Stings like salty tears I've cried

[sovay]

Last week, Viking Zen gave me a book of the selected poems of Jorge Luis Borges. I had only read his prose before. I may love him more as a poet. This one is from his collection El otro, el mismo (1964). I choose it as something to dream to. The same to you, if so you like.

El mar (The Sea)

Antes que el sueño (o el terror) tejiera
Mitologías y cosmogonías,
Antes que el tiempo se acuñara en días,
El mar, el siempre mar, ya estaba y era.
¿Quién es el mar? ¿Quién es aquel violento
Y antiguo ser que roe los pilares
De la tierra y es uno y muchos mares
Y abismo y resplandor y azar y viento?
Quien lo mira lo ve por vez primera.
Siempre. Con el asombro que las cosas
Elementales dejan, las hermosas
Tardes, la luna, el fuego de una hoguera.
¿Quién es el mar, quién soy? Lo sabré el día
Ulterior que sucede a la agonía.

Before dreaming (or terror) wove
mythologies and cosmogonies,
before time minted itself into days,
the sea, the always sea, was there and was.
Who is the sea? Who is that one, violent
and ancient, who gnaws at the pillars
of the earth and is one sea and many
and abyss and splendor and chance and wind?
Who looks on the sea sees it for the first time.
Always. With the awe that elemental
things leave behind, beautiful
late afternoons, the moon, a bonfire's flame.
Who is the sea, who am I? On the day
that follows the last agony, I will know.

Comments

[sovay]

I love Borges's stories, but I think his poems are even better.

Do you recommend any collections particularly? The selected later poems (1960's on) are the ones that really blew me away, but I am open to suggestions.

[twa-in-yin.livejournal.com]

To be honest, I read him in Spanish, the Collected Works published by Alianza Editorial. But his best poetry collections are the late ones -- from El Hacedor (The Maker, 1960) on, so your selection is possibly a good bet. His best collections are possibly El Otro, el Mismo (The Other, The Same, 1964) and Elogio de la Sombra (In Praise of Shadow, 1969), but I don't think there are any English translations of any his books (i.e. as opposed to compilations of selected poems).

I'm fond of this one myself (from In Praise of Shadow):

ISRAEL

Un hombre encarcelado y hechizado,
un hombre condenado a ser la serpiente
que guarda un oro infame,
un hombre condenado a ser Shylock
un hombre que se inclina sobre la tierra
y que sabe que estuvo en el Paraíso,
un hombre viejo y ciego que ha de romper
las columnas del templo,
un rostro condenado a ser una máscara,
un hombre que a pesar de los nombres
es Spinoza y el Baal Shem y los cabalistas,
un hombre que es el Libro,
una boca que alaba desde el abismo
la justicia del firmamento,
un procurador o un dentista
que dialogó con Dios en una montaña,
un hombre condenado a ser el escarnio,
la abominación, el judío,
un hombre lapidado, incendiado
y ahogado en cámaras letales,
un hombre que se obstina en ser inmortal
y que ahora ha vuelto a su batalla,
a la violenta luz de la victoria,
hermoso como un león al mediodía.

A man incarcerated and bewitched,
a man condemned to be the serpent
that guards infamous gold,
a man condemned to be Shylock,
a man who hunches over the earth
and knows that he was once in Paradise,
an old and blind man who will tear down
the temple columns,
a face condemned to be a mask,
a man who in spite of mankind
is Spinoza and the Baal Shem and the Kabbalists,
a man who is the Book,
a mouth praising from the abyss
heaven's justice,
an attorney or a dentist
who talked with God on a mountain,
a man condemned to be ridiculed,
the abomination, the Jew,
a man stoned and burnt
and drowned in lethal chambers,
a man determined to be immortal
who has now returned to his battle,
to the violent light of victory,
beautiful like a lion at noon.

I love the last line particularly. Ariel.

[sovay]

hermoso como un león al mediodía.

Thank you for this one. I am not fluent in Spanish, but I can read it, so I may just pick up the collected works for those two books you mention—the poems I've read selected from El Otro, el Mismo are wonderful.

[twa-in-yin.livejournal.com]

Oh, and also. You should really read his essays. His essays on Shakespeare and his Nine Dantean Essays and his essay on the kenningar and the history of eternity and... Pure intellectual porn.

[sovay]

Pure intellectual porn.

So noted!