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Nearly fifty years ago I started to make a rough translation of this Hugo v. Hofmannsthal poem on transience/evanescence/the transitory nature of life. I couldn't find that old draft version, so I started again. I suppose I have become much more aware of the significance of the topic than I could have been then.
Transience
"How can it be that these recent days are gone,
For I can still feel their breath on my cheeks?
For I can still feel their breath on my cheeks?
Yet they are gone for good and lost for always".
The poet finds it hard to come to terms with the fact that everything goes gliding by; with the speed of change and with the curious observation-
"That my own self developed, unconstrained,
Evolved from that small, alien child,
As strange to me as some mute, stray dog".
Ah well, that's life!
Rock on!
Rock on!
"As strange to me as some mute, stray dog" Hm? Of course memory is capricious, untrustworthy - but I'm not such a stranger to myself at this age. The person I find strange is me from about 14-30. I wonder if different episodes of our lives become more or less familiar at different times depending on different present circumstances - like the sudden smell of madeleines. God forbid you should have to endure me talking of it but when I found this picture
ReplyDeletehttp://www.flickr.com/photos/sibadd/3977799062/
Me and my sister at a Christmas party in 1950 I know even now why it was such a wonderful special evening. The me that enjoyed that is the same as the one bursting with happiness at a panigyri last September or dancing at the Carnival party as guests last Feb - see the last two minutes!
It's a wonderful photograph. You obviously have a great capacity for enthusiasm and happiness, and a better memory!
ReplyDeleteThe word "stray" was added by me. And I'm not sure if the strange dog is actually "mute" or just plain "dumb"!