Saturday, February 23, 2013

Gerard Manley Hopkins in Portuguese!

I'm writing an article today for Mater & Magistra and I had to research some poetry... and I wondered if this poet has some of his work translated into Portuguese... and I found the most beautiful translation! I admit Hopkins' poetry is very difficult for me. I find that reading the translations in my native tongue, my Língua-Mãe, actually lifts a veil from his poetry. 

Now this is the kind of find that makes my day! I include two below. I found them here.

PARAGEM-PARAÍSO

 Uma noviça toma o céu
          Quis ir para um lugar
                Onde não falte fonte,
      Nem grasse gelo áspero e bifronte;
           Só lírios para olhar.
            Pedi para ficar
                  Onde o vento não ouse,
      Silente, a verde vaga ao porto pouse;
            Longe, o clamor do mar.


HEAVEN-HAVEN / A nun takes the veil
I have desired to go / Where springs not fail, / To fields where flies no sharp and sided hail / And a few lilies blow. / / And I have asked to be / Where no storms come, / Where the green swell is in the havens dumb, / And out of the swing of the sea.


A grandeza de Deus
A grandeza de Deus o mundo inteiro a admira.
    Em ouro ou ouropel faísca o seu fulgor;
    Grandiosa em cada grão, cada limo em óleo amor-
Tecido. Mas por que não temem sua ira?
Gerações vêm e vão; tudo o que gera, gira
    E gora em mercancia; em barro, em borra de labor;
    E ao homem mancha o suor, o sujo, a sujeição; sem cor
O solo agora é; nem mais, solado, o pé o sentira.
E ainda assim a natureza não se curva;
    Um límpido frescor do ser das coisas vaza;
E quando a última luz o torvo Oeste turva
    Ah, a aurora, ao fim da fímbria oriental, abrasa –
Porque o Espírito Santo sobre a curva
   Terra com alma ardente abre ah! a asa alva.

God’s grandeur
The world is charged with the grandeur of God. / It will flame out, like shining from shook foil; / It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil / Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod? / Generations have trod, have trod, have trod; /  And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil; /And wears man`s smudge and shares man`s smell: the soil / Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod. / / And for all this, nature is never spent; /    There lives the dearest freshness deep down things; / And though the last lights off the black West went /  Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs – / Because the Holy Ghost over the bent /  World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

1 comment:

Candise and Crew said...

Thanks for sharing your two favorites for all of us to enjoy. I will try to add them to tomorrow's "Tuesday Tea Time" (Julie's "Brave Writer" is the reason we successfully wove poetry into our routine through the homeschool years.) Not every Tuesday. That would be too perfect. But I was inspired from the start for another excuse to have tea and like you, I thought it important to read lofty rhymes and silly rhymes and even foreign rhymes. The sound of the words is food for our ears and souls at the same time.
Warmly,
Candise & Crew