Gloss

by Mihai Eminescu - 1883

Time is passing, time is coming,
All are old and all are new;
What is right and what is wrong
Ask yourself and reason too;
Don't you hope and don't go fretting,
What is wave like wave is gone;
If it's tempting, if it's calling,
You remain as cold as stone.

Many happen right before us,
In our ears the sound of many,
We remember more or less
If we ever listen any?...
You stay put or step aside,
Yourself rediscovering,
When with senseless noise in flight
Time is passing time is coming.

Don't you let the needle leaving
The cold reason's balance center
For an instant that is changing
For the happiness's cover,
Which from its own death is born
For an instant in our view;
To who knows no need to warn
All are old and all are new.

Watchful as to a vaudeville
Find yourself in the big world:
May someone play even devil,
You will guess him afterwards,
If they're crying, if they fight,
In your corner stand alone
Understanding from their art
What is right and what is wrong.

From the past the future fathom
Of the same page are two sides,
See the next top at the bottom
Those who learn to read them right;
All that's been or yet to come
In the present we have too,
But of meaningless of them
Ask yourself and reason too.

Cause to same old means are subject
All the things that still exist,
And since old times to the present
World is happy, world is triste;
Other masks, the same old story,
Other voices, the same setting,
For this life is illusory
Don't you hope and don't go fretting.

Don't you hope when see deceivers
Build a bridge to their success,
You'll be left behind by losers,
Even if you are the best;
Don't you fear they'll try again
To their own to brake them bones,
Don't associate with them:
What is wave like wave is gone.

With the sweet song of a mermaid
World is whirling shiny nets
To change actors in the setting
Pulling you like a magnet;
Sneak aside and run away,
Without even noticing,
From your distant path away
If it's tempting if it's calling.

If they laugh you step aside,
If they curse you shut your mouth;
What you want with your advice,
If you see they're way too loud;
Let them say what they will say
Let them pass and let begone;
If the world has gone astray
You remain as cold as stone.

You remain as cold as stone,
If it's tempting, if it's calling:
What is wave like wave is gone,
Don't you hope and don't go fretting;
Ask yourself and reason too
What is right and what is wrong;
All are old and all are new:
Time is passing, time is coming.



Translator's note:

Very few or only those who ever tried know what a huge effort is to translate a poem and try to keep the same words while making them rhyme and rhythm. But translating from real poets is not as difficult because their language is bound towards universality, on a secret, karmic level. If only the translator can put aside the emotional charge involved with translating from the greatest.

The form of this translation, especially the number of syllables in each verse, is not perfect, as the original in Romanian, but i did my best trying to build an intercultural bridge.

Do You Remember The Beach?

by Ana Blandiana

Do you remember the beach
Covered with bitter shivers
On which
We couldn't walk barefoot?
The way you were looking at the sea
Pretending listening me?
Do you remember
The hysterical gulls
Wheeling in the ringing
Of the unseen bells of a church
Celebrations with fish,
The way in which
You were furthering running
Towards the sea
And yelling you needed
The distance
So you just can see me
The snowing
Was dimming
Mixed with birds in the water
With almost joyful despair
Was watching
The tracks of your feet in the sea
And the sea
Was closing like an eyelid
Over the eye in which i was waiting.

The Only Thing That Matters

by Lucian Avramescu

the woman is the only thing that matters
and i affirm this knowing that plenty
would raise their eyebrows...
her skin knows all the languages of the universal happiness,
glued to her, like to the earth,
i understand constellations, heaven and hell,
joy and sorrow;
the walking through myself
does me better and better
not to speak anymore
about the architecture of self or the one
that makes dim all the great cathedrals of the world
San Pedro, The Dome of Milan...

the woman is the only thing that matters
with her body in your arms
you can cross an ocean
even if you don't know how to swim
except in the waters of her eyes

without woman
our limo is only a broken carriage
and the bank account is smaller even if gets bigger
the friends are
full of the fever of treason
tapdoles are swimming in the most expensive wine

oh ay
the robin is singing in the top of your bosom
you happily dress in prison's clothes
like you were going to a wedding
count the coins on the sky
like a universal nabob
even if the wind is blowing through your social buttonholes:
the train runs over you
and a whisper, if left whole
follows the letters of her name
ready to weave plans for the future
when nearby a luxury morgue is lurking

the woman, gentlemen, is the only thing
that cannot be replaced except by its own self
her skin knows all the languages
of the universal happiness,
the circle of illusions
is her currency
through which we win the world crises
that's why i believe
her science
to make us happy and unhappy
gives you the title of
doctor honoris causa
of our complicated soul algebra.

the woman, gentlemen - not to bother you anymore -
the woman with her skin
which teaches us the alphabet of the blind,
with her always up side down cups of her breasts
in which we never read anything
the woman
with all the silverware of her smile
or her bareness that fills the universe
is the only thing that matters
gentlemen

The Actors

by Marin Sorescu

The most daring - the actors!
With their sleeves rolled up
They really know how to live (for) us!
Never seen a more perfect kiss
Like of the actors in the third act,
When sentiments start to clarify

Their death on the scene is so natural,
That compared to its perfection,
Those in graveyards,
The real dead,
Tragically, forever dead,
They seem to move!

And us, still in our only life!
Not even this one know how to live.
Talking small or being silent for years,
Embarrassed and unaesthetic,
And (we) don't know where the hell to keep our hands.

If I’m Not Asking Too Much

By Marin Sorescu

- What would you take with you

If you had an opportunity
To commute daily between heaven and hell
Just to teach some classes?

- A book, a bottle of wine and a woman, Lord,
If i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much, We’ll take the woman.
She would talk too much,
Fill your head with small things,
And you wouldn’t have the time to prepare your classes.

- Lord, i beg of You, take my book,
I will write it myself, if i had beside me
A bottle of wine and a woman.
That’s what i wish, if i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much.

- What would you take with you

If you had an opportunity

To commute daily, between heaven and hell

Just to teach some classes?

- A bottle of wine and a woman, Lord,

If i’m not asking too much.

- You’ve asked that before, why are you stubborn?

It is too much, I told you, We take the woman.

- What do You have with her, why so much persecution?

Better take my wine,

It softens me and i couldn’t prepare my classes,

Getting inspiration from the eyes of my lover.

Silence, long minutes,

Maybe even eternities,

Letting me time for forgetting.

- What would you take with you

If you had an opportunity

To commute daily between heaven and hell

To teach some classes?

- A woman, Lord,

If i’m not asking too much.

- You are asking too much, We’ll take the woman.

- Then better take my classes,

Take my heaven and hell,

All or nothing,

I would commute between heaven and hell for no reason.

How could i scare and frighten the sinners in hell

If i didn’t have the woman, as teaching material, to show them?

How could i uplift the right ones in heaven,

If i didn’t have the book to translate to them?

How could i stand the trip and the differences

In temperature, luminosity and pressure

Between heaven and hell

If i didn’t have the wine to give me the courage?