N.P. van Wyk Louw 50. Tony & Gisela Ullyatt (Vertaling in Engels)

 

 

 

TRANSLATIONS OF FOUR POEMS BY N.P. VAN WYK LOUW

 

With what, love

 

With what, love,

shall I compare you?

 

Not with any flowers,

the rose, the freesia

that stand still and alone

during the night.

 

I know only, as I

awake in the morning,

scent outside my window:

of cream-yellow rose;

 

and quietly at night,

like someone picking freesias

in the twilight,

I will pick white blossoms

of dreams for you, love.

 

• “Waarmee, Lief …” (from: Alleenspraak, 1935)

 

 

Winter trees

 

It’s always you, it’s always just you;

the one thought that stays with me

as a shadow stays under a tree:

always just you, always just you.

 

My sorrow takes many ways:

my eyes are blind, and everything

in my heart is tangled.

 

But this will remain one and only,

earning its relief earthy and deep

though it stands in me winter-bare:

this love in me, this love in me.

 

• “Winterbome” (from: Die halwe kring, 1937)

 

 

Cervantes: Homage to Eugène Marais

 

But also: Don Quixote is thin:

has a gaunt face, hook-nosed,

great moustache; in short, a Don

 

and from La Mancha, with an old shield,

with a boorish aversion for lamb; but,

with lentils on Fridays ‒ for Our Lord’s suffering ‒;

 

standing at Lepanto against the Turks

who with thin faces, bent noses,

huge moustaches, peep into Europe:

 

but: Don Quixote will have none of it:

standing ready against every windmill

charging somewhat dim-witted Spanish sheep.

 

• “Cervantes: Hommage à Eugène Marais (from: Tristia en ander verse, voorspele en vlugte, 1962)

 

 

Even in my last words

 

Even in my last words you will be there

even in the last twilight of my thoughts

and being, when I lie in the deepest fear

of death, and all the trivial things in me

sink to drab oblivion: much hate

much love that could wait, demanding little,

hours that knew calm, or simple deeds,

bearing no sign of your unease,

o you who were flame: pure and strong and blind

to grief: who burnt everything to your likeness;

who claimed everything and never found complete

satisfaction! Then I shall know your hand

completing my youth’s unfinished circle:

life is beautiful and death too is beautiful.

 

• “Nog in my laaste woorde” (from: Die halwe kring, 1937)

 

Die volgende skakel lei na ‘n voorlesing van die bostaande gedigte deur Tony en Gisela Ullyatt: