The Seafarer

Ezra Pound

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    Lascio che le cose mi portino altrove

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    CITAZIONE
    The Seafarer (letteralmente "Il navigatore") è un poema contenuto nel Libro di Exeter, uno dei quattro manoscritti a noi pervenuti contenenti opere poetiche in antico inglese. È composto da 124 versi e viene comunemente indicato come elegia, ovvero un poema che lamenta una perdita, o più generalmente uno scritto di carattere malinconico. La voce narrante è quella di un vecchio marinaio, che attraverso i ricordi dà un giudizio sulla vita che ha condotto

    L'ho riletta per caso e sono rimasta rapita da questa elegia....
    Questa è la traduzione di Ezra Pound. Mi è piaciuta moltissimo....
    Qui il testo originale e un'altra traduzione: www.anglo-saxons.net/hwaet/?do=get&type=text&id=Sfr


    The Seafarer
    BY Ezra Pound

    May I for my own self song's truth reckon,
    Journey's jargon, how I in harsh days
    Hardship endured oft.
    Bitter breast-cares have I abided,
    Known on my keel many a care's hold,
    And dire sea-surge, and there I oft spent
    Narrow nightwatch nigh the ship's head
    While she tossed close to cliffs. Coldly afflicted,
    My feet were by frost benumbed.
    Chill its chains are; chafing sighs
    Hew my heart round and hunger begot
    Mere-weary mood. Lest man know not
    That he on dry land loveliest liveth,
    List how I, care-wretched, on ice-cold sea,
    Weathered the winter, wretched outcast
    Deprived of my kinsmen;
    Hung with hard ice-flakes, where hail-scur flew,
    There I heard naught save the harsh sea
    And ice-cold wave, at whiles the swan cries,
    Did for my games the gannet's clamour,
    Sea-fowls, loudness was for me laughter,
    The mews' singing all my mead-drink.
    Storms, on the stone-cliffs beaten, fell on the stern
    In icy feathers; full oft the eagle screamed
    With spray on his pinion.
    Not any protector
    May make merry man faring needy.
    This he little believes, who aye in winsome life
    Abides 'mid burghers some heavy business,
    Wealthy and wine-flushed, how I weary oft
    Must bide above brine.
    Neareth nightshade, snoweth from north,
    Frost froze the land, hail fell on earth then
    Corn of the coldest. Nathless there knocketh now
    The heart's thought that I on high streams
    The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
    Moaneth alway my mind's lust
    That I fare forth, that I afar hence
    Seek out a foreign fastness.
    For this there's no mood-lofty man over earth's midst,
    Not though he be given his good, but will have in his youth greed;
    Nor his deed to the daring, nor his king to the faithful
    But shall have his sorrow for sea-fare
    Whatever his lord will.
    He hath not heart for harping, nor in ring-having
    Nor winsomeness to wife, nor world's delight
    Nor any whit else save the wave's slash,
    Yet longing comes upon him to fare forth on the water.
    Bosque taketh blossom, cometh beauty of berries,
    Fields to fairness, land fares brisker,
    All this admonisheth man eager of mood,
    The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
    On flood-ways to be far departing.
    Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
    He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
    The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not —
    He the prosperous man — what some perform
    Where wandering them widest draweth.
    So that but now my heart burst from my breast-lock,
    My mood 'mid the mere-flood,
    Over the whale's acre, would wander wide.
    On earth's shelter cometh oft to me,
    Eager and ready, the crying lone-flyer,
    Whets for the whale-path the heart irresistibly,
    O'er tracks of ocean; seeing that anyhow
    My lord deems to me this dead life
    On loan and on land, I believe not
    That any earth-weal eternal standeth
    Save there be somewhat calamitous
    That, ere a man's tide go, turn it to twain.
    Disease or oldness or sword-hate
    Beats out the breath from doom-gripped body.
    And for this, every earl whatever, for those speaking after —
    Laud of the living, boasteth some last word,
    That he will work ere he pass onward,
    Frame on the fair earth 'gainst foes his malice,
    Daring ado, ...
    So that all men shall honour him after
    And his laud beyond them remain 'mid the English,
    Aye, for ever, a lasting life's-blast,
    Delight mid the doughty.
    Days little durable,
    And all arrogance of earthen riches,
    There come now no kings nor Cæsars
    Nor gold-giving lords like those gone.
    Howe'er in mirth most magnified,
    Whoe'er lived in life most lordliest,
    Drear all this excellence, delights undurable!
    Waneth the watch, but the world holdeth.
    Tomb hideth trouble. The blade is layed low.
    Earthly glory ageth and seareth.
    No man at all going the earth's gait,
    But age fares against him, his face paleth,
    Grey-haired he groaneth, knows gone companions,
    Lordly men are to earth o'ergiven,
    Nor may he then the flesh-cover, whose life ceaseth,
    Nor eat the sweet nor feel the sorry,
    Nor stir hand nor think in mid heart,
    And though he strew the grave with gold,
    His born brothers, their buried bodies
    Be an unlikely treasure hoard.
     
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0 replies since 22/10/2014, 15:32   660 views
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