Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas MMXXIV - II

A fine translation by Richard Zenith of this poem can be read here.

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"Camões dirige-se aos seus contemporâneos"
Jorge de Sena

Podereis roubar-me tudo:
as ideias, as palavras, as imagens,
e também as metáforas, os temas, os motivos,
os símbolos, e a primazia
nas dores sofridas de uma língua nova,
no entendimento de outros, na coragem
de combater, julgar, de penetrar
em recessos de amor para que sois castrados.
E podereis depois não me citar,
suprimir-me, ignorar-me, aclamar até
outros ladrões mais felizes.
Não importa nada: que o castigo
será terrível. Não só quando
vossos netos não souberem já quem sois
terão de me saber melhor ainda
do que fingis que não sabeis,
como tudo, tudo o que laboriosamente pilhais,
reverterá para o meu nome. E mesmo será meu,
tido por meu, contado como meu,
até mesmo aquele pouco e miserável
que, só por vós, sem roubo, haveríeis feito.
Nada tereis, mas nada: nem os ossos,
que um vosso esqueleto há-de ser buscado,
para passar por meu. E para outros ladrões,
iguais a vós, de joelhos, porem flores no túmulo.

-----

"Camões Addresses His Contemporaries"
Jorge de Sena

You can take everything from me:
ideas, words, images,
and even metaphors, themes, motifs,
symbols, and superiority
in the pains of a new language,
in understanding others, in the courage
to fight, judge, penetrate
the recesses of love that neuter you.
And later you can not quote me,
suppress me, ignore me, even praise
other, happier thieves.
None of it matters: your punishment
will be terrible. Not just when
your grandchildren don't even know who you are,
but know me even better
than you pretend not to,
and every last thing you dutifully stole
will revert to my name. Every small, petty thing
that you did not steal but did on your own
will be mine, taken as mine, counted as mine.
You'll be left with nothing at all: not even your bones,
for if your skeleton is found
it will be passed off as mine, so that other thieves
like you can kneel and lay flowers on my tomb.

Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas MMXXIV - I

Olá, caros leitores. Today is o Dia de Portugal, de Camões e das Comunidades Portuguesas, or Portugal Day. 2024 is the 500th anniversary of the birth of Luís Vaz de Camões, Portugal's national poet, who died on June 10, 1580. To commemorate the occasion, I've translated a couple poems by Jorge de Sena, a well-known Portuguese scholar of Camões and Portuguese literature. 

Both poems are about Camões and his legacy. The first, which I encountered on Helena Melo's excellent blog Moçambique e Por Aí, deals with the time he spent in Mozambique—Camões was, like many Portuguese of his epoch, famously peripatetic—while the second speaks quite directly for itself. The Portuguese originals are included in both cases.

My translations are, as always, a work in progress, but I hope everyone enjoys them nonetheless. Obrigado pela sua leitura, amigos.

Abraço,
DAS

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"Camões na Ilha de Moçambique"
Jorge de Sena

É pobre e já foi rica. Era mais pobre
quando Camões aqui passou primeiro,
cheia de livros a cabeça e lendas
e muita estúrdia de Lisboa reles.
Quando passados nele os Orientes
e o amargor dos vis sempre tão ricos,
aqui ficou, isto crescera, mas
a fortaleza ainda estava em obras,
as casas eram poucas, e o terreno
passeio descampado ao vento e ao sol
desta alavanca mínima, em coral,
de onde saltavam para Goa as naus,
que dela vinham cheias de pecados
e de bagagens ricas e pimentas podres.
Como nau nos baixios que aos Sepúlvedas
deram no amor corte primeiro à vida,
aqui ficou sem nada senão versos.
Mas antes dele, como depois dele,
aqui passaram todos: almirantes,
ladrões e vice-reis, poetas e cobardes,
os santos e os heróis, mais a canalha
sem nome e sem memória, que serviu
de lastro, marujagem, e de carne
para os canhões e os peixes, como os outros.
Tudo passou aqui ─ Almeidas e Gonzagas,
Bocages e Albuquerques, desde o Gama.
Naqueles tempos se fazia o espanto
desta pequena aldeia citadina
de brancos, negros, indianos e cristãos,
e muçulmanos, brâmanes, e ateus.
Europa e África, o Brasil e as Índias,
cruzou-se tudo aqui neste calor tão branco
como do forte a cal no pátio, e tão cruzado
como a elegância das nervuras simples
da capela pequena do baluarte.
Jazem aqui em lápides perdidas
os nomes todos dessa gente que,
como hoje os negros, se chegava às rochas,
baixava as calças e largava ao mar
a mal-cheirosa escória de estar vivo.
Não é de bronze, louros na cabeça,
nem no escrever parnasos, que te vejo aqui.
Mas num recanto em cócoras marinhas,
soltando às ninfas que lambiam rochas
o quanto a fome e a glória da epopeia
em ti se digeriam. Pendendo para as pedras
teu membro se lembrava e estremecia
de recordar na brisa as cróias mais as damas,
e versos de soneto perpassavam
junto de um cheiro a merda lá na sombra,
de onde n’alma fervia quanto nem pensavas.
Depois, aliviado, tu subias
aos baluartes e fitando as águas
sonhavas de outra Ilha, a Ilha única,
enquanto a mão se te pousava lusa,
em franca distracção, no que te era a pátria
por ser a ponta da semente dela.
E de zarolho não podias ver
distâncias separadas: tudo te era uma
e nada mais: o Paraíso e as Ilhas,
heróis, mulheres, o amor que mais se inventa,
e uma grandeza que não há em nada.
Pousavas n’água o olhar e te sorrias
─ mas não amargamente, só de alívio,
como se te limparas de miséria,
e de desgraça e de injustiça e dor
de ver que eram tão poucos os melhores,
enquanto a caca ia-se na brisa esbelta,
igual ao que se esquece e se lançou de nós.

-----

"Camões on the Island of Mozambique"
Jorge de Sena

It is poor and once was rich. It was poorer
when Camões first passed through here,
his head full of books and legends
and the dissipation of seedy Lisbon.
When Easterners and bitter,
always wealthy lowlives were gone,
here he stayed; this place grew, but
the fortress was still being built,
houses were few, and the terrain
a vacant promenade, windswept and sunny,
a tiny lever made of coral
that launched the naus to Goa,
from which they returned full of sins
and rich cargo and rotten pepper.
Like the ship on the shoals to which the Sepúlvedas
gave their lives out of courtly love,
here he remained, with nothing but poems.
But before him, as after him,
everyone passed through here: admirals,
thieves and viceroys, poets and cowards,
saints and heroes, plus the nameless
scoundrels who served as ballast, crew, and
cannon fodder and fish food, like the rest of them.
Since da Gama, everyone passed through here —
Almeidas and Gonzagas, Bocages and Albuquerques.
In those days this small urban village
of whites, blacks, Indians and Christians,
and Muslims, Brahmins, and atheists
was astonishing.
Europe and Africa, Brazil and the Indias,
all met here in this heat as white
as the whitewashed fort, and as
criss-crossed as the elegant, simple ribs
of the fort's small chapel.
Lying here under forgotten headstones
are the names of all these people who,
like the blacks today, went to the rocks,
dropped their pants, and dumped into the sea
the foul-smelling filth of being alive.
I don't see you here now cast in bronze, laurels
on your head, or writing poems,
But in a corner, squatting like a sailor,
letting loose hunger and the glory of the epic
you've digested upon the nymphs who lick the rocks.
Your member hanging over the stones, you shuddered
in the breeze remembering the whores and ladies,
and verses of sonnets brushed up against
the smell of shit there in the shadows,
not thinking about from where deep inside you it came.
Relieved, you then climbed up
to the bulwarks and, staring at the water,
dreamed of another Island, the only Island,
while your hand rested, Lusitanian and
distracted, upon what had become your homeland
because it was the seed of it.
And being one-eyed, you couldn't see
separate distances: to you all things were one
and nothing else: Paradise and the Islands,
heroes, women, love that reinvents itself,
and a greatness not found in anything.
Your gaze settled on the water and you smiled
— but not bitterly, only with relief,
as if you'd been cleansed of your misery,
and of disgrace and injustice and the pain
of seeing that the best were so few,
while on the soft breeze wafted the smell of shit,
just like that which we forget and release from ourselves.

Links 2.18.2022: Setenta e Quatro, Texas journalism, Lina Hidalgo, Native American black metal

Olá, amigos. Time for another round of links to good shit.

Para quem lê português, o jornalismo do novo fonte Setenta e Quatro merece atenção. 

Anyone interested in getting a better look at the deeply weird, quite lovely, and insanely fucked-up state I call home should read the Texas Observer, the Texas Tribune, and the Texas Signal. 

Speaking of Texas, Lina Hidalgo has been overseeing Harris County since 2018, and has been a model of professional competence and steely resolve the whole time. For some fucking reason (cough, corruption and cronyism, cough), she has a bunch of Democratic challengers in this year's primary, which is nuts. You'd think that getting behind a young, effective immigrant woman would be a no-brainer, but apparently local Democrats would rather throw their lot in with cop unions and the unspoken preferences of officials who profit from county contracts. Lina Hidalgo is the only Harris County Commissioner who doesn't take money from contractors. That alone would be a reason to vote for her if she hadn't, you know, gotten us through the pandemic and 2021 freeze better than most officials in similar positions. (And if you're voting for Lina Hidalgo, make sure to vote for Molly Cook while you're at it.)

My brother's former bandmate recently turned me on to Black Braid, a one-man Native American black metal outfit from the Adirondacks. Naturally, this led to further research into that particular field, and the results are promising. Mutilated Tyrant and Parábola are from the Navajo Nation, while Lionoka represents the Yaqui people (and, according to the Metal Archives, runs Grey Matter Productions). Each band has its own sound, ranging from fairly orthodox black metal to longer, more ritual-tinged work, and I'm glad to see the continued growth of black metal far beyond its mostly Scandinavian roots. 

Catch y'all later.

DAS

 

Judith Teixeira: "Onde Vou?"

I was going to write something about the pandemic, and how the so-called plague poems I wrote last year ended up just becoming regular poems (or vice versa), but I'm exhausted by my body's reaction to the second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. It's wild that I, or anyone, has been vaccinated, barely over a year since the shit started hitting the fan.

But more on that later. Here's another draft translation of a Judith Teixeira poem. I plan on spending the rest of the spring and the summer working my way through her books of poetry.

Take care of yourselves, dear readers, and até já.

DAS

Onde Vou?

Onde vou eu, onde vou?
Já nem sei donde parti…
Se eu mesma não sei quem sou!
Achei-me dentro de ti.

Eu fui ninguém que passou,
eu não fui, nunca me vi…
Fui asa que palpitou…
Eu só agora existi.

Negra Dor espavorida
ou saudade dolorida
eu fui talvez no passado…

Sou triste por atavismo…
Não há ontem no cuidado
em que em cuidados me abismo.


Inverno — Hora Ignorada
1922

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Where am I Going?

Where am I going, where?
I don’t even know where I started…
If I myself don’t know, who does!
I found myself within you.

I was a passing nobody,
I didn’t leave, I never saw myself…
I was a beating wing…
Only now did I exist.


Maybe in the past I was
Fearful Black Pain
or sorrowful longing...

I am saddened by atavism…
There is no yesterday into the care
of which I can hurl myself.


Winter —  Hour Unknown
1922

Dia Internacional da Mulher/International Women's Day: Judith Teixeira - "Os Meus Cabelos"

In celebration of International Women's Day, here's a translation of Judith Teixeira's "Os Meus Cabelos". As a longhair myself, I really like how Teixeira revels in her locks.

Enjoy, folks. 

Abraço,
DAS

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"Os Meus Cabelos"

Judith Teixeira


Doirado, fulvo, desmaiado
e vermelho,
tem reflexos de fogo o meu cabelo!
Neste conjunto diverso,
quando me vejo assim, ao espelho,
encontro no meu todo, um ar perverso...

Gosto dos meus cabelos tão doirados!
E enterro com volúpia
os dedos esguios,
por entre os meus fios
d'oiro, desgrenhados,
revoltos e macios!

Fico às vezes a ver-me e a meditar
admirada,
nesse oiro fulvo e estridente
da minha cabeleira desmanchada,
que tão bem sabe exteriorizar,
o meu ser estranho e ardente...

Há sol, outono e inverno,
brilhos metálicos, poente,
a chama do próprio inferno,
no meu cabelo igual ao meu sentir!
— E eu fico largo tempo a contemplar,
a cismar
e a sorrir,
ao meu perfil incoerente
e singular...


Maio — Entardecer
1922

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"My Hair"
Judith Teixeira

Golden, tawny, pale,
and red,
there are reflections of fire in my hair!
In this varied assembly,
when I see myself like this in the mirror,
there's an air of perversity to the whole of me.

I like my tresses, so golden!
And I sensuously bury
my slender fingers
among these gilt
strands of mine, unkempt,
wild, and soft!

Sometimes I look at myself and ponder,
admiring
the tawny, brassy gold
of my hair when it's down,
hair that knows so well how to externalize
my strange, fierce being...

In my hair and my feelings alike
there is sunlight, autumn and winter,
metallic glints, sunsets,
the flames of hell itself!
— And I spend a long time contemplating,
brooding over
and smiling at,
my inconsistent and singular
profile...


May — Sunset
1922

"Violoncelo" por Camilo Pessanha

Today, 7 September, marks the 153rd birthday of Camilo Pessanha. To mark the occasion, here's a draft translation of his poem "Violoncelo." This particular version of the poem comes from the edition of Clepsidra edited by Paulo Franchetti; another version (also present in Franchetti's book) has a couple different words and different punctuation.

It's also Labor Day here in the United States. Last last year I celebrated by joining the National Writers Union, and I encourage you to unionize as well, since the bosses ain't gonna give us anything out of the goodness of their hearts—we gotta fight for it, and the only way to do that successfully is when we organize.

Enjoy the poem, folks. Até próxima.

D.A.S.

---

"Violoncelo"
Camilo Pessanha

Chorai, arcadas
Do violoncelo,
Convulsionadas.
Pontes aladas
De pesadelo...

De que esvoaçam,
Brancos, os arcos.
Por baixo passam,
Se despedaçam,
No rio, os barcos.

Fundas, soluçam
Caudais de choro.
Que ruínas, ouçam...
Se se debruçam,
Que sorvedouro!

Lívidos astros,
Soidões lacustres...
Lemes e mastros...
E os alabastros
Dos balaústres!

Urnas quebradas.
Blocos de gelo!
Chorai, arcadas

Do violoncelo,
Despedaçadas...


-----


"Cello"
Camilo Pessanha

Weep, arcades,
at the cello,
Convulsing,
winged bridges of
nightmare...

From which flutter,
white, the arches...
On the river below,
boats pass,
and break apart.

Deep within, they sob
rivers of tears.
What ruins, listen...
they lean over,
what an abyss!

Livid blue stars,
Lakeside solitudes...
Rudders and masts...
And the alabaster
of the balusters!

Broken urns.
Blocks of ice!
Weep, arcades,
shattered,
at the cello.

"Viola chinesa" por Camilo Pessanha

It's been a while since I translated a Camilo Pessanha poem, so here's "Viola chinesa". The viola in question, if you go by the images you get when you Google the phrase, is most likely a 琵琶 pipa, AKA the "Chinese lute."

I wish I knew the circumstances under which Pessanha heard the instrument, since the poem seems to juxtapose two elements: the sound of the pipa, and whatever dull conversation he's stuck having when he hears it. I doubt he was chatting with Cantonese-speaking locals, but rather Macau's stuffy, provincial Portuguese administrators and their families, or maybe the local Macanese, neither of which group would have serenaded their guests with the pipa. That's why this poem makes me think Pessanha was zoning out during some social event and heard, or imagined, a pipa somewhere in the distance that provided a distraction—albeit a painful one—from the situation at hand.

I've more or less given up on following Pessanha's punctuation, though I also try not to insert too much of my own. I've also rendered things a bit more colloquially than in the past.

Enjoy, dear reader/caro leitor/看倌, and I'll catch you soon.

DAS

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"Viola chinesa"
Camilo Pessanha

Ao longo da viola morosa
Vai adormecendo a parlenda,
Sem que, amadornado, eu atenda
A lengalenga fastidiosa.

Sem que o meu coração se prenda,
Enquanto, nasal, minuciosa,
Ao longo da viola morosa,
Vai adormecendo a parlenda.

Mas que cicatriz melindrosa
Há nele, que essa viola ofenda
E faz que as asitas distenda
Numa agitação dolorosa?

Ao longo da viola, morosa...


-----

"Chinese Viola"
Camilo Pessanha


As the viola slowly plays
the chatter drifts off,
my languorous attention is not on
the tedious prattle.

My heart isn't in it,
as, nasal, painstaking,
the viola slowly plays,
the chatter drifting off.

But what sensitive scar
does it bear, that the viola offends,
and makes its little wings spread
in a painful flutter?

As the viola plays, slowly...

Dia de Macau: 印光任的"三巴曉鍾詩" / Yin Guangren's "Bells of São Paulo at Dawn"

Feliz Dia de Macau! To celebrate, I'm cooking porco balichão tamarindo, and I've taken a very hasty stab at translating a poem from 澳門記略, AKA the Breve Monografia de Macau, or the Short Monograph on Macau (a misleading name, since it's not particularly short.) Compiled in the 1750s by 印光任 Yin Guangren and 張汝霖 Zhang Rulin, two Chinese officials who'd held Macau-releated posts, the book is a pretty fascinating study in Chinese perceptions of the Portuguese. I haven't come close to finishing it, but there's something about the work and its authors that's held my imagination for a while.

As poetry was a requisite skill of Chinese officialdom, the text is interspersed with plenty of poems. Below is one I copied from the really nice Fundação Macau edition, which reproduces the Chinese text from what I believe is a 19th-century edition. (I've also got the 2009 Portuguese edition translated by Jin Guo Ping, which is the one I can read without taking forever, and which I referenced in making my translation.)

I'm not sure that the poem is written in five-syllable lines, since the original text is printed vertically and without any punctuation, so I apologize if the transcription (and thus my translation) is wrong. I aim to one day understand Chinese poetic structures well enough to be able to tell five- and seven- and x-syllable styles apart without much trouble, but as an off-the-cuff rendering, this will have to suffice for now.


Enjoy, caro leitor! 澳門萬歲!

微臣
史大偉

-----

三巴曉鍾詩
印光任

疎鍾來遠寺
籟靜一聲閒
帶月清沉海
和雲冷度山
五更昏曉際
萬象有無間
試向蕃僧問
會能識此關


Bells of São Paulo at Dawn

From a distant temple, the sparse ringing of bells:
a comforting sound in the stillness.
A glint of moonlight sinks into the sea
in harmony with chill clouds crossing the mountains.
In the fifth watch, between darkness and dawn,
all things are without distinction.
I try asking among the foreign priests
if they have insight into this crucial matter.


Notes:
大三巴 is the Chinese name for the (ruined) church of São Paulo in Macau. Jin Guo Ping doesn't translate it, choosing to render it as Sanba; maybe the poet isn't talking about São Paulo, but in this context it seems to me that he is.

 I've used the characters as they appear in the original text, even if they were used in place of another character (e.g., 蕃 instead of 藩).

Camilo Pessanha: "Floriram por engano as rosas bravas"

Apresento-lhes mais um poema daquele homem entre mundos, Camilo Pessanha. Geralmente dizemos que uma pessoa está entre dois mundos, mas no caso de Pessanha temos um homem entre um conjunto de muitos mundos contrários: os do Ocidente e do Oriente, do metrópole e da colônia, dos deveres do funcionário público e do estetismo, do exílio e do integração. Obviamente, esta série de díades não basta para esboçar um retrato completo de Pessanha (ou, na verdade, qualquer pessoa, coisa, ou ideia, porque não vivemos num mundo binário).

Este poema é, espantosamente, um que nunca li até há poucos dias. Pensei que tinha lido todos os poemas de Clepsidra, mas estava enganado. A ortografia é moderna, mas a pontuação da versão portuguesa está em acordo com a versão de 1920 de Edições Lusitânia (que não usa o circunflexo no seu nome!). Como de costume, não ha título próprio, e por isso uso a primeira linha do poema.

Agora, na cúspide do verão, pode-se dizer que um poema sobre a neve do inverno não faz sentido, mas que poderia fazer? Espero que vocês gostem do poema e a sua tradução para inglês. Vou escritar mais em breve, porque o dia de Portugal, de Camões, e das Comunidades Portuguesas (10 de Junho) está a chegar!

Obrigado e adeus, caros leitores!

Abraços,
D.A.S.

-----

I give you another translation of a poem by that man between worlds, Camilo Pessanha. We usually speak of a person being between two worlds, but in Pessanha's case we have a man between a set of conflicting worlds: East and West, homeland and colony, the duties of the public servant and and aestheticism, exile and integration. Obviously this series of dyads doesn't suffice to sketch a full picture of Pessanha (or, really, any given person, thing, or idea, because the world isn't binary).

Surprisingly, I hadn't read this poem until a few days ago. I thought I'd read every poem in Clepsidra, but I was mistaken. The spelling is updated, though the punctuation remains true to that found in the 1920 Edições Lusitânia (which on the book's title page doesn't use the circumflex!) version. As usual, the poem doesn't have a proper title, so I've used the first line instead.

Now that we're on the cusp of summer, a poem about the snows of winter might not make sense, but what can you do? I hope y'all enjoy the poem (in both of its forms), and I'll be writing again soon, as Portugal Day is coming up on the 10th.

Thanks for reading, and take it easy, folks.

Yours,
D.A.S.

-----

"Floriram por engano as rosas bravas"
Camilo Pessanha


Floriram por engano as rosas bravas
No inverno: veio o vento desfolhá-las...
Em que cismas, meu bem? Porque me calas
As vozes com que há pouco me enganavas?

Castelos doidos! Tão cedo caístes!...
Onde vamos, alheio o pensamento,
De mãos dadas? Teus olhos, que um momento
Perscrutaram nos meus, como vão tristes!

E sobre nós cai nupcial a neve,
Surda, em triunfo, pétalas, de leve
Juncando o chão, na acrópole de gelos...

Em redor do teu vulto é como um véu!
Quem as esparze — quanta flor — do céu,
Sobre nós dois, sobre os nossos cabelos?

***

"By mistake the wild roses bloomed"
Camilo Pessanha

By mistake the wild roses bloomed
In winter: the wind came and stripped away their leaves...
What are you pondering, my darling? Why do you silence
The voices with which you fooled me just now?

Lunatic castles! How soon you fell!
Where are we going, lost in thought,
Hand in hand? Your eyes, which for a moment
Looked deeply into mine, how sad they are!

And over us the snow falls, bridal,
Deaf, triumphant, petals lightly
Covering the floor in the acropolis of ice...

It is like a veil over your face!
Who scattered them — so many flowers — from the sky,
Over the two of us, over our hair?

A Lápide de Camilo Pessanha

No Cemitério São Miguel Arcanjo, em Macau, fica a sepultura do poeta, professor, e jurista Camilo Pessanha. No ano passado eu tentei achar a sepultura, mas o cemitério, onde jazem milhares de portugueses, macaenses, e chineses cujos túmulos são abarrotados como sardinhas numa lata, é bem labiríntico. Felizmente, há dois meses, durante o Curso de Verão da Universidade de Macau, achei a sepultura com a assistência do Professor Jorge Cavalheiro, como escrevi num antigo post.

 

Como pode ver, tirei fotos da lápide vertical e da placa horizontal. Quando eu visitei o cemitério, a placa era quase inteiramente ilegível; só pude ler as palavras "À saudosa memoria" e "Dr Camillo D'Almeida Pessanha," assim como escrito na ortografia antiga. Entretanto, possuo uma cópia do livro A Imagem e o Verbo: Fotobiografia de Camilo Pessanha, que contem uma foto do túmulo de Pessanha melhor do que a minha, e que está incluido aqui abaixo (a última foto).

 

Os caracteres chineses na pedra vertical não apresentaram um problema tão dificil, embora há um caracter atrás do vaso de flores, que obtei da foto supracitado, e o grupo de caracteres ao lado esquerdo são poucos claros. Alguns caracteres na lápide são obscuros, mas acho que entendo o sentido geral.

 

 

Segue abaixo uma provavelmente imperfeita transcrição da inscripção em chinês com tradução em português. Os caracteres na lápide são lidos de cima para baixo, e da direita para esquerda. Os nomes são em mandarim e cantonês; em parênteses é uma descripção do texto.

一九七一年七月廿六日
26 de Julho 1971

先母揚李愛容
Querida imagem da falecida avó Yang Li/Joeng Lei (mulher de Camilo Pessanha)

先祖庇山耶大狀師合墓
Querido avô Bi Shan Ye/Bei Saan Je, grande professor, túmulo conjunto (Pessanha ele mesmo)

先父揚公碧珊
Querido pai Yang Gong Bi Shan/Joeng Gung Bik Saan (filho de Pessanha)

O 揚 é talvez 楊, mas estou mais o menos seguro na minha escolha; o caracter final do filho de Pessanha pode ser errado também. Para agora prefiro fazer nada com os caracters no grupo ao lado, porque são muito obscuros.

Não sei o nome português da mulher, ou se ela ainda tinha um, mas a placa horizontal diz que o nome do filho foi João Manoel D'Almeida Pessanha.

Antes de descobrir o túmulo de Camilo Pessanha, eu imaginava que o epitáfio dele seria profundo- uma estrofe duma das suas poemas, talvez alguma coisa chinesa. Em vez disso, fui confrontado por uma lápide simples que não refere à nenhum poesia. O mundo está cheio de surpresas.

XXIX Curso de Verão de Língua e Cultura Portuguesa

It somehow escaped my notice until fairly recently that the Universidade de Macau, sometimes in conjunction with other institutions that support continued Lusitanian influence and culture in Macau and the rest of east Asia, has offered an intensive summer course in Portuguese for almost thirty years.  I had the good fortune to learn of the existence of this year's Curso de Verão in time to apply, and not long thereafter I was accepted, so I can inform y'all that I will be leaving for Macau shortly. I'll be there, along with a good number of other students- most of them mainland Chinese- for three weeks of classes, so not only will my Portuguese improve, but I'll get to practice Mandarin and Cantonese as well.

As you might know, Macau is the reason I started learning Portuguese in the first place. While The Peregrinations of Anacleto Stornello is set about thirty years before the Portuguese managed to talk to the Chinese into giving them a tiny peninsula upon which to dwell between trading fairs at Canton/廣州, since the Portuguese presence in Asia plays a major part in the book I ended up learning a lot about A Cidade de Nome De Deus em China anyway- enough for me to regret not making more of my first visit there, and enough for my second visit to be sufficiently reverent but all too short. This time I should be able to make at least cursory tours of all the places I wanted to see before, as well as revisit spots that didn't get ample attention last year.

When I started learning Portuguese, I began by dredging up the remains of my knowledge of Spanish in order to read Camilo Pessanha (whose grave I hope to find this time around), progressed to buying books at the Livraria Portuguesa in Macau, moved on to taking Portuguese classes with the fine folks at the Brazilian Arts Foundation here in town, and ultimately went to Lisbon earlier this year with my wife. We had a fantastic time, and I had the honor of meeting the man behind Macau Antigo, João Botas, who not only took the time to meet me but showed me around the headquarters of Rádio e Televisão de Portugal. Everyone I've met and everything I've read along the way has encouraged me to keep learning, and I've found something indescribably wonderful in the language itself that all but guarantees my continued study thereof. I'm confident that my time at the Universidade de Macau will only buttress my love of the language of Camões, even if the future of Portuguese in Macau remains uncertain. I hope my attendance will help sustain that particular element of Macanese culture in its own small way.

In the coming weeks I intend to keep you, caro leitor, informed of my progress and give you my thoughts on modern Macau, the university, my classmates, and everything else. I'll be writing in English and Portuguese, and maybe some Chinese as well; anything without Chinese text will also be posted to my website, though I can't guarantee that the Portuguese text won't be corrupted by SDF's ongoing problem with diacritic marks. Thanks for reading, thanks to the Department of Portuguese at the Universidade de Macau for accepting me into the program, and, more than anything, thanks to my wonderful wife for knowing how much this opportunity means to me and fully supporting my attendance.

Até logo, amigos. Até Macau.

D.A.S.

Camilo Pessanha: "Ao meu coração um peso de ferro"

It should come as no surprise, given my recent silence, that I do not come here bearing the promised translation of "Macau e a Gruta de Camões" for you to pore over. This is due to two things, really: being focused on finishing the first draft of my novel, and my frustration with Pessanha's essay, which is to say frustration with my inability to render it into English in a satisfactory manner. I've got a working version of the whole thing done, but there are a few lines that I fear getting completely wrong; the overall feel of the thing is hard to replicate, too.

So, for the time being, here is one of Pessanha's poems. A couple places online as well as in print (e.g., In A Country Lost) refer to it as "Canção da partida" ("Parting song" or "Song of departure"), while my reprint of the Edições Lusitania edition and the 2003 Assírio & Alvim edition of Clepsidra both identify the poem solely by its first line. Nothing in the editorial notes in the Assírio & Alvim Clepsydra (yes, this version uses the original spelling, at least in the title) gives me any clue as to how or why "Canção da partida" came into use, but I have not yet read said notes in their entirety. Long story short, I went with the original publication's lack of a title.

I haven't translated any of Pessanha's work in a while, so it felt good to take a break from writing prose to do this. I hope you enjoy it, caro leitor, and I'll try to write again soon.


D.A.S.


-----

"Ao meu coração um peso de ferro"


Ao meu coração um peso de ferro
Eu hei-de prender na volta do mar.
Ao meu coração um peso de ferro...
                        Lançá-lo ao mar.

Quem vai embarcar, que vai degredado,
As penas do amor não queira levar...
Marujos, erguei o cofre pesado,
                        Lançai-o ao mar.

E hei-de mercar um fecho de prata.
O meu coração é o cofre selado.
A sete chaves: tem dentro uma carta...
— A última, de antes do teu noivado.

A sete chaves, — a carta encantada!
E um lenço bordado... Esse hei-de o levar,
Que é para o molhar na água salgada
No dia em que enfim deixar de chorar.


***

"In my heart an iron weight"


In my heart an iron weight
I shall fasten to the sea.
In my heart an iron weight...
           Cast it into the sea.

He who embarks, who will be banished,
Does not wish to take along the pains of love...
Sailors, lift the heavy chest,
           Cast it into the sea.

And I shall buy a silver lock.
My heart is the sealed chest.
Under lock and key: there is a letter within...
—The last, from before your wedding day.

Under lock and key, — the enchanted letter!
And an embroidered handkerchief... that I must take,
To be soaked in salt water
On the day I finally cease to weep.

Desculpe o meu silêncio.

Sorry for the recent silence, folks. I've been busy with various things- working toward the end of the first draft of my 16th century novel, traveling to Portugal, martial arts class, volunteering, meeting with my Chinese language partner, doing household tasks, et cetera- and haven't really done anything worth putting on the blog. (Well, the trip to Portugal is definitely worth writing about, but I haven't made time to do so yet.) I have, however, started translating Camilo Pessanha's 1924 essay "Macau e a Gruta de Camões", which has been a challenge. It should appear here sometime before the end of the month, I think.

In the meantime, listen to Pallbearer's Foundations of Burden, drink some coffee, and make the most of the burgeoning spring. Até logo!