
Die New York Review is nie net een van die mees gerespekteerde internasionale publikasies nie, maar met verloop van jare het hulle natuurlik ook gereeld gedigte geplaas van die vernaamste digters ter wêreld: “Over the years some five hundred poems have appeared in the pages of The New York Review. A great range of poets, preoccupied with themes both personal and political, often translated from different languages-W.H. Auden, Seamus Heaney, Zbigniew Herbert, John Berryman, Theodore Roethke, Wisława Szymborska, John Ashbery, and Czeslaw Miłosz, to name a handful-have contributed to the Review.”
Volgens ‘n verklaring op hul webblad het die redaksie van hierdie gesogte publikasie besluit dat hul bydrae tot die Amerikaanse poësiemaand (April) gaan wees om vir die duur van die maand elke dag een van hierdie verse op hul webblad te plaas.
Digters van wie daar verse verskyn het, is onder andere: Zbigniew Herbert: Achilles. Penthesilea (1993), Karl Kirchwey, K. 453 (1987), Les A. Murray, Mercurial September (1987), James Merrill, Casual Wear (1984) en W.H. Auden, Ode to the Diencephalon (1972).
En synde ‘n skaamtelose bewonderaar van die Poolse digter Zbigniew Herbert se poësie, plaas ek graag sy gedig, “Achilles. Penthesilea”, onder aan vanoggend se Nuuswekker. Dié gedig is in 1993 deur Joseph Brodsky in Engels vertaal.
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Dan wil dit voorkom asof ons gereelde bydraers omtrent besluit het om hierdie langnaweek na waarde te skat, aangesien daar geen nuwe leesstukke is om aan te kondig nie. So, geniet gerus die tyd om in te haal op agterstallige leeswerk; maak veral seker dat jy Philip de Vos se stuk, wat Vrydag geplaas was, onder oë kry.
Mooi bly.
LE
Achilles. Penthesilea
When Achilles with his short sword pierced the breast of Penthesilea
and as usual twisted the blade thrice in the wound, he noticed
that the queen of the Amazons was lovely.
He laid her carefully on the sand, took off her heavy helmet, unclasped her hair,
and gently arranged her hands on her bosom. He lacked, however, the courage
to shut her eyes.
He gave her one more, last, farewell look, and, as though suddenly overpowered
by an outer force, cried-the way neither he nor other
heroes of that great war ever cried-in a quiet, mesmeric, dawdling,
aimless voice, ebbing with grief and with
rue, whose cadence was new to the offspring of Thetis. The cry’s lengthy vowels, like
leaves, were falling upon the neck, breasts, knees of Penthesilea,
wrapping the length of her grown-cold body.
She herself was preparing for Eternal Hunts in the fathomless forests.
Her still open eyes stared from afar at the victor
with azure, steady hatred.
© Zbigniew Herbert (vertaal deur Joseph Brodsky)