Versindaba kompetisie vir vertaalde gedigte (89)
Elizabeth Bishop. Vertaling van Engels in Afrikaans. Vert. deur Tom Dreyer.
Die vis
ek vang ‘n allemintige vis
en hou hom langs die boot
net-net bo die water
hoek in sy bek ingebed
hy spook nie meer nie het
ook nooit hy hang
kreunend en verinneweer
dog eerbiedwaardig huislik
selfs sy bruin vel druip plek-plek
in repe soos muurpapier verfraai
met ‘n verganklikheid van rose hy’s
seepok-gespikkel klein kalksteen
rosette en seeluis-geinfesteer
twee of drie wierslierte wieg
onder kieue wat fris en bloedbelaai
die gruwelike suurstof prosesseer
ek dink aan sy vlees ru
en wit en ingepak soos vere
om swemblaas en graat
en glinsterende ingewand
sy oë is groter as myne dog vlak
en geel en die holtes van sy irisse
is met foelie uitgevoer hulle gly
en sloer maar kyk nie na my nie
hulle is iets wat na die lig toe roer
en terwyl ek sy bot gesig bepeins
en die meganisme van sy kaak
sien ek aan sy onderlip
— as jy iets wat so gepantser
is ‘n lip kan noem –
vyf lengtes vislyn
of vier en ‘n swaar draadstrop
kompleet met swivel vyf medalje-
linte ‘n vyfhaar-wysheidsbaard een
groen lyn deur die breekslag uitgerafel
twee dikkes en een blinkswart
gekonfoes deur sy ontsnapping
my oorwinning tap my huurboot vol
ruimwater waarop ‘n olie-reënboog
vlam om die verroeste enjin en verslete
bankies om die roeimikke en die relings
totdat alles in ligtelaaie staan
– reënboog reënboog reënboog –
en ek laat die vis gaan
***
The fish
Elizabeth Bishop
I caught a tremendous fish
and held him beside the boat
half out of water, with my hook
fast in a corner of his mouth.
He didn’t fight.
He hadn’t fought at all.
He hung a grunting weight,
battered and venerable
and homely. Here and there
his brown skin hung in strips
like ancient wallpaper,
and its pattern of darker brown
was like wallpaper:
shapes like full-blown roses
stained and lost through age.
He was speckled with barnacles,
fine rosettes of lime,
and infested
with tiny white sea-lice,
and underneath two or three
rags of green weed hung down.
While his gills were breathing in
the terrible oxygen
—the frightening gills,
fresh and crisp with blood,
that can cut so badly—
I thought of the coarse white flesh
packed in like feathers,
the big bones and the little bones,
the dramatic reds and blacks
of his shiny entrails,
and the pink swim-bladder
like a big peony.
I looked into his eyes
which were far larger than mine
but shallower, and yellowed,
the irises backed and packed
with tarnished tinfoil
seen through the lenses
of old scratched isinglass.
They shifted a little, but not
to return my stare.
—It was more like the tipping
of an object toward the light.
I admired his sullen face,
the mechanism of his jaw,
and then I saw
that from his lower lip
—if you could call it a lip—
grim, wet, and weaponlike,
hung five old pieces of fish-line,
or four and a wire leader
with the swivel still attached,
with all their five big hooks
grown firmly in his mouth.
A green line, frayed at the end
where he broke it, two heavier lines,
and a fine black thread
still crimped from the strain and snap
when it broke and he got away.
Like medals with their ribbons
frayed and wavering,
a five-haired beard of wisdom
trailing from his aching jaw.
I stared and stared
and victory filled up
the little rented boat,
from the pool of bilge
where oil had spread a rainbow
around the rusted engine
to the bailer rusted orange,
the sun-cracked thwarts,
the oarlocks on their strings,
the gunnels—until everything
was rainbow, rainbow, rainbow!
And I let the fish go.
Bronverwysing:
Bishop, Elizabeth. 1946. North & South. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. p 46.
ISBN: 180216008
