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:
Dis Bester- en Rumi-mooi, en daarmee basta!
Nooit kon dink ons groot Verslapene sou op so ‘n verrassende wyse aktueel en tydgenoorlik gemaak kan word nie. Wys mens nou net weer hoe ‘n skerp vernuwende lig geskyn kan word op die werk… wanneer gesien deur die fyn-fyn kyk daarna deur die glansende en stralende digterspaar, die Ullyatte. Hulle huldebetoon is werklik iets uitsonderliks.
Dis baie mooi. Baie dankie!