UNKNOWN ANCIENT GREEK POET
The moon has set
and the Pleiades;
midnight, hours pass, and I
lie down alone
Translated by David Leviten
Coincidently, on the same day, I came across this poem in Acquainted With the Night: Insomnia Poems edited by Lisa Russ Spaar:
Tonight I've Watched
by Sappho (translated from the Greek by Mary Barnard)
Tonight I've watched
The moon and then
the Pleiades
go down
The night is now
half-gone; youth
goes; I am
in bed alone
It jumped right out at me as being the same, yet different.
I offer them both to you to contemplate as I did.
I prefer the first one with its utter simplicity. Which do you prefer? Does it make a difference knowing the author was not an "unknown ancient Greek," but a woman poet?
Jone at Check It Out will have lots more to contemplate at the Round-Up.
--Diane
4 comments:
Wow! Those two poems really "talk" to each other, don't they?!?!
Well, one might say the translator got it wrong in one of two places, possibly the first who preferred the more open-ended story. I think I also prefer it because it lets my imagination of why alone can then run wild. With the other, a different story emerges. Great find, Diane! Thank you!
Thanks, ladies! It must be terribly difficult to be a translator--not only do you have to do the mechanics, but you also have to know the culture, AND, have the soul of a poet, too!
I like the second one better. I like the "I've watched" since it puts me in the mind of the poet more, I think.
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