Verses by Mihai Eminescu, translated by Julia Kalman
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Why
Why does my pen linger idly, once so fervent on the inkstand?
Why am I not enticed by rhythmic numbers, work set aside unplanned?
Slumbering within the yellowed pages, why no longer do they unfold
Trochees, soaring iambs, and the frolicsome dactyls, bold?
Could I recount each hardship in the tapestry of my daily life,
You’d see the reasons are many to abandon this writer’s strife.
Thus I inquire, why embark on a righteous battle’s quest,
To reshape the ancient language, a task that seems a jest?
That mysterious feeling, dormant in your harp’s embrace,
Unraveled in theatrical verses, like unwrapping a precious case,
When fervently seeking a form to encapsulate,
To scribe tales as the world desires, history on water’s slate?
Yet, you would argue it’s better for my name to rise,
Penetrating minds of men, my verses a worldly prize,
Dedicating my rhymes to ladies, for instance,
Resolving the disgust within my soul through my intelligence.
My dear, this path has long been trodden, footsteps placed before,
In our age, peculiar bards try to be cumulus evermore,
Rendering their poems to the mighty and the refined,
Sung in cafes, echoing through salons, a noisy bind.
As life’s paths are narrow and burdened with strife,
They attempt to traverse through the protection of a skirt’s life,
Dedicating pamphlets to ladies whose husbands they aspire,
Hoping that becoming ministers will fulfill their desire.
Why Not
Why not write for name and glory, you might say,
Is there glory in speaking to an empty, desolate bay?
Today, passions of mortals are enslaved to an idle dream,
Glorification is an illusion, a pitiful scheme.
Shall I strain my lyre to sing of love? A chain
Shared fraternally among two or three in a lover’s domain.
What?
What? Shall I deceive my dulcet strings willingly,
Joining the chorus conducted by Menelaus, inevitably?
Today, often, woman, like the world, is a school,
Where one learns only pain, degradation, and ridicule,
In these academies of wisdom under Friday’s rule,
They often move from young to younger, a fool to a fool.
You see them welcoming students with pride in their class,
Until their school becomes ruins, a relic of the past.
Alas!
Alas! Still, you ponder the years when we dreamed,
Listening to old teachers mending the fabric of time, it seemed,
Collecting the corpses of moments from volumes old,
Searching for wisdom within the patchwork of things told?
With their gentle murmurs, a source of humdrum delight,
Winning with a lightheartedness the nerves of things to write,
They spun the scrip of the mind’s cog,
Swinging, now a planet, now an Egyptian king.
I Can
I can almost see the astronomer, with his black repose,
Gently, as from a box, extracting worlds from chaos,
Extending the black eternity, teaching us
Those epochs string together like beads on a thread.
Then, the world within the skull whirled like a mill,
Feeling, like Galileo, that the comedy was in motion.
Dazed and Confused
Dazed by dead tongues, planets, and the school’s dusty air,
We confused the poor teacher with a king eaten by moths.
Gazing at the worm-eaten beam from the ceiling, atop pillars,
We listened to Ramses’ speech and dreamed of blue eyes,
And on the margins of notebooks, we wrote sweet verses,
To a wild Clotilda or some other rose.
Before my eyes floated, with the mixture of time,
Either a sun, a king, or another domestic animal.
The scratching of pens added charm to this quiet,
We saw green waves of wheat, the ripple of a spring,
The head heavy on the bench, everything seemed infinite;
When it rang, we knew Ramses must have died.
At That Time
At that time, the imagined world for us had substance,
And, conversely, the real one seemed impossible.
Today, we barely perceive how barren and harsh
The path that can coexist with an honest heart is,
And in the common world, to dream is a peril,
For if you have illusions, you’re lost, and it’s a ridiculous ordeal.
From Now On
Therefore, from now on, you need not ask,
Why rhythmic numbers don’t divert me from my task,
Why do I sleep amidst the yellowed pages,
Iambic suitors, trochees, and frolicsome dactyls in stages.
If I were to continue in verses, I fear
That people of today might undeservedly cheer.
If I bear their hatred with ease and a smile,
Their praises would surely vex me after a while.
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Julia Kalman 