Curso de Verão: Update #3

7.20.15

    It took me a few days, but I figured out that the university is laid out in a pretty clever way that minimizes the amount of time you have to spend in the sun or rain (the latter has finally started, and usually arrives in the afternoon but doesn't last terribly long). There are covered arcades linking most of the buildings, but in many cases they're only useful if you have the time or inclination to do so, since they're rarely the fastest route between two given points. Still, they're really nice to have.
    I passed the weekend pretty quietly. I went back to the Livraria Portuguesa on Saturday and had coffee at Caravela, but that was it; on Sunday morning I climbed the Colina da Guia to visit the old chapel and lighthouse there. There's a nice park and jogging trail incorporated into the hill itself, and the lighthouse afforded a pretty good view of the city, albeit one somewhat obscured by haze and tall buildings. I could spot certain landmarks anyway- Tap Seac, slivers of the Porto Interior, the Cemitério de São Miguel- and the experience of climbing the narrow, twisting lighthouse steps reminded me of when Tracey and I visited the Torre de Belém in Lisbon earlier this year. On the way back home, soaked in sweat and devoid of the will to do much of anything, I ate lunch at A Vencedora (not bad this time, but I ordered badly; I'd forgotten that arroz chau-chau is basically fried rice with some random stuff in it) and rested a little in the Jardim de São Francisco, which is close to the Hotel Lisboa and the Clube Militar and decorated in the same shade of pink as the latter. Then I spent the rest of the day reading, doing homework, and dozing off.
    Prices here lean toward the expensive, but are also just strange. Take the Livraria Portuguesa, for instance: for almost twice what you'd pay in Lisbon (which would be, say, 13 euros) you can get an book of average length printed in Portugal, while a boxed set of four dense volumes of Macau history published by a local outfit translates to a pretty reasonable $75 American. An espresso at Caravela is 15 patacas, or two bucks, about what it'd be at home; meanwhile, a large coffee on campus (if you can wait until 11 to go there, since it's the only coffee shop in the history of coffee consumption to not be open first thing in the damned morning) is 26.6 patacas- again, similar to US prices, but quite steep by local standards: I can eat lunch at A Vencedora for about 70 patacas, for example. The bus is pretty affordable, thankfully, with the most expensive round trip you can take being something like 13 patacas, or less than two bucks. (It's even cheaper with a Macau Pass.) Pastéis de nata, or the Portuguese egg tarts for which Macau is famous and which I still haven't eaten on this trip, run about eight patacas, or a dollar, each. I haven't looked at the prices of staples in any of the markets yet, but I'd wager that they're higher than they are on the mainland China side of the Portas do Cerco. I also get the impression that renting, much less buying, real estate is horrifically expensive, but the Chinese habit of writing 萬 (10,000) instead of Arabic numerals imparts a certain kind of sticker shock to begin with: "200萬? Holy shit, that's a lot of zeros, and now I gotta convert the currency..."
    My former roommate and his friends invited me to go walk around Coloane this afternoon, but canceled their plans due to rain. I've been meaning to get down to Coloane village and thence to the famed Restaurante de Fernando on 黑沙/Hac Sa beach, and it'd be nice to do something with somebody for once. I haven't really gotten lonely at all, or unbearably homesick, but I get the feeling that a lot of my fellow students aren't getting out and seeing much of Macau, so it'd be fun to tag along with them. The cost of doing anything has to be a significant barrier to, well, doing anything: if I'm trying to be careful with money even in my fortunate position, I can only imagine how much harder it has to be for a college kid from the mainland.
    That's about it for now, folks. I'll write more later.

Curso de Verão: Update #2

7.15.15

    I spent the first block of classes today- we technically have two classes each morning, though it seems like a formality- watching what I thought was going to be a Portuguese film but turned out to be French: "A Gaiola Dourada" is really "La Cage Dorée". 95% of the movie is in French, but it was subtitled in Portuguese, which probably confused a lot of people. I was thankful for the subtitles, because if it had been completely in Portuguese there's no way I would have been able to follow the movie well enough to take a quiz on it afterward.
    Today was also the first of our afternoons spent visiting museums. I ended up on the bus headed to the Museu Marítimo, while I think I signed up for the trip to the Centro de Ciência. I didn't feel bad about this- I was less than thrilled about going to what I imagine is a generic science museum- and I doubt my being on the bus cost anyone a desperately-desired trip to the Museu Marítimo. If it did, then desculpe, colega.
    I told myself last night that I'd take it easy today in terms of walking, but I didn't. The first afternoon showers rolled in just as we got to the museum, cooling things off a little, and when I was done at the museum I went off up the Rua da Barra and finally got to see the Quartel dos Mouros, as well as a couple wonderfully decrepit old lanes around the Largo do Lilau. I was tempted to visit the church and seminary of São José, which I think was the haunt of Padre Manuel Teixeira, but I felt somewhat underdressed- not that anyone would care, but still- and it's close enough to the Largo do Senado that visiting at a later date won't be any problem. I ended my trek by eating a 豬扒包, or pork chop bun (the best one I've had yet), and going around the corner to Caravela again for a cold beer and a leisurely perusal of 澳門平台/Plataforma, a bilingual Portuguese-Chinese newspaper. In addition to the usual stuff it also publishes poetry, which earns it high marks in my book. Then it was back on the MT3U to the ol' Universidade.
    My complaints about the Macau Corner in the UM library have, as I suspected, turned out to be unfounded. There are the locked cases I mentioned, as well as a good chunk of stacks of books in Portuguese, Chinese, and English. I only barely skimmed them and found enough to keep me busy indefinitely, and enough to obviate the need for a trip to the Arquivo Histórico. For the time being I've settled on a long out of print novel, António Rebordão Navarro's As Portas do Cerco, that I've been wanting to read for a while. Like everywhere else on campus, the library is currently a ghost town, which makes for good reading.
    Had some good chats with a couple of the professors at different times today. I still need to drop by Professor Cavalheiro's office and schedule that trip to the cemetery where Pessanha is buried. Right now, however, I have to go get my laundry out of the washing machine. I went to check on it a little while ago and found the floor half-submerged. In yet another example of what's either Chinese ingenuity or laziness, or probably some of both, the washer's drainage tube doesn't connect to anything, since there's a drain in the floor less than a foot away; and even though it'll take a while and turn the room into a slippery death trap in the meantime, why not just let the water go down the drain?
    At the very least, shit like this guarantees I won't be bored anytime soon.

7.17.15

    So much for not mocking the slapdash construction of this university. The interior side of our door's lock mechanism- which requires a keycard- was barely attached when I got here, and sometime yesterday it gave up the ghost entirely. Rather than just falling off, however, it managed to render the door completely inoperable, which meant me and my roommate had to ask our suitmate to let us in through his room and the bathroom. After some wrangling, which included being told that I marked a checkbox on the maintenance form improperly (what the fuck), we were told we could move back in tomorrow and were put in temporary rooms for the night. Darren was in the room next to mine, along with Ethan, a guy from Macau whom I met not long after moving into my new digs. Ethan is friendly, studies medicine in Taiwan, and reminds me in several ways of my old friend Brad Plumb, who I didn't realized I missed as much as I did until now. Today I was informed that I could move back into my old room, but since I currently don't have a roommate, I don't think I will unless Darren is dying for company; I doubt that's the case.
    This campus is a year old and already falling apart. It'll always be falling apart. I feel bad for students who don't have the luxury of bailing on it after three weeks, not just for the inconveniences they'll face, but for the fact that Macau is taking cues from the Mainland in its preference to build grandiose, disposable eyesores. (To be fair, Macau already has some experience in that field; one need only look at the Grand Lisboa.) This place is a massive investment in the territory's youth, who apparently don't deserve anything better than endless acres of unshaded concrete and pre-ruined facilities. It's a shame.
    Fortunately, the human aspect of the university makes up for its infrastructural failings. Everyone I've talked to in the Department of Portuguese has been great, and I hope the staff in other departments is just as friendly and helpful. My professor, Leonor Seabra, is quite interesting, and that's just judging by her thirty-minute discourse on the history of Macau earlier this afternoon. The grammar part of class is a drag- when isn't it?- but the culture half is pretty solid, thanks to Professora Seabra's knowledge of the material. As it turns out, she's an historian, not a language teacher, and has been in Macau for a long while. (There's a link below about her, though it's in Portuguese.) I'll have to bend her ear after class one day. Doing a little more cursory research also shows that Jorge Cavalheiro, of whom I spoke before, also has quite the academic pedigtree in Macau. (Link also below.) I'm even more fortunate than I first realized!
    I signed up next week to participate in the declamação de poesia, or poetry reading, since I'm very fond of poetry. Before I left Houston I picked up a bilingual edition of selected poems of Carlos Drummond de Andrade, a famous Brazilian poet, and I've been kicking myself for not bringing it along. Fortunately I found an anthology of his work in the library, and one of the poems that struck me back home, "Segredo", is in this one, so that's what I'm going to read. I should read something by Camilo Pessanha since I'm in Macau, but screw it. It's funny how being in one place gives you a greater appreciation for another; in this case, it takes being away from Brazilians to realize how much of my Portuguese education I owe to them.
    A girl named Gertrudes from Timor-Leste ended up in my class yesterday. Her Portuguese sounds good- more Brazilian than Portuguese- and I hope I get to talk to her more than I have. Timor is one of those Lusophone places I've read about but don't really know much about, save for some weird events a few hundred years ago and the general details of its turbulent post-independence history. The text on Gertrudes' t-shirt today advertised in Portuguese and Tetum the Arquivo & Museu da Resistência Timorense/Arkivu & Muzeu Rezisténsia Timorense, which sounds like a place worth seeing should I ever make it to Timor-Leste.
    Let's see, what else. I've done a terrible job of giving myself much rest. Every day, almost as soon as classes are over and I've eaten lunch, I'm on the bus and out walking for the next few hours. I'm probably not eating enough, and when I do eat it's greasy canteen food or rich Portuguese or Macanese food. If I was going to be here for more than a few weeks I'd be concerned, but as it stands I think I can afford it. I'm being good today and not traipsing about all afternoon; I took the bus to Taipa, ate arroz de pato no forno (baked rice with duck) for lunch at Restaurante O Santos, and took the bus back to school. O Santos is a delicious, but not particularly cheap, Portuguese joint, unlike the very basic and very Macanese restaurant A Vencedora, where I had minchi for dinner last night. I heard almost as much Portuguese in there as I did Cantonese, and none of it was spoken by homens brancos like me. It was the reverse of O Santos, where I heard the Portuguese owner cheerfully conversing in Cantonese to some of his guests. That was pleasant; I love seeing proof of the continued existence of real Luso-Chinese ties.
    Speaking of Taipa, or what was once Taipa since it lost its island status a while back when they filled in the land between it and Coloane to build more fuckin' casinos, the old village there is pretty charming, and not what I expected. I thought it'd be a little more open, but it's similar to Macau proper in that it's a network of narrow lanes and closely-packed buildings, with larger Portuguese edifices here and there. I visited the Casas-Museu de Taipa, which is a series of old Portuguese-style houses arranged in different ways: there's a typical Macanese interior from the turn of the 20th century in one house, a museum of Taipa/Coloane life in another, and displays of traditional Portuguese regional clothing in another. Oh, and I tried the pork chop bun at 大利來記 Tai Lei Loi Kei, which is rumored to have the best in Macau. I won't deny that it was damn good, but I liked the one I had the day before better. Tai Lei Loi Kei's came on a warm bun, which seemed like a good idea but sapped some of the fresh-outta-the-fryer quality from the pork chop.
    It's Friday afternoon now, and I have no idea what I'm going to do tonight. In the morning I'm probably going to visit the Farol da Guia, which is the oldest lighthouse on the China coast and is scheduled to reopen to the public tomorrow. On top of the trek up the Colina da Guia I'll most likely have to deal with massive crowds, but so be it. When I get back down the hill I can go to the Bairro de São Lázaro, take in the architecture and find something tasty to eat, and then- who knows? All that's certain is that I'd better make the most of my time, even if it means walking until my legs ache and every age-displaced cobblestone feels like a dull blade against the soles of my shoes. When it gets that bad, it's good to know that a cold beer and a table at which to drink it is never very far away.
    You may be wondering why I'm not writing this in Portuguese. 1) Most of my already limited audience doesn't read Portuguese; 2) I have to write enough in Portuguese for class as it is; and 3) I'm lazy, if you somehow forgot that.
    Até próximo, caras.


Leonor Seabra:
http://www.revistamacau.com/2009/06/15/leonor-seabra-a-historiadora-que-encontrou-uma-casa-em-macau/

Jorge Cavalheiro:
http://macauantigo.blogspot.com/2011/06/homenagem-jorge-cavalheiro.html

Curso de Verão: Update #1

7.13.15

    5:45 AM. Can't sleep; woke up around four-something. I'm in a common room down the hall from my room, which means I'm without air conditioning. This is going to be a regular occurrence, and I wonder how much more quickly I and these brand-new buildings are going to fall apart due to constant exposure to humidity. Whether or not that's a factor, you can already see things crumbling at the edges: that's what happens when a place this big is built so quickly.
    The University of Macau's new campus houses 10,000 students; I'd wager it's big enough for three times that. Who knows if they'll ever reach that level of enrollment. The outsized buildings, the empty paths and streets (yes, it's summer, but I don't see this place ever feeling crowded, which is a first for China), the sluggish waterways and propped-up trees all lend to the feeling of hasty realization of grandiose plans. It's easy to mock the newborn ugliness of the place, but not really worth it. After all, better that all that casino money be spent on education instead of reclaiming more land to build more casinos, right?
    That's how I see it, and being a short-term foreign student I'm in no position to divine the intentions of the Macau SAR and the University administration. All I can do is speculate wildly- or more likely halfheartedly, since it's too hot to do anything wildly- and pay attention to what I came here for: the 29th Annual Portuguese Language and Culture Summer Course.

    My correspondence with Ana Nunes and Ricardo Moutinho, the coordinators of the XXIX Curso de Verão de Língua e Cultura Portuguesa, in the months leading up to my arrival in Macau was always informative and affable, despite a certain degree of bureaucratic feet-dragging leading up to the official announcement of the course. When I get to campus, drop my things off in my room (where my roommate's things are proof that he exists, though he isn't present), and head over to the Faculdade de Humanidades building, I'm pleased to discover that Professores Nunes and Moutinho are just as pleasant in person. I learn that I'm one of at least a couple hundred students, most of them mainland Chinese and one of whom I met on the bus to campus when he was short a couple patacas for bus fare and all I had was a coin more than twice the cost of mine (fares must be paid in exact change; a pain in the ass, which is why I got a Macau Pass ASAP). I'm ashamed to say that I can't recall his name right now, but he was pretty friendly, and his Portuguese was pretty good.
    Waiting in line to get my student ID and meal tickets (free food is a real boon, but let's hope canteen food here is better than it was during my last foray into the world of overseas language programs four years ago), I can't put my finger on how well most of these kids know Portuguese, because they're all understandably speaking Mandarin to one another and often resort to English when talking to the coordinators. The lists in the hallway indicate that the advanced class is only fourteen people, while the intermediate, basic, and introductory classes all have over twice that number of students. I'm enrolled in the basic course with Professor Jorge Cavalheiro, whose beard, glasses, and demeanor- I pass him on his bike an hour later- is hard evidence of there being a universal archetype of college professors. I talk to him briefly about possibly changing classes, since I'm unsure whether I'm better suited to the intermediate level, and he says we'll sort it out tomorrow, once he gets a feel for the overall proficiency level of the class.
    With logistics more or less taken care of- less, really, since there's a heretofore unsolved problem with the campus wifi that's starting to nag at me- I go to the campus grocery store for snacks, Pocari Sweat, and a couple beers, then visit the library. It's gigantic and difficult to navigate because half of the staircases and corridors are taped off for remodeling. The Macau Corner, which I've been looking forward to investigating, is at a brief glance a series of locked cabinets full of archival material and not the casual collection of Macau-oriented books I was hoping for. I'll have to go back and check it out more thoroughly, especially once I have the library computer info written down: if this wifi problem persists, I'll have to post to my website from there. Good thing I brought a thumb drive.
    At this point I'm tempted to leave campus and go walk around Taipa or the Macau Peninsula, but long hours of travel and the heat conspire to keep me close to the dorms. I can't help but notice that every single water fountain I've come across is out of service for "hygiene reasons", which doesn't bode well. I've been drinking water from the attached hot tap, which I hope circumvents the mysterious hygiene problem. The vending machine downstairs doesn't just refuse to take bills, but does its best to savagely mangle them. Signs tell me that the AC shouldn't be left on when you're not around (fair enough, except that the whole dorm is a sauna) and that the ideal temperature is 25 degrees Celsius (untrue when you've been out in 31-degree sun and humidity all day). I'm trying to avoid letting little things like these get the best of me, but I've got three weeks to go.
    Next up: first day of class, canteen food, and who knows what else. Até logo, amigos.

7.14.15

    Canteen food is, of course, exactly what you'd expect. I skipped breakfast yesterday, but intended to get some this morning- until I saw the line. I think every one of the almost 300 students in the Portuguese program was there, and then some. The line is so long because there's a half-hour window open between the opening of the canteen and when classes begin, which is some bad timing. I turned around and went to Pacific Coffee, since a cup of joe sounded mighty good. It was closed, which was as baffling as it was frustrating. I guess it's because it's summer, but that excuse is getting old. Anyway, the professors are aware of the situation, and being a few minutes seems doable.
    I met my roommate, Darren. He's 26, from Hong Kong, and quite affable. His English isn't great, but then again neither is my Mandarin, which is the language in which he usually addresses me. I'm not sure how, but he seems to know a number of the young ladies in our hall, all of whom are very nice, and today he introduced me to another Hong Konger, Kevin. (Or maybe Kelvin. I need to check.) Kevin's 22 and quite serious about HK maintaining its identity in the face of growing Mainland efforts to rub it out. He participated in the Umbrella Revolution last year. He's an interesting dude.
    I was in Professor Cavalheiro's class for about five minutes before he sent me upstairs to the intermediate class. I was in there for even less time, and finally wound up back downstairs in the advanced class with Professor Leonor Seabra. The class material is decent, from what I've seen, and Professor Seabra doesn't waste any time speaking anything but Portuguese. Alas, she does so in a rather quiet voice, which makes her hard to follow. My classmates- as of today there are sixteen of them, I believe- are mostly women and all Chinese; well, I say that, but I think some may be from Hong Kong, and there's at least one Macanese woman. (N.B. I'm using "Macanese" in this instance to mean "someone from Macau", and not in the more strict sense of "someone of mixed Luso-Asian descent native to Macau".) Their Portuguese seems pretty good, and their accents lead me to believe that their teachers back home learned Continental Portuguese rather than the Brazilian variety. The unmistakeable unease of being in a formal language class hangs over the room, and isn't improved by conversation not being the main focus. It's a big change for me, since my year of classes at the Brazilian Arts Foundation has been primarily conversation-based, and everyone there is usually keen to talk. Now talking is something you're called upon to do, and it's usually reading aloud rather than conversing. On the plus side, I'll be doing a lot of writing in Portuguese, which I've never done before. I just hope I get corrections back.
    After class I eat lunch- decent, if greasy, but goddamn the soup tastes like dishwater- and relax a bit in the dorm before getting on the bus to Macau proper. Since the new UM campus is actually on an island belonging to the Mainland, there's one way in and out, and only a few bus routes. Most of them drop you off at Praça Ferreira Amaral, a stone's through from Casino Lisboa and a stop along the routes of a zillion other buses. I wander around a bit, take some photos, do some homework over a Sagres at Cafe Ou Mun, and visit the Livraria Portuguesa, where I pick up a book of prose poems called Macau: O Livros dos Nomes by Carlos Morais José. I stop at the Cathedral Cafe on the way back to the bus stop, this time for a Super Bock, and then it's back to campus so I can make the Abertura do Curso de Verão, or Opening Ceremony of the Summer Course, at 6:00.
    I wasn't expecting much, and in a way I got exactly that: there are no seats, which means the handful of speeches we get to hear are that much harder to bear. Luckily the speeches are short and not terrible: Professores Nunes and Moutinho say a bit, then a pretty jovial adminstration figure, then another one of those, and finally the Consul-Geral de Portugal em Macau e Hong Kong, who I recognized when I entered the room, having seen his photo in Portuguese-language Macau media before. I brought a blazer and tie with me to Macau, but had no idea this event would be, well, an event, so I end up standing around only slightly better dressed than a lot of my classmates but nowhere as nice as some (all of them ladies) or the teaching staff. Nobody cares but me.
    Delicious Macanese food is served, and the Chinese penchant for ignoring the fuck out a proper queue manifests immediately. I chat with Professor Cavalheiro a bit, complimenting him on his beard (it's a great beard) and remarking that it reminds me of Camilo Pessanha's. We talk about Pessanha a bit, and when I ask if the Professor knows where Pessanha is buried, he says he does, and will be glad to show me. I'm pretty stoked about that outing.
    As I'm standing around shoving minchi into my craw I'm approached by a young Portuguese woman I made for a journalist early on in the ceremony. I was right: she works for the Jornal Tribuna de Macau, which I believe is Macau's oldest surviving Portuguese paper. I soon find myself talking on the record about why I'm here, why I like Macau and the Portuguese language, and so on- all of this in Portuguese, mind you, because why wouldn't it be? The print edition of the JTM hit newsstands at 3:00 this afternoon, so I'm going back into town later to find a copy and see if I show up in the article about the summer program.
    When I'm approached by some of my classmates later, who seem less shy outside of the sala de aulas, I also try to stick to Portuguese in the hope of getting them to do the same, which they generally do. It's hard to fault them, since I know how hard it is to try and use a language that isn't your own when you're in a new place, surrounded by strangers. We've got the rest of July for them to open up, and I hope they do, because speaking Portuguese is pretty great.

 P.S. The Jornal Tribuna article is already online! I come off pretty well, though Senhora Almeida made my Portuguese sound better than it was.

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.

The Peregrinations of Anacleto Stornello

Last night I finished writing the first draft of the novel I've been working on for over four years. (Well, three full years, plus some gaps and the initial period of not knowing whether this would be a novel or something else.) I knew I was near the end, and had concrete plans to finish within a couple weeks, for reasons I'll discuss later, but as I sat at our new dining table around 10:30 last night I realized that I was already there: this was where the story of Anacleto and Agnese Stornello ended. It was a strange, surprising feeling; I felt, and still feel, more dazed than celebratory.

I'm not completely done, of course. I intend to do some editing before I make any attempts to get it published, there's an epilogue waiting to be written, and, since I read so many great books during the course of writing this novel, I'm going to provide a bibliography, too.

The working title is The Peregrinations of Anacleto Stornello, which I'm not sure I like enough to keep, but I can't think of anything better for the time being. The title's a nod to the Peregrinação of Fernão Mendes Pinto, though the story is considerably different (while also bearing some similarity, seeing as how they're both travel tales). It spans the years 1528-1531 and covers a number of places, ranging from Venice and Syria to India and Indonesia.

On one hand, I've had my fill of this project, but I also can't wait to polish it and see if it sells; at the moment, however, I think I'll let all thoughts of it settle to the bottom of my skull and focus my attention elsewhere, like Liam Matthew Brockey's excellent book The Visitor: André Palmeiro and the Jesuits in Asia.

Later, dudes.

D.A.S.

賈島的＂孟融逸人＂/ Jia Dao's "Meng Rong, Man of Leisure"

Among the armful of Chinese poetry books I'm fortunate to own is the wonderfully-titled When I Find You Again It Will Be In Mountains, a collection of poems by 賈島 Jia Dao translated by Mike O'Connor. I found the poem below in that book, and liked it enough to try translating it myself. Whatever the merits of my translation, I certainly can't rival O'Connor's choice of title: "Meng Jung, Gainfully Unemployed."

More about Jia Dao can be found at Wikipedia, of course, while several of his poems can be read in both Chinese and English here. The latter link is also home to a lot more classical Chinese poetry in translation, as well as other neat stuff.

 Enjoy, folks, and take it easy.

微臣
史大偉

***

孟融逸人
賈島

孟君臨水居
不食水中魚
衣褐唯麤帛
筐箱秪素書
樹林幽鳥戀
世界此心疏
擬櫂孤舟去
何峰又結廬

"Meng Rong, Man of Leisure"
Jia Dao

Meng, my good man, your home overlooks the water
but you eat none of the fish therein

You wear only coarse homespun cloth
in your baskets and boxes only plain silk books

Reclusive birds long for the forest
the world is far from your mind

If you plan to row off in a lonely boat
on which peak will you build your house this time?

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!

過年的詩：孟浩然 "春曉“ A poem for Chinese New Year: Meng Haoran's "Spring Dawn"

恭喜發財! Happy lunar new year, folks! 2015 is the year of the Sheep (or the Goat, depending on your reading of 羊), which also happens to be my Chinese zodiac animal. For the occasion I've translated another Meng Haoran poem, which I chose because it was one of the first poems related to spring that I found in the sources I had at hand. As an admitted amateur and poetaster I think it's a decent enough poem, but there's definitely some argument as to its literary merit, and I can see how it might read as broad and sentimental.

Be that as it may, I had fun trying my hand at translating it. I imagined the poet in a sort of hibernation, aware of the change of season and its attendant goings-on but unwilling or unable to react- unless one counts reflection as a reaction, that is.

Anyway, I hope you dig it. 新年快樂!

***

春曉
孟浩然


春眠不覺曉
處處聞啼鳥
夜來風雨聲
花落知多少


Spring Dawn
Meng Haoran

I sleep through the spring, oblivious to the dawn
everywhere I hear birds squawking
night comes, along with the sound of wind and rain
who knows how many blossoms fall?

孟浩然 Meng Haoran 題大禹寺義公禪房 “Inscription on Venerable Yi's Chamber at Dafu Temple"

I am very excited to finally have a good classical Chinese-English dictionary, in the form of Paul W. Kroll's A Student's Dictionary of Classical and Medieval Chinese. I've already started using it, as demonstrated by my translation of the Meng Haoran poem below. (More of Meng Haoran's poems can be found here.)

The translation is not one upon which I spent a great deal of time, which is likely obvious, but I wanted to share it before I call it a night. I may revise it in the future, but who knows; I kind of like the way it turned out.

The Chinese text of the poem comes from A Full Load of Moonlight: Chinese Chan Buddhist Poems, translated by Mary M.Y. Fung and David Lunde. Their English rendition of the poem served as a rough guide, but any errors in translation (and/or transcription) are entirely mine. I hope you enjoy it.

微臣
史大偉 D.A.S.

***

孟浩然
題大禹寺義公禪房

義公習禪寂  結宇依空林
戶外一峰秀  階前眾壑深
夕陽連雨足  空翠落庭陰
看取蓮花淨  方知不染心

Meng Haoran
"Inscription on Venerable Yi's Chamber at Dafu Temple"

To practice Zen in silent solitude
Venerable Yi built a dwelling in an empty forest
exquisite mountain peak outside the door
multitude of deep ravines in front of the steps
last light of day melds with patter of rain
trickle of blue into the shady courtyard
if you see and grasp the pure lotus
just then you will know the spotless mind

Agent Jeffries was right.

As I'm sure you know, Twin Peaks is due to return in 2016. This is huge, huge news for me, but rather than speculate about what it'll be like or even whether it's a good idea, I'm just going to wait patiently and, as the rambling anecdote below should illustrate, revel in the mysteriously wonderful/wonderfully mysterious nature of existence.

Sometime last week, while listening to Stars of the Lid's "Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30", I thought about the fact that said song imagines something I never expected to exist. Sure, David Lynch has made remarks over the years about revisiting Washington's most famous fictional town, but how likely did any of us think that really was? And then, last year, came the news that Lynch and Mark Frost are going to write and direct another nine episodes of my favorite TV show ever.

"Music for Twin Peaks Episode #30" is now no longer a reference to something that never was or would be. While the new episodes of Twin Peaks will probably not start with #30, there will finally be something after episode #29, and thus the SOTL song, unless it's used in the show (which is unlikely, I think, as long as Angelo Badalamenti is still alive) becomes the music of an alternate history. Not long ago we lived in a world in which there never was an episode #30; now, we have its equivalent on the horizon, but it won't be what Stars of the Lid envisioned in 1997 (the year, incidentally, that I got into Twin Peaks). What was once a song for a nonexistent event becomes a song for a different nonexistent event.

This strange convergence/divergence of artistic purposes may well be proof that Agent Phillip Jeffries was right: "we live inside a dream." I think I can handle that, but then again, Dale Cooper thought he could handle the Black Lodge, and we know how that ended.

A quick reminder that I love Kitty (Pryde)

It's been a while since the Corpse spoke of his favorite Internet rap sensation, Kitty, AKA Kitty Pryde. Why is that, you ask? Is it because yours truly has given up on Florida's finest red-/green-/pink-haired daughter and her talent? Has said talent dissipated at an alarming rate? IS THE WORLD ENDING?

Fear not, caro leitores! I still love the shit out of Kitty, she continues to put out great songs, and the world isn't ending. You may need to readjust your tastes if you're expecting straight hip-hop, seeing as how Miss Beckwith has become adept at cranking out dance floor bangers, but she's still as witty, relevant and, dare I say, lovely as ever. I look forward to seeing where her career takes her.

In the meantime, I have to go pick up dinner, so rather than read my tired-ass words, listen to Kitty herself and enjoy the pleasure that comes with seeing a really good artist do her thing.

Inherent Vice: some thoughts

I got into Thomas Pynchon during my sophomore year of college- barely, since the first of his novels I picked up was Gravity's Rainbow, which still ranks as one of the most daunting things I've ever read. Anyway, I perservered, finished that, and before I graduated read everything he'd published, save for a couple stories in Slow Learner. Given how infrequent his books were, I considered myself lucky to have read Mason & Dixon within a couple years of its publication, and assumed that it might be his last book. Ergo, when Against the Day was announced, I was pretty stoked.

I loved Against the Day, which, like Pynchon's other books, is a testament to the value of re-reading things. (Sadly, I haven't re-read it yet.) The fact that two more novels followed it in the space of seven years is one of the few indicators that I might not be living in one of Western civilization's deeper troughs, and gave me the opportunity to buy one of my favorite writer's books on the day they were released. (The other writer I've made a habit of doing this for is, unsurprisingly, William Gibson.)

While Bleeding Edge, the latest Pynchon novel,  was good enough*, I loved the shit out of Inherent Vice. I dig detective fiction- it's how I earned my first money as a writer, if you can believe I ever earned money for writing- and anything that focuses on the end of an era and/or has a strong sense of place always strikes a chord with me. It's why I love everything from Dashiell Hammett to Iain Sinclair, from Raymond Chandler to Jonathem Lethem.

I also love shit with stoner/slacker aesthetics and ethics, since I've been aligned with them since I was old enough to know what the score is and where to score. Pynchon, of course, has known what the score is for decades, and his potheadedness is easy to mock if you demand that the trajectory of events that most Americans assume makes up their history is accurate. It isn't, but history, like so many other fields of study, can be interpreted via a multitude of viewpoints, and Pynchon is very aware of this: another reason he rules.

Anyhoo, getting to the movie. Joaquin Phoenix is about a decade older than Doc Sportello was in the novel, but he pulls off the role with flying colors. The casting in general is solid, but I may not be the dude to ask since a) I haven't read the book in over five years and b) I'll take seeing Joanna Newsom in just about anything. There are some plots and themes from the novel that get omitted, but not to the detriment of the film. That's the main point I'm trying to make, really: the movie is good as an adaptation of Pynchon's novel, and really fuckin' good as a movie unto itself. If you've got a problem with extensive dialogue, measured pacing, or Paul Thomas Anderson flicks in general, then Inherent Vice ain't gonna be worth your time. If you're hip to any/all of those things, and you also dig funny shit, then get your ass to the cinema and see it on the big screen.

Some folks might wonder if they should be stoned when they see this movie, and/or whether they should see it twice. I plan on seeing it again, less high than I was when I first saw it, so: yes, see it high, see it straight, see it twice. In no particular order, of course. Should you have the luxury of seeing it at home, when that time comes, there's no reason not to consume all the burl sense you want and put Inherent Vice in the same rotation as The Big Lebowski. Except, you know, they're not really similar, except when they are.**

Once I see and re-read Inherent Vice again, I'll have more to offer than just a litany of unsubstantiated opinions. Don't hold your breath, though- I love re-reading shit, but reading new stuff usually takes precedence.

 Catch y'all later. In the meantime, listen to the soundtrack Thomas Pynchon himself assembled for the book upon its release, and never underestimate the power of a burnout's insight. After all, who else would recommend this masterpiece?

O seu amigo,
D.A.S.



*What threw me off the most, I think, was seeing Pynchon write about things that had happened entirely within my lifetime and with which I was pretty familiar. He did a good job, but it felt unshakably weird comparing half a lifetime's worth of personal opinions about certain topics against Pynchon's and observing where they aligned (in many places, as it turns out).


**Not that often. Also: name that reference!

Camilo Pessanha: "Imagens que passais pela retina"

Man, it's been almost three months since I last translated a Pessanha poem. This corpse has been slacking- though mainly in this regard, as I've been reading a fair amount of stuff in Portuguese, I'm still going taking Portuguese classes, and my entry to Macau Antigo's sixth anniversary contest garnered me a prize. I wish I could claim the same level of involvement with Chinese; I've been studying it regularly, but it's a lot easier to engage more extensively with Portuguese on a daily basis.

Passando para assuntos mais importantes, apresento-lhe uma tradução inglês de um poema de Camilo Pessanha. Todos os avisos normais aplicam: minhas palavras não são bastante poetica (ou são muito literal), não entendo bem o significado do poema, etc.

Aproveite-o, caro leitor!

---

Imagens que passais pela retina
Dos meus olhos, porque não vos fixais?
Que passais como a água cristalina
Por uma fonte para nunca mais!...

Ou para o lago escuro onde termina
Vosso curso, silente de juncais,
E o vago medo angustioso domina,
— Porque ides sem mim, não me levais?

Sem vós o que são os meus olhos abertos?
— O espelho inútil, meus olhos pagãos!
Aridez de sucessivos desertos...

Fica sequer, sombra das minhas mãos,
Flexão casual de meus dedos incertos,
— Estranha sombra em movimentos vãos.




***

Images that pass across the retina
Of my eyes, why don't you stay put?
You pass like crystalline water
from a fountain, to nevermore!...

Or to the dark lake where ends
Your course, silent in the rushes,
And the agonizing empty fear dominates,
— Why do you go without me, why don't you take me?

Without you what are my open eyes?
— The mirror useless, my eyes pagan!
Aridity of desert after desert...

Even the shadow of my hands,
Random flexing of my uncertain fingers,
— Strange shadow in vain movements.

關雎 / "The Ospreys"

Since I'm kinda burned out with reading 莊子 Zhuangzi, which makes up a sizable part of the classical Chinese textbook I've been working through for the past two years, I recently picked up a different textbook, 古汉语入门, published by the Beijing Language and Culture University Press and given to me by Dr. Jianjun Zeng. One of the neat things about this book is that it comes with a CD of readings of all the texts, which in the case of poetry makes learning characters easier. Of course, since this is 文言文 classical Chinese we're talking about, "easier" is a relative term:  the ancient meaning of a character is not guaranteed to parallel its modern meaning, and there are all kinds of invisible grammatical issues to deal with, not to mention the centuries (or millennia) of textual analysis, self-reference, and other things that come with the territory. As was pointed out in an essay on the difficulty of Chinese,

A passage in classical Chinese can be understood only if you already know what the passage says in the first place. This is because classical Chinese really consists of several centuries of esoteric anecdotes and in-jokes written in a kind of terse, miserly code for dissemination among a small, elite group of intellectually-inbred bookworms who already knew the whole literature backwards and forwards, anyway.

 It's a little hyperbolic, but only a little.

The poem below, 關雎 , is the first poem of the 詩經 Classic of Poetry, AKA the Book of Songs or Book of Odes, and its meaning has been the subject of debate for centuries. Yours truly, who is no 名士, has nothing to contribute in that respect, but I have produced an English rendition that I hope you, dear reader, enjoy. The more I read the original the more stark it feels, and I've tried to recreate that here.

微臣
史大偉


---


關雎


關關雎鳩 在河之洲
窈窕淑女 君子好逑
參差荇菜 左右流之
窈窕淑女 寤寐求之
求之不得 寤寐思服
悠哉悠哉 輾轉反側
參差荇菜 左右采之
窈窕淑女 琴瑟友之
參差荇菜 左右芼之
窈窕淑女 鍾鼓樂之

***

"The Ospreys"

"Guan guan"- the cry of ospreys on the river sandbar
The graceful, virtuous woman is a fine match for a gentleman

Here and there she picks water plants of different sizes
He seeks the graceful, virtuous woman night and day

Seeking but not finding, night and day he yearns for her
Endless nights of tossing and turning

Here and there she plucks water plants of different sizes
The graceful, virtuous woman, befriended by zither and harp

Here and there she chooses water plants of different sizes
The graceful, virtuous woman, pleased by bells and drums

"Provincetown, off-season"

Here's a poem I wrote last week while Tracey and I were traveling around southern New England. I wrote a couple others, but this was the best of the bunch.


"Provincetown, off-season"

A far piece to get here,
through villages nigh smug
in their quaintness, and then a stretch
of shuttered family resorts and lifeless restaurants.
Any deeper into the fall-- God forbid
one come in winter!-- and everything here
would be locked up, too, but we made it
just in time
to be only slightly disappointed.

Were we the shopping sort, the town would
reek of pointlessness;
but as we are not,
the glow of lamps in people's homes, the
thoughtless curvature of the streets,
lights on the Pilgrim Monument, and
the taste of a pocketed Narragansett tallboy
all go hand in hand
with the creeping air of desolation
and the click of drag queens' heels on the pavement.



(written 21-22 October 2014, edited 27 October 2014)

Scott's Stash: Cursed

The storage box wherein all the CDs my brother gave me a long while back still gets opened from time to time, either because I get tired of what's on my hard drive and in my LP collection, or I'm in the mood to listen to something new that is also old while driving, since I probably ain't never gonna give up physical media. (老頭混蛋萬歲, motherfuckers.) Anyway, I was digging through said box the other day and ran across Cursed, by German death metal band Morgoth. I suspect this one of those albums that my brother got, for whatever reason, from Drew, because it isn't something I imagine him buying.

I'll keep this short, because there isn't a lot to say. My overall impression was neither positive nor negative, because Cursed is a perfectly serviceable album. Released in 1991, I can't imagine anyone being overly stoked when they first heard it, but I can also see it getting something along the lines of an honorable mention in year-end lists. There are some good riffs here and there, and the vocalist, Marc Grewe, often makes me wonder if I'm listening to a side project of Chuck Schuldiner's. A few songs have doomy passages that I dig, too, but overall Morgoth doesn't leave an impression, save that of a band that put out a record that couldn't stand up against those released by their Scandinavian (viz. Where No Life Dwells by Unleashed) or Floridian (e.g. Morbid Angel's Blessed Are the Sick) cousins that same year. 

That said, you could still put on Cursed at a party, or as background music at a meeting of non-metalheads, and probably draw some looks or disparaging comments from non-hessians and associated boring fucks. If, say, you're too busy pumping the keg at said party to rebut every snide remark, yet refuse to let someone else control the music, then Cursed is a safe bet: you, the metalhead, won't hate listening to it, but you won't get pissed if you get distracted by doing your friends the inestimable favor of pouring them drinks.

The above may be damning Morgoth's Cursed with faint praise, but according to the Encyclopedia Metallum, they got increasingly shitty as the '90s progressed, so I think a review wherein one's band is compared to Death and not mocked for later missteps is an of ex post facto thumbs up. And really, dudes, it's a decent record; if you come across it, give it a listen, but I can't recommend seeking it out.

On that note, time for some fuckin' Morbid Angel and annual fretting over (one of) the heavy metal novels I intend to write, I Was A Teenage Beast of the Apocalypse.  Later, dudes!

How to spend a Saturday afternoon (and then write about it two days later)

Bom dia, dudes. For best results w/r/t reading the following, do as yours truly: fetch yourself a fairly high-ABV beer and sip it slowly, letting the booze wash over but not drown you. Here we go.

Work on the novel proceeds apace, albeit not as quickly as I'd like. (This is a sentence I should probably have stashed away in a text file on my desktop for rapid cut/paste purposes, given how often I seem to use it, even in correspondence with myself.) I've been busy editing a book for a former professor, but more than that I'm having a hard time keeping focused on the early 16th century: I'm continually reminded, via the books I read, that all the cross-cultural action in the Indian Ocean and environs really starts heating up in the latter half of that century. Still, I'm not going to abandon Anacleto and Agnese Stornello. We've gone through a lot, and as difficult as it's been to tell their story, I'm going to see it through.

Speaking of reading, my friend Linda recently convened the first meeting of a sci-fi book club, which was a lot of fun, and we're going to be reading Dan Simmons' Hyperion next. I picked up a copy at Kaboom Books, Houston's best used book store, and will start it as soon as I finish C.R. Boxer's Fidalgos in the Far East 1550-1770*, which I'd wanted to read forever and is overflowing with great stories about the Portuguese empire's outposts east of India, i.e., Macau, Timor, and, while it lasted, Nagasaki. Boxer is a really good writer, and it's a damned shame that his work is mostly out of print and therefore runs to the costly end of the spectrum; in the Portuguese-language sphere, the similarly prolific Padre Manuel Teixeira suffers the same fate. During the same visit to Kaboom I also found a couple early '70s Clark Ashton Smith paperbacks, which I think represent the first of his books I've held in my own hands. Color me excited. Also on the reading list is The Dead of Night: The Ghost Stories of Oliver Onions, from which comes the title of the excellent weird/horror/supernatural fiction blog The Stars at Noonday and of which I've begun the first story, "The Beckoning Fair One". Since last night I've been waiting for bedtime so I can find out how it ends.

Perhaps the day will come when I have a ton of money and will reprint some of the many books that have existed and fallen into undeserved obscurity. Demand won't be high, but who cares? There has to be at least one or two other dudes out there willing to pay to read decent editions of little-known tomes. I know that for a fact, since I'm one of them.

I'd originally intended to talk about music as well as books, but I've got enough music-related thoughts piled up to justify another couple posts, one of which will be the return of the "Scott's Stash" series. Something'll be up within a couple days, so stay tuned.

再見, caro leitor!

-D.A.S.


*N.B. Between the time I started writing this post and when it actually hit the World Wide Web, I finished Boxer's book. Predictably, it was great.

Bullshit

"Ugh, I'm looking forward to tomorrow night, when everything's done. I have too much bullshit scheduled."

"Why? Everything you have to do tomorrow- karate class, Portuguese class, working at the beer store- is stuff you like."

"It's still bullshit!"

If you can't tell, dear reader, I really hate doin' shit. To the point, apparently, where I can't refer to any activity in strictly positive terms. I do like each of the things listed above, though.

Camilo Pessanha: "Quando voltei encontrei os meus passos"

It's been a while since I translated a Camilo Pessanha poem. I started on this one a couple months ago and polished it up today, though it could still use work, as is always the case. In keeping with my recent thoughts on literal vs. poetic translation- mainly inspired by conversations with my wife- I've taken a little more liberty with this poem, though I've left in Pessanha's beloved dashes and ellipses. I encountered another discrepancy between the original Clepsidra text and the one used in the volume translated by Rui Cascais; naturally, I've followed the original.

Diverta-se, folks, and, as always, obrigado por ler a minha escrita.

---
 
Quando voltei encontrei os meus passos
Ainda frescos sobre a húmida areia.
A fugitiva hora, reevoquei-a,
— Tão rediviva! nos meus olhos baços...

Olhos turvos de lágrimas contidas.
— Mesquinhos passos, porque doidejastes
Assim transviados, e depois tornastes
Ao ponto das primeiras despedidas?

Onde fostes sem tino, ao vento vário,
Em redor, como as aves num aviário,
Até que a asita fofa lhes faleça...

Toda essa extensa pista — para quê?
Se há-de vir apagar-vos a maré,
Como as do novo rasto que começa...

***

When I returned I found my steps
Still fresh on the wet sand.
I recalled the fugitive hour,
— So revived! In my dimmed eyes...

Eyes turbid with tears held back.
— Halting steps, why did you play the fool
so misled, and then return
To the point of the first goodbyes?

Where you went mindlessly into the fickle wind,
Around, like the birds in an aviary,
Until the soft wings die...

All this long path- for what?
If the tide comes to wash you away,
Like the new trail that begins...

"On the Passing of Lloyd Martin Smith"

 "On the Passing of Lloyd Martin Smith"


Plenus annis abiit, plenus honoribus - Pliny the Younger



Pall Mall straights,
smoked down to the last knuckle
and chased with bad coffee.

(Go ahead and take a gander
all the way to the bottom of your cup
if you don't believe me.)

Good thing a man ain't judged
by the quality of the cup he pours,
but rather by the spirit in which
it's made
and offered.

Anyway,
alas:

Nigh three decades of practical
advice, plain speech, judgment
laid out just like that
or reserved, when that was
called for,
have ended.

There'll be no more talk of
Vietnam, Newton High,
CB radio, books, the flora
and fauna of East Texas,
memories of Annell,
Marine Corps shit, uranium mining
in New Mexico,
all the things that made/make
life interesting
while seated at the counter, ashtrays
filling, coffee cups emptying,
books always within reach.

Death doesn't snatch life away
quite as quickly as we think.
Shit hits the fan before we
know it, sure, but history shows
that it doesn't always
rob our memory blind.

Dirt curving from county to private
roads; the cattle guards we built
in '91, long since filled in;
the rich, sweet, never quite identifiable
taste of well water; the woods
worthy of their own poetic cycle.

Memory bleeds
like the wound it is,
but we can stanch it
with Pall Mall straights
and bad coffee
here on this dining room table.

Admire the model trains,
the deer rifle,
the shortwave radio,
the heaping plates of fried venison
and okra, then set them aside

and let's do what we can:
forgive the bad coffee,
and send the man's spirit
out among the pines,
where it belongs.

This is the last day of 34 years' worth of days.

Since I'll be 35 in six and a half hours or so, I thought I'd chime in with some observations about life as a dude who hasn't quite reached the median age for white males of his particular nationality.

 (Some of these things are knowledge gained since my 30th birthday; most of them are slight variations on the same slack-jawed opinions I've held for a decade or more. In some cases, those opinions are watertight to the point of being balls-out facts, and should be identifiable as such; arguments against will be regarded as evidence of mental deficiency on the part of the arguer. Under no circumstances should anything I say be taken as gospel, save for those words which are pure scripture, of which there are far more than one would imagine.)

-English is a pretty awesome language, primarily because it knows how flexible it can be in terms of grammar and its absorption of foreign words and terms. Other languages are just as flexible, however; thinking only of those of which I feel I have a decent understanding, Spanish, Portuguese, and Mandarin are all equally chock full of loanwords and comparative homonyms. (Please don't let my own ignorance stop you, dear reader, from finding examples of your own.) English has particular words that are utterly amazing: among my favorites are sigh, wreckage, hoard, sword, eave, roof, lamp, betwixt... the point is, it doesn't matter. Every language has a bevy (add that to the aforementioned list of awesome English words) of words that are just fucking awesome, and the full comprehension of which requires some knowledge of the native tongue. Long story short, learn thine own tongue well, and learn others as equally as circumstances allow.

-Heavy metal, as Helloween and I have both stated repeatedly, is the law.

 -Sleep (the band, and the experience, too, though the latter isn't under discussion here) is still deserving of a church dedicated to their music. If I ever find myself alone in the world and in possession of serious funds, I will erect a temple in which the massive hymn known to the world as "Dopesmoker" or "Jerusalem" is always played, to be accompanied by censers of the finest ganja swung by priests of the highest, and highest, caliber.
 
-With age, friendship becomes an increasingly valuable commodity, supplanted as it can be by family ties, work, and distance. I've long valued friendship as one of the greatest of human endeavours, since it is not based solely upon biology or habit, and is one of the most underrated and under-described of relationships. It's a shame, seeing as how since friendship requires- or at least implies- an equality rarely required of other relationships. Friendship can be boon or bane, but for those who take part of it, the benefits or disadvantages do not matter, and that is wherein lies its greatness: hearts and minds are tethered, by choice, to a common purpose, and severing such a bond is no easy task.

-H. Bruce Franklin's introduction to Herman Melville's Mardi is wont to make one put said novel down before reading it. Fortunately, for those with stronger literary constitutions, the book is somewhat easier reading than the insane introduction would have one believe. (I may change my mind once I'm further along in the book, of course.)

-If you want to lift weights at home, use kettlebells.

-Smoking is fantastic, but it's probably a good idea to quit.

-Read more.

-Read more. (Redundant, surely, but it's the best advice I could ever give.)

-MC Lars rules. So do MC Frontalot, YTCracker, and Adam Warrock: all of them have written songs that have helped yours truly get through some hard times, and I all but guarantee that if you look, you'll find one that'll help you too. Nerdcore is rising, perpetually. Disagree? Format c:/ and move along.

-I've learned to dress well over the past few years. One aspect of putting your sartorial shit together is shoes. The Corpse recommends Sawa Shoes, which may cost a few more bones than you're used to paying for casual footwear, but trust me, motherfucker, they're as comfortable and durable as they come, and far more stylish that you are capable of appreciating at first glance. These shoes are awesome, end of story.

-"Don't be a dick, be a dude!" You will always underestimate, usually without knowing it, how much you value folks. Not just friends, but family, coworkers, acquaintances, enemies, significant others, friends' significant others, relatives, pets, waitstaff, mail carriers, apartment managers, bartenders, neighbors, the dudes (m/f) at convenience stores. Say hey to them all, treat them as people, give 'em the thumbs up or a high five. We're all dudes, and a world with more dudes than dicks is a better world.

- Be kind to animals. Whether or not you eat them, you can't go wrong acknowledging the inherent dignity of nonhuman species. Decency toward animals, I've found, usually reflects in decency toward humans. (Note that I say "usually".)

-"Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will."

34 down, 51 to go. Later, folks, and thanks for sticking around with me for as long as you have.

Your friend,
D.A. Smith

Possessed by the Wrath of the Ale Whores of the Staffordshire Hoard, or, Some Thoughts on Symbel

A couple years ago, when I wrote about the Astral Rune Bastards album I liked so much, I mentioned that Sceot Arcwielder, the dude responsible for it, was a member of Bretwaldas of Heathen Doom. He's also the sole member of Symbel, an outfit (if a one-man operation can be called such) whose songs specialize in, to quote part of their first album's title, "hymns and counsel of Anglo-Saxon heathenry". I've enjoyed Symbel since I started listening to them, though if forced to choose a Sceot Arcwielder project I'd probably pick Bretwaldas. Symbel has been patchy in its output, with too many memorable choruses or riffs watered down by generic pagan/black metal passages. Ale Whores of Mercia and We Drink- Hymns and Counsel of Anglo-Saxon Heathenry are by no means bad, but they're not masterpieces, either: they're unsophisticated and raw, and the songwriting and performance sometimes just barely competent, as one would expect from such an atavistic celebration of pre-Norman England. If you aren't already into this kind of metal, style- and production-wise, Symbel could be either a great or terrible introduction, and I encourage you to find out for yourself. Read the next paragraphs before you do so, however- not because it invalidates Symbel's early work, but because I have more to say about what comes after the aforementioned albums.

In 2013 Symbel released Gyddigg- Possessed by the Fury of Wod. The production is better, the songwriting stronger (but still not perfect, as many songs are longer than they probably need to be), and the dedication to pre-Christian heathenry as vital as ever. Heavy metal's penchant for history is one of my favorite things about this kind of music, and Symbel, for all their faults, don't fail to deliver the historical goods. The dude from Astral Rune Bastards who spent so much time watching the X-Files and looking for UFOs in an English field also clearly spent way more time in museums, archives, and the English countryside learning about the history of his country- experience he applied to Symbel.

Nowhere is this more obvious than in the song "Folded Cross", which was released only a couple days ago as part of the Hammerwych EP. Based on the recent discovery of the Staffordshire hoard of Anglo-Saxon artifacts, "Folded Cross" is Symbel evolved. The production is along the lines of that heard on Gyddigg, which makes sense as it was part of those recording sessions, yet there's something about this song as a whole that just fucking nails it- "it" being that intangible chord buried so centrally in the hearts of all metalheads that when struck forces fists into the air, beers down gullets, and hearts to surge with excitement and passion. I like to think of myself as a rational, reasonable dude, but "Folded Cross" makes me want to pledge my proverbial sword to the pagan king of Mercia, who is the subject of the song, and stand against the encroaching Christian masses. That's what good heavy metal does.

Symbel may never rank among the greatest of pagan metal bands, but who cares? Paganism isn't about conformity, and it's certainly not about polish. If it was, chumps would still be erecting temples to Athena, Saturn, and all the other god/desses who demanded as much time, effort, and devotion as the impaled Nazarene (GET IT? GET IT?) who has commanded so much of the world's attention for the past two millennia. As far as I'm concerned, gods are only as good as the art they inspire, and by that standard, whatever deities Sceot Arcwielder worships are doing themselves a favor by imparting increasingly promising gifts of music upon this particular mortal follower. Symbel rules, and it looks as if that will be the case for a while. Here's to more heathen drinking metal!

Later,

D.A. Smith

Camilo Pessanha: "Foi um dia de inúteis agonias."

I've been sitting on this translation for a couple weeks, trying to produce a version that isn't so literal, but Pessanha's imagery doesn't lends itself to easy translation since it's highly symbolic and I won't claim to know what the symbols represent, seeing as how I'm the world's worst English major and the symbols aren't necessarily geared toward English-speakers in the first place. I consider all my translations works in progress, though, so the day may come when I revise them. If I do so, they'll end up on my homepage, with notice given here.

If you don't speak Portuguese, yet find yourself intrigued by the original poem and/or doubting my translation thereof, you may feel compelled to learn enough of that awesome language to read the poem yourself- or you could consult Adam Mahler's collection of Pessanha translations, as it turns out that not only are there are others out there translating the poems of Macau's preeminent opium addict, but they're doing a fine job of it, too (complete with notes about Pessanha's life that I've never seen in English). Alas, his selection of poems is slight- the one below isn't included- but I'd wager that there will be more in the future, given the translator's love of Pessanha's work.

The most important thing, of course, is that you enjoy the poetry itself, and so I give you the untitled poem that begins "Foi um dia de inúteis agonias." I hope I've done Senhor Pessanha justice.

Boa leitura, amigos, e até breve!

微臣
史大偉

---

Foi um dia de inúteis agonias.
Dia de sol, inundado de sol!...
Fulgiam nuas as espadas frias...
Dia de sol, inundado de sol!...

Foi um dia de falsas alegrias.
Dália a esfolhar-se, — o seu mole sorriso...
Voltavam os ranchos das romarias.
Dália a esfolhar-se, — o seu mole sorriso...

Dia impressível mais que os outros dias.
Tão lúcido... Tão pálido... Tão lúcido!...
Difuso de teoremas, de teorias...

O dia fútil mais que os outros dias!
Minuete de discretas ironias...
Tão lúcido... Tão pálido... Tão lúcido!...

***


It was a day of useless agonies.
A day of sun, flooded with sun!...
The cold swords shone, naked...
A day of sun, flooded with sun!

It was a day of false pleasures.
The leafless dahlia, — her indolent smile...
The crowds returned from the festivals.
The leafless dahlia, — her indolent smile...

A day more impressionable than other days.
So clear... so pallid... so lucid!
Diffusion of theorems, of theories...

The day more futile than other days!
Minuet of discreet ironies...
So clear... so pallid... so lucid!

Camilo Pessanha: "Depois da luta e depois da conquista"

June 24 marks the day in A.D. 1622 that an outnumbered and outgunned Portuguese force, composed of some determined Jesuits, a large number of slaves, and very few actual soldiers, repulsed a Dutch attack on Macau. You can read about it here in Portuguese, or here and here in English. The day was celebrated as a public holiday until Macau was returned to Chinese control in 1999.

Believe it or not, I had all but forgotten about Dia de Macau (which, by the way, is also the feast day of Saint John the Baptist, a fact that takes on a grim aspect when you read about Dutch attackers being decapitated by Portuguese-owned slaves), so my decision to translate the particular poem below, with all its martial overtones, is purely coincidental. Enjoy, and boa leitura!


---


Depois da luta e depois da conquista
Fiquei só! Fora um acto antipático!
Deserta a Ilha, e no lençol aquático
Tudo verde, verde, — a perder de vista.

Porque vos fostes, minhas caravelas,
Carregadas de todo o meu tesoiro?
— Longas teias de luar de lhama de oiro,
Legendas a diamantes das estrelas!

Quem vos desfez, formas inconsistentes
Por cujo amor escalei a muralha,
— Leão armado, uma espada nos dentes?

Felizes vós, ó mortos da batalha!
Sonhais, de costas, nos olhos abertos
Reflectindo as estrelas, boquiabertos...


***

After the fight and after the conquest
I alone remained! It was an unpleasant act!
The island deserted, and on the aquatic sheet
Everything green, green, — extending beyond sight.

Why did you go, my caravels,
Laden with all my treasure?
— Long webs of cloth-of-gold moonlight,
Inscriptions to the diamonds of the stars!

Who undid you, inconsistent forms
For whose love I climbed the wall,
— An armed lion, a sword in my teeth?

Happy you are, oh slain in battle!
You dream, on your backs, your open eyes
Reflecting the stars, staring...

"Fonógrafo" de Camilo Pessanha

Time for another Pessanha poem in English.  This may mark the first time I've included punctuation of my own in the translation. Pessanha's can be pretty idiosyncratic, but it usually doesn't require elaboration; however, in the case of "Quebrou-se agora orvalhada e velada" I felt the need to add a comma to make it work in English.

As for the poem itself, there's something sinister about the first stanza that brings Thomas Ligotti to mind, and I really dig the last two stanzas' synaesthetic quality, which feels like quintessential Pessanha to me. I believe the title has been in use since the first publication of Clepsidra, and what a title it is- I wonder what kind of record(s) Pessanha might have listened to that led to this poem.


Since I'm on the subject of poetry, João Botas over at Macau Antigo recently posted about the stone tablets found at the Camões grotto in Macau. The tablets contain a number of poems in Portuguese, English, Italian, Spanish, and Latin about Camões himself and Macau. When I was there I didn't take the time to read them properly, but I found it pretty neat that they even existed: I'm obviously not the only one taken with 澳門 and its connection to Portugal's national poet.

Boa leitura, friends.

---

Fonógrafo


Vai declamando um cómico defunto.
Uma plateia ri, perdidamente,
Do bom jarreta... E há um odor no ambiente.
A cripta e a pó, — do anacrónico assunto.

Muda o registo, eis uma barcarola:
Lírios, lírios, águas do rio, a lua...
Ante o Seu corpo o sonho meu flutua
Sobre um paul, — extática corola.

Muda outra vez: gorjeios, estribilhos
Dum clarim de oiro — o cheiro de junquilhos,
Vívido e agro! — tocando a alvorada...

Cessou. E, amorosa, a alma das cornetas
Quebrou-se agora orvalhada e velada.
Primavera. Manhã. Que eflúvio de violetas!


***

Phonograph


A defunct comic spouting off.
An audience laughs, madly,
at the old fool... and there is a smell in the air.
The crypt and dust, — of the anachronistic topic.

The register changes, here is a barcarole:
Lilies, lilies, waters of the river, the moon...
Before its body my dream floats
Over a marsh, — ecstatic corolla.

It changes again: trills, refrains
Of a golden clarion — the scent of jonquils,
Vivid and acrid! — playing the reveille...

It ceased. And, amorous, the soul of the trumpets
Is broken now, dewy and veiled.
Spring. Morning. What an effluvium of violets!

"Interrogação" de Camilo Pessanha

Not much to say about this one. Among Camilo Pessanha's poems, this one is strikes me as being one of the more straightforwardly romantic. That said, the sense of sad, bitter longing present in so much of his work is on display here as well, more or less stripped of symbolist imagery. I have no idea where the title comes from.

I couldn't find a satisfactory way to translate the first line of the second stanza, which reads weirdly in Portuguese too, and the shifting verb tenses don't make a lot of sense to me, but I hope you enjoy the poem anyway.

***

Interrogação

 
Não sei se isto é amor. Procuro o teu olhar,
Se alguma dor me fere, em busca de um abrigo;
E apesar disso, crê! nunca pensei num lar
Onde fosses feliz, e eu feliz contigo.

Por ti nunca chorei nenhum ideal desfeito.
E nunca te escrevi nenhuns versos românticos.
Nem depois de acordar te procurei no leito
Como a esposa sensual do Cântico dos Cânticos.

Se é amar-te não sei. Não sei se te idealizo
A tua cor sadia, o teu sorriso terno...
Mas sinto-me sorrir de ver esse sorriso
Que me penetra bem, como este sol de Inverno.

Passo contigo a tarde e sempre sem receio
Da luz crepuscular, que enerva, que provoca.
Eu não demoro o olhar na curva do teu seio
Nem me lembrei jamais de te beijar na boca.

Eu não sei se é amor. Será talvez começo...
Eu não sei que mudança a minha alma pressente...
Amor não sei se o é, mas sei que te estremeço,
Que adoecia talvez de te saber doente.

---

Interrogation


I don't know if this is love. I seek your gaze,
If any pain wounds me, in search of refuge;
Nevertheless, believe me! I never thought of a home
Where you would be happy, and me happy with you.

For you I never cried an unmade ideal.
And I never wrote you any romantic verses.
Nor after waking up did I seek you in bed
Like the sensual wife of the Song of Songs.

I don't know if this is loving you. I don't know if I idealize you
Your healthy color, your tender smile...
But I feel myself smile to see that smile
That penetrates me so, like this winter sun.

I pass the afternoon with you and always without fear
Of crepuscular light that enervates, provokes.
I do not let my gaze linger on the curve of your breast
Nor did I remember to kiss your mouth.

I don't know if this is love. Maybe the beginning...
I don't know what change my soul foresees...
I don't know that love is what it is, but I know you make me tremble,
That I might have sickened to know you ill.

Not poems.

I was going to talk about how I've managed to avoid smoking cigarettes for over two months, but that's boring. I may give in any day, which would consign me to the massive pile of would-be ex-smokers. If I end up there, so be it; if I don't, or do, I have no reason to discuss it. Nothing will make me feel better about giving up smoking, and nothing will make me feel okay about smoking.

All I've posted lately has been poetry, none of it mine and all of it better than anything I could write. Maybe someone wishes I would write something else. As the days accrete, I grow increasingly convinced that, as bad as I am at it, I am better suited to translating other people's poetry than I am offering up my own; but, being a self-involved shit like pretty much every other member of my generation and species, I will continue to post my own work here when I have something I think is worthwhile.

In the interim, allow me to suggest the following things that might enrich your life, dear reader.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, one of the best TV shows ever aired, along with
Twin Peaks and The X-Files. (Not web pages, obviously.)

Mercer Arboretum.

Ursula K. Le Guin's website.

The Macau Streets homepage.

And that's it.

"Madalena" de Camilo Pessanha

Time for another Camilo Pessanha poem. This one has given me more trouble than others, and while I'm not really satisfied with parts of my translation I don't think I'm capable of improving on it at this point. Perhaps when my Portuguese is better and I have a better grasp of Pessanha's poetics.

As has been the case with my other translations of Pessanha's poems, I've tried to stick as closely to the original as I can. This results in the loss of the rhyme and rhythm of the original, and my translation- and pretty much anyone's, I'd wager- suffers for it, but there's no way to maintain the rhyme scheme in English. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it.



Madalena

          ...e lhe regou de lágrimas os pés, e os
          enxugou com os cabelos da sua cabeça.

          Evangelho de S. Lucas



Ó Madalena, ó cabelos de rastos,
Lírio poluído, branca flor inútil...
Meu coração, velha moeda fútil,
E sem relevo, os caracteres gastos,

De resignar-se torpemente dúctil...
Desespero, nudez de seios castos,
Quem também fosse, ó cabelos de rastos,
Ensanguentado, enxovalhado, inútil,

Dentro do peito, abominável cómico!
Morrer tranquilo, — o fastio da cama...
Ó redenção do mármore anatómico,

Amargura, nudez de seios castos!...
Sangrar, poluir-se, ir de rastos na lama,
Ó Madalena, ó cabelos de rastos!

***

Magdalene

          ...and she washed his feet with tears, and
          dried them with the hair of her head.

          Gospel of Saint Luke


Oh Magdalene, oh trailing hair,
Polluted lily, useless white flower...
My heart, old useless coin,
Indistinct, the features worn down,

Shamefully pliant in resignation...
Despair, nudity of chaste breasts,
Those who also were, oh trailing hair,
Bloody, soiled, useless,

Within your breast, abominable comedian!
To die peacefully — the tedium of bed...
Oh redemption of anatomical marble,

Bitterness, nudity of chaste breasts!...
To bleed, pollute yourself, crawl through the mud,
Oh Magdalene, oh trailing hair!

Laxmanrao Sardessai: "O Mistério Aclara-se" / "The Mystery Grows Clear"

As promised/threatened, here is the translation of another Portuguese-language poem. This one comes from the Goan author Laxmanrao Sardessai (1904-1986), who wrote short stories and essays in Marathi and Konkani, as well as poetry in Portuguese. More of his poems can be found at the Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese.

My criteria for choosing Laxmanrao Sardessai over another poet were effectively nonexistent, almost random, and the next time I translate a Goan poem it may well be from another writer. This may be the first time this poem has appeared in English; if so, I hope I've done Sardessai's work justice. Any and all blame for poor translation should, as always, be apportioned solely to yours truly.

Obrigado, caro leitor.

---

"O Mistério Aclara-se"

O mistério aclara-se
E ai vejo definido o meu ideal,
No céu, no mar e na terra
Vejo a mesma mão,
Invisível e misteriosa,
Modelar o destino da humanidade.
No azul do oceano
No verde da terra
A mesma graça vejo
Estender-se na sua simplicidade
E o mistério aclara-se,
E aclara-se o meu espírito,
Confuso perante a difusão
De cores e linhas,
De formas e matéria
E suas infinitas intrincâncias.
Evapora-se a ilusão
E desponta no horizonte,
Vasto e claro,
O sol uno e brilhante,
A dirigir os meus passos
Para a divina realidade!

***

"The Mystery Grows Clear"

The mystery grows clear
And there I see defined my ideal,
In the sky, in the sea and in the earth
I see the same hand
Invisible and mysterious,
Shape humanity's destiny.
In the blue of the ocean
In the green of the earth
I see the same grace
Extend itself in its simplicity
And the mystery grows clear,
And my spirit grows clear,
Confused by the diffusion
Of colors and lines,
Of forms and matter
and their infinite intricacies.
The illusion evaporates
And emerges on the horizon,
Vast and clear,
The sun one and bright,
Directing my steps
Toward the divine reality!

"Olvido" de Camilo Pessanha

Here's another of Camilo Pessanha's poems. Once again, the title appears in one version of Clepsydra, while in another no title is used and the poem is referred to by its first line.

Some time ago I ran across the Archive of Goan Writing in Portuguese, much of which is poetry and, perhaps more unusual, much of which was written after 1961, when India reclaimed Goa from Portugal. I haven't combed through it in anything but a cursory manner yet, but I suspect I'll find something in there I want to translate. If/when I do, I'll post it here. I also intend on collecting all of my translations on my homepage, but I probably won't get around to that until next week.

In unrelated news, it's been over six weeks since I last smoked a cigarette. I do believe I've finally managed to quit.


 ***

Olvido

Desce por fim sobre o meu coração
O olvido. Irrevocável. Absoluto.
Envolve-o grave como véu de luto.
Podes, corpo, ir dormir no teu caixão.

A fronte já sem rugas, distendidas
As feições, na imortal serenidade,
Dorme enfim sem desejo e sem saudade
Das coisas não logradas ou perdidas.

O barro que em quimera modelaste
Quebrou-se-te nas mãos. Viça uma flor...
Pões-lhe o dedo, ei-la murcha sobre a haste...

Ias andar, sempre fugia o chão,
Até que desvairavas, do terror.
Corria-te um suor, de inquietação...

***

Oblivion

Descending at last over my heart
Oblivion. Irrevocable. Absolute.
Covering it as solemnly as a mourning veil.
You may, corpse, go sleep in your coffin.

The face now without wrinkles, features
distended in immortal serenity,
Sleeps at last without desire and without longing
For things unobtained or lost.

The clay in which you modeled a chimera
Shattered in your hands. If a flower grows...
Put your finger on it, and behold, it withers on the stem...

You went wandering, the ground always disappearing,
Until you went mad with terror.
You ran with the sweat of disquiet...

"Estátua" de Camilo Pessanha

I'm in the midst of reading Paulo Franchetti's O Essencial sobre Camilo Pessanha, which dissects most of the myths surrounding the man, e.g., his reasons for leaving Portugal, his supposed unwillingness to write down his poems, his terrible personal hygiene, the level of his knowledge of Chinese, his relationship with his son and the concubine he had in place of a wife, and so on. Franchetti argues, based on available evidence, that for various reasons some of the people charged (often by themselves) with guarding Pessanha's legacy saw fit to distort the truth and give posterity the image of a heartbroken man who lived in squalor among the Chinese, ignored the mores of Portuguese colonial society, and had little time for anything but opium. Of course, it's never that simple.

Franchetti also delves into the literary aspects of Pessanha's work, which is where I am now. I'm sure it, along with the criticism in Rui Cascais' book, will give me more to think about when I next sit down to read and translate Pessanha's poems. I recommend Franchetti's book to anyone who, like me, not only enjoys Pessanha's poetry but finds the man himself fascinating. You'll have to read it in Portuguese, though; não há uma tradução inglês.

Anyway, here's another poem from Clepsydra for you to enjoy. Like all the others I've translated, I'm not completely happy with the results, but that's how it goes, isn't it?

Oh, and here's another estátua de Camilo Pessanha.

Adeus, dudes.

---


Estátua

Cansei-me de tentar o teu segredo:
No teu olhar sem cor, — frio escalpelo,
O meu olhar quebrei, a debatê-lo,
Como a onda na crista dum rochedo.

Segredo dessa alma e meu degredo
E minha obsessão! Para bebê-lo
Fui teu lábio oscular, num pesadelo,
Por noites de pavor, cheio de medo.

E o meu ósculo ardente, alucinado,
Esfriou sobre o mármore correcto
Desse entreaberto lábio gelado...

Desse lábio de mármore, discreto,
Severo como um túmulo fechado,
Sereno como um pélago quieto.

 ***

Statue

I tired of trying to expose your secret:
Under your colorless gaze, — a cold scalpel,
My look crumbled, debating it,
Like the wave on the crest of a cliff.

Secret of this soul and my exile
And my obsession! To drink it,
Was to kiss your lips, in a nightmare,
In nights of terror, full of fear.

And my burning kiss, hallucinating,
Went cold on the marble proper,
These half-open frozen lips...

These marble lips, discreet,
Severe as a sealed tomb,
Serene as a quiet sea.