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the three poems we have chosen today, well, there' a malady there's relief.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
Spleen
I’m like the king of a rain-country, rich
but sterile, young but with an old wolf’s itch,
one who escapes Fénelon’s apologues,
and kills the day in boredom with his dogs;
nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry,
his people dying by the balcony;
the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite
no longer gets him through a single night;
his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb;
even the ladies of the court, for whom
all kings are beautiful, cannot put on
shameful enough dresses for this skeleton;
the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent
washes to cleanse the poisoned element;
even in baths of blood, Rome’s legacy,
our tyrants’ solace in senility,
we cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food
is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood.
Spleen
I’m like the king of a rain-country, rich
but sterile, young but with an old wolf’s itch,
one who escapes Fénelon’s apologues,
and kills the day in boredom with his dogs;
nothing cheers him, darts, tennis, falconry,
his people dying by the balcony;
the bawdry of the pet hermaphrodite
no longer gets him through a single night;
his bed of fleur-de-lys becomes a tomb;
even the ladies of the court, for whom
all kings are beautiful, cannot put on
shameful enough dresses for this skeleton;
the scholar who makes his gold cannot invent
washes to cleanse the poisoned element;
even in baths of blood, Rome’s legacy,
our tyrants’ solace in senility,
we cannot warm up his shot corpse, whose food
is syrup-green Lethean ooze, not blood.
________
TPB's notes: translated by robert lowell
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RABINDRANATH TAGORE
A moment's indulgence
I ask for a moment's indulgence to sit by your side. The works
that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.
Away from the sight of your face my heart knows no rest nor respite,
and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.
Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and
the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.
Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with you, and to sing
dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.
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TPB's notes: slightly modified by TPB ie the possessive adj from the archaic to now, etc
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RUMI
Silkworms
The hurt you embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can
change. A silkworm eating leaves
makes a cocoon. Each of us weaves
a chamber of leaves and sticks.
Silkworms begin to truly exist
as they disappear inside that room.
Without legs, we fly. When I stop
speaking, this poem will close,
and open its silent wings.
Silkworms
The hurt you embrace becomes joy.
Call it to your arms where it can
change. A silkworm eating leaves
makes a cocoon. Each of us weaves
a chamber of leaves and sticks.
Silkworms begin to truly exist
as they disappear inside that room.
Without legs, we fly. When I stop
speaking, this poem will close,
and open its silent wings.
_________
TPB's notes: not sure on translator -
it reads like a Rumi poem: the construct of meaning and mood are Ruminacious. any info on translator and source appreciated!
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