Camilo Pessanha: "E eis quanto resta do idílio acabado"

It's been a while since I wrote anything about my old friend Camilo Pessanha, at least in English. (Full disclosure: I'm not getting around to translating the post I wrote about his tombstone anytime soon). I haven't even revisited Clepsydra lately for my own enjoyment. So, Thursday afternoon, after wrapping up some other translation business and doing some sparring in preparation for my martial arts rank test the following Saturday, I pulled some of my Pessanha books off the shelf and got down to reading.

My usual online source for the text of Clepsydra titles the following poem "No claustro de Celas", while the original 1920 edition of the book gives no title at all. I'm going with the latter, not only with regard to the title, but to punctuation as well; spelling follows modern Portuguese orthography where it doesn't interfere with the original. (These decisions, made after reading António Baronha's postface to the Assírio & Alvim edition of Clepsydra, aren't set in stone, but make a lot of sense to me.)

While I'm unsure how the online source chose its title, it did lead me to learn about the Monastery of Santa Maria de Celas (sorry, there's no equivalent Wikipedia page in English) in Pessanha's hometown of Coimbra, which once belonged to Cistercian nuns- the kind of neat information that sheds light on the poem, as well as the possible experiences Pessanha had that led to its creation.

Enjoy, caro leitor.

D.A.S.



***



E eis quanto resta do idílio acabado,
— Primavera que durou um momento...
Como vão longe as manhãs do convento!
— Do alegre conventinho abandonado...

Tudo acabou... Anémonas, hidrângeas,
Silindras — flores tão nossas amigas!
No claustro agora viçam as ortigas,
Rojam-se cobras pelas velhas lájeas.

Sobre a inscrição do teu nome delido!
— Que os meus olhos mal podem soletrar,
Cansados... E o aroma fenecido

Que se evola do teu nome vulgar!
Enobreceu-o a quietação do olvido.
Ó doce, ingénua, inscrição tumular.


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And behold what remains of the finished idyll,
— Spring that lasted a moment...
How far away the mornings of the convent!
— Of the happy little convent, abandoned...

Everything is gone... anemones, hydrangeas,
Mock-oranges — flowers that were such friends of ours!
In the cloister now grow nettles,
Snakes crawl through the old loggias.

Over the inscription of your effaced name!
— Which my eyes can barely spell out,
Tired... And the withered scent

That emanates from your common name!
The quietude of oblivion has ennobled it.
Oh sweet, naive, tombstone inscription.