Sinbads longest journey

Poème traduit du Norvégien en anglais par Aileen Hennes.

Olaf Bull est probablement le poète favori des Norvégiens. A son décès en 1933 il était considéré comme le plus grand poète lyrique dans toute la Scandinavie. Mais à l’époque une biographie était hors de question car sa vie avait été trop tumultueuse.
Il était contemporain et ami de James Joyce.

«Le plus long voyage de Simbad» est un poème au sujet de l’évolution. Il est extrêmement visuel. La fougère aveugle trébuche sur les montagnes récemment soulevées, l’escargot inconscient en étroite relation avec la mousse, l’Himalaya destiné a rester tandis que les chaînes des autres montagnes s’affaissent…

C’est une histoire épique et captivante qui raconte la Création sans un être paternel et opprimant. Reliant tous les êtres par leurs souffles et par leurs membres, évoquant poétiquement ce que nos connaissances scientifiques actuelles nomme l’ADN.

Poem by Olav Bull
Translated from Norwegian to english by Aileen Hennes.

Olaf Bull is generally considered Norway’s favourite poet. When he died in 1933, he was widely regarded in all of Scandinavia as a great lyric poet, but at the time a biography was out of the question. His life had been too ‘risque’. He was a contemporary and friend of James Joyce.

« Sinbad’s longest journey » is a poem about evolution. It is extremely visual. The blind bracken stumbling about on newly upheaved mountainside, the snail, unconscious that it is a close relation to the mosses, The Himalayas, destined to remain while other mountain ranges flatten into veld…

It is a story as épic and captivating as any ; describing creation without an oppressive paternal figure. Linking all creatures breath by breath, limb by limb to one another ; inventing in poetry what we now know scientifically speaking as DNA.

SINDBAD LONGEST JOURNEY

 

She wears her hair, silk black and sunlit,
in smooth waves combed tightly back –
She lives in a snow white mansion,
with shiny, black glazed tiles on top.

 

The red wall-geranium, striving
against the walls’ distinguished white
is surely placed there, to resemble slightly
the reddest in the world, her lips!

 

In the bushes by the pond we became imprisoned
by herbal Saracen hords and had to
wind our way along overgrown gravel paths,
crunching cooly under two pairs of shoes.

 

My heart’s imagining: How is it possible
that the bright summer dress does not catch fire,
from the roses burgeoning in the hedgerows,
abundantly glowing with life’s flame?

 

Oh, break off that tall rose, and give it
to a flighty Sinbad amongst men!
My proud one, it will be restored to you
at the end of a journey, south in time.

 

At the end of a journey into matter,
into the warm primeval brine embracing our earth,
where mother shared by human and rose
in the awakening ocean’s dream was split.

 

Where two monads, siblings at base,
parted ways in the opaque water –
and later met on land,
when eternities’ likeness was entirely gone.

 

Little knew the snail, that the mosses
were its kin, and never did a memory
slide down a cliff to the sea,
when reptiles browsed in the bracken.

 

Although both had ocean in their pores,
and both searched, beneath the fells,
Titanosaurus, mud for its eggs,
Lepidodendron, mould for its spores.

 

But catastrophes visited, when the fabulous galore
was driven halfway back to sea, in stormy swirls,
Medusa nights, when all the oceans rose
In thunderous curse from heaven –

But also years of ebb-tide, when the sun broke
Like an enormous opal through a cloud bank in the sky
And the shadows of winged sauria floated briefly
Like terrible grimaces over the land.

At daybreak the woods were silent,
A glum frondescence, without song,
Since no bird had ever told them,
What joy the dawn could hold –

 

And though, round about in the immensity,
in myriad, barbaric profusion,
verdant ogres stumbled about, blind,
because they were bereaved of flower!

 

Then sinks the shady forests, giant lizards
go rattling to pieces into the earth’s tomb,
whilst circumferences tremble, from ocean to ocean,
Gondwanaland builds itself and jests!

 

Aye, look in the offing a world building –
a young oasis beneath the sun’s breast
and lift its divine coast,
from the ocean’s terrifying depth!

 

And sprout, turn green, flower, and bury
its vegetative past in palms and grass,
but betray itself, and copy everywhere
the tumultuous roaring sea!

 

Monster mountains reaches into space,
in a few wild centuries for to see,
bedecked in short lived and eternal snow;
like waves adorn themselves with foam

 

and sinking sailing back, slowly,
with snow and forests into the warm veld,
they are thrown forward again, as new mountains,
where jungles and prairies stretched.

 

Then the ocean’s roar inside the stone ceases
and throughout the wilderness bellows a command,
that the Hindu Kush must cake into a valley,
and the Himalayas remain in their peaks!

 

So then, majestic and happy
the high slopes have changed their attire, and humankind
have forced its way out of the animal hide,
like the flower before out of the fern’s leaf!

 

Magnolia, mimosa and agave
like weird sisters stand guard round Eve’s savage nakedness,
and forests of flowers bed down into gardens,
and in a garden is where we are standing now!

 

« My sister », you whisper into the rose’s mouth,
and slowly setting free, like a song of voices,
from the ocean’s secret deep
through the rose petals: « My sister! »

 

You lovely, by the wave human made,
being lifted, pale, on the froth of roses,
be hailed in your clean world,
Oceanide, Thetys, Afrodite.

SINBADS STØRSTE REISE

 

Hun bar et silkesort og solfyldt haar,
I glatte bølger kammet stramt tilbake –
Selv bor hun i en snehvit herregaard,
med blanke, sortglasserte tegl paa taket!

 

Den røde murgeranien, som stræber
paa væggenes herskabelige hvidt,
er sikkert sat der, for at ligne lidt
det rødeste i verden, hennes læber!

 

I krattet ved bassinet blev vi fanger
hos blomstersaracener, og maa sno
os frem paa overgrodde singelganger,
som kraser kjølig under to par sko!

 

Mit hjerte fabler: Hvordan gaar det til,
Den klare sommerkjolen ikke fænger,
Av roserne i hækkene, som hænger
Fuldkommen glødende av livets ild?

 

O, bræk den høie rosen der, og gi den
til en ustadig Sinbad mellem mænd!
Min stolte, den skal rækkes dig igjen
For enden av en reise, syd i tiden!

 

For enden av en reise ned i altet,
i ødets varme urhav om vor jord,
hvor menneskets og rosens fælles mor
i oceanets morgendrøm blev spaltet!

 

Hvor to monader, søskende paa bunden,
gik skilte veie i det dunkle vand –
og da de siden saas igjen paa land,
var evighetens likhet helt forsvunden!

 

Ti lite ante sneglern, at lavet
var deres egen slægt, og aldrig gled
en mindelse fra skrenterne i havet,
naar øglen beitet i sit bregnetræ!

 

Skjønt begge hadde hav i sine porer,
og begge søkte, under landets væg,
Tianosaurus, sump til sine æg,
Lepidodendron, dynd til sine sporer!

 

Men katastrofer kom, da fabelvrimlen
Drev halvt tilhavs igjen, I stormens flom,
Medusanætter, hele havet kom
I tordnende forbandelse fra himlen –

 

Men ogsaa ebbe-aar, da solen brøt
Som en enorm opal igjennem glætten,
og vingesaurienes skygger fløt
som flyktige grimaser over sletten!

 

I demningen stod skogene saa stumme,
Et dystert viftevildnis, uten sang,
For ingen fugle sa dem noengang,
Hvad lykke deres daggry kunde rumme –

 

Og skjønt de, rundt I ødet, var at finde
i myldrende, barbarisk forekomst,
gik bregnetroldene paa slump, i blinde,
fordi de allesammen manglet blomst!

 

Saa synker skyggeskoger, kjæmpeøgler
gaar raslende i knas i jordens grav,
mens omridsskjælvende, fra hav til hav,
Gondwanalandet bygger sig og gjøgler!

 

Ja, se i kimingen en verden bygge –
en ung oase under solens bryst,
og løfte sin guddommelige kyst,
fra oceanets frygtelige skygge!

 

Og spire, grønnes, blomstre, og begrave
Sin bregnetid I palmer og I græs,
men røbe seg, og hærme allesteds
I stormende naturomkastning havet!

 

Uhyre bjerge reiser seg i rummet,
i noen vilde sekler for at sé,
og pranger med en kort og evig sne,
lik bølgerne, som smykker seg med skummet,

 

og synker seilende tilbake, sagte,
med sne og skoger I det varme væld,
men hives frem igjen, som nye fjeld,
hvor jungeler og prærier laa strakte!

 

Da er det dønningen i stenen stopper
Og gjennom ødet durer et befal,
At Hindukush skal stivne med sin dal,
Og Himalaya bli i sine topper!

 

Og da, naar majestiske og glade
de høie skraaninger har skiftet skrud,
har mennesket tvunget seg av dyrets hud,
som fordum blomsten av en bregnes blade.

 

Magnolia, mimoser og agaver
staar nornevakt om Evas vilde blu,
og blomsterskoger tæmmer seg til haver,
og i en have star vi begge nu.

 

“Min søster” hvisker du i rosens mund,
og sagte løsner, som en sang av røster,
fra oceanets hemmelige bund
igjennom rosenbladene: “Min søster”.

 

Du deilige, av bølgen menneskeblidte,
som løftes, blek, av dine rosers skum,
vær hilset i ditt rene verdensrum,
Oceanide, Thetys, Afrodite.

 

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