hans_Hysing.jpg .]

The subject of the portrait is not quite certain. If it is indeed the young George Bubb, aged about twelve, this would date the portrait to about 1703. 

One of Robert Browning's Parleyings (1887) is with George Bubb Dodington. The poem (so far as I can understand it) is about political integrity and takes Dodington to task for feathering his own nest; but it argues that his relatively naive professions of public interest would fool no-one today. (The poem's real target was apparently Disraeli.)

 Here's the first sentence:

Ah, George Bubb Dodington Lord Melcombe, -- no,

Yours was the wrong way! -- always understand,

Supposing that permissibly you planned

How statesmanship -- your trade -- in outward show

Might figure as inspired by simple zeal

For serving country, king and commonweal,

(Though service tire to death the body, tease

The soul from out an o'ertasked patriot-drudge)

And yet should prove zeal's outward show agrees

In all respects -- right reason being judge --

With inward care that, while the statesman spends

Body and soul thus freely for the sake

Of public good, his private welfare take

No harm by such devotedness. 

(Source: https://archive.org/details/parleyingwithcer00brow/page/70/mode/2up .)

Allan Ramsay junior's portrait of Allan Ramsay senior.

[Image source: https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/460493130630938540/ .]