Mihai Eminescu

Luceafărul

(fragment

[Ediţie îngrijită de Perpessicius], [sugestii la

lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Porni luceafărul. Creşteau
În cer a lui aripe,
Şi căi de mii de ani treceau
În tot atâtea clipe.

Un cer de stele dedesupt,
Deasupra-i cer de stele –
Părea un fulger ne’ntrerupt
Rătăcitor prin ele.

Şi din a chaosului văi,
Jur împrejur de sine,
Vedea, ca’n ziua cea de’ntâi,
Cum izvorau lumine;

Cum izvorând îl înconjor
Ca nişte mări, de-a’notul …
El sboară, gând purtat de dor,
Pân’ piere totul, totul.

Căci unde-ajunge nu-i hotar,
Nici ochi spre a cunoaşte,
Şi vremea’ncearcă în zadar
Din goluri a se naşte.

Nu e nimic şi totuş e
O sete care-l soarbe,
E un adânc asemene
Uitării celei oarbe.

Bibliografie

Mihai Eminescu, Opere I, Ediţie critică îngrijită de Perpessicius, Fundaţia pentru Literatură şi Artă ,,Regele Carol II”, Bucureşti, 1939, p. 176

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Mihai Eminescu

Lucifer

(a fragment)

[English version by Dimitrie Cuclin], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Then Lucifer went out. His wings

Grow into heavens dash,

And on his way millenniums

Flee in less than a flash.

Below, a depth of stars; above,

The heaven stars begem, --

He seems an endless lightning that

Is wandering through them.

And from the Chaos’ vales he sees

How in an immense ring

Round him, as in the World’s first day,

Lights from their sources spring;

How, springing, they hem him like an

Ocean that swimming nears …

He flees carried by his desire

Until he disappears.

For that region is boundless and

Searching regards avoids

And Time strives vainly there to come

To life from the dark voids.

‘Tis nought. ‘Tis though, thirst that sips him

And which he cannot shun,

‘Tis depth unknown, comparable

To blind oblivion.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poems, translated by Dimitrie Cuclin, “Bucovina” I. E. Torouţiu, Bucureşti, 1938, pp. 125-126.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

Hyperion

(a fragment)

[English version by Leon Leviţchi], [ suggestions welcomed at

lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Off went the star. And as he went,

His wings grew more and more

As myriads of years were spent

For every hour that wore.

There was a sky of stars beneath,

A sky of stars o’erhead –

Like to a bolt with ne’er a death

Among the worlds he sped.

And from the valleys of the pit

He upwards spun his way;

He saw how lights sprang up and lit

As on the earliest day,

How like a sea they girdled him,

And swam and heaved about …

And flew and flew, an ache-borne whim,

Till everything dies out;

For where he reached there was no bourne,

To see there was no eye,

And from the chaos to be born

Time vainly made a try.

And there was nothing. There was, though,

A thirst that did oppress,

A gaping gulf above, below,

Like blind forgetfulness.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poeme/Poems, Ediţie bilingvă româno-engleză/Romanian-English bilingual edition, Traducere de Leon Leviţchi şi Andrei Bantaş/Translated by Leon Leviţchi and Andrei Bantaş, Editura Minerva/Minerva Publishing House, Bucureşti, 1978, pp. 389, 391.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

Lucifer

(a fragment)

[English version by Corneliu M. Popescu], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Lucifer set out and o’er

The sky his wings extended,

And million years flew past before

As many moments ended.

A sky of stars above his way,

A sky of stars below;

As lightning flash midst them astray

In one continuous flow.

Till round his primal chaos hurled

When out of causeless night

The first, upflaming dawn unfurled

Its miracle of light.

Still further flew he ere the start

Of things of form devoid,

Spurred by the yearning of his heart,

Far back into the void.

Yet where he reach’s is not the bourn

Nor yet where eye can see;

Beyond where struggling time was torn

Out of eternity.

Around him there was naught. And still,

Strange yearning there was yet,

A yearning that all space did fill,

As when the blind forget.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poems, English version by Corneliu M. Popescu, Editura Eminescu, Bucureşti, 1978, p. 185-186.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

Hyperion

(a fragment)

[English version by Roy MacGregor-Hastie], [ suggestions welcomed at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Hyperion flies on, his great wings,

opening to the heavens, grow

wider as he beats the air, road

infinite as time, below

him an infinite depth of stars,

above him the stars of heaven,

as he moves a formuless flash

of lightning wanders through them.

As he goes through the vales of Chaos

he sees about him a great ring

of lights, shining as they did once

on the world’s first day, springs

bursting from their Source, but now

on a floodtide, threatening,

as he hurries on, the impetus

of desire still urging him

on, though that Region has no frontier,

nor eye to know it,

a place where Time struggles to be born

out of the void.

There is nothing and yet there is

a thirst which consumes him,

absorbs him utterly, an abyss like

blind oblivion.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poezii/Poems, Versiune engleză şi prefaţă de Roy MacGregor-Hastie/English version and Introduction by Roy MacGregor-Hastie, Editura Dacia/Dacia Publishing House, Cluj-Napoca, 1980, pp. 179, 181.

Note: The spelling is according to the original. ( it’s “formless”, of course)

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Mihai Eminescu

The Evening Star

(a fragment)

[English version by Brenda Walker], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

The Star set out. His wings suddenly swelled

To shadow the earth in a moment,

Light years ran back as he passed

And were gone in an instant.

A sky of stars stretched above him,

And a sky of stars below –

As lightning he roamed between them

In a never ending flow.

Far from cold valleys of forgetting

Surrounded by stillness,

He saw as in the beginning

Light separated from the darkness.

And then how they surrounded him

On a flood tide as if swimming …

He flew, fired by his own passion,

Till again nothing, nothing.

For where he arrives there’s no boundary,

Nor eye able to witness,

And to be born, time strives fruitlessly

From the labour of emptiness.

Here there is nothing and yet there’s a thirst

That utterly consumes him,

There is only a great depth traversed

Once more by blind oblivion.

Bibliography

In Celebration of Mihai Eminescu, Translated from Romanian by Brenda Walker with Horia Florian Popescu, Forest Books, London & Boston, 1989, p. 115-116.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

The Evening Star

(a fragment)

[English version by Dan Solomon], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

The Evening Star takes off. Far grow

His wings into the sky.

With each short instant, in a row,

Galactic worlds pass by.

Advancing without any jolt

Through stars above, below,

He seems a straight, long thunderbolt

Forever on the go.

As in the day that was the first,

He sees how, all around,

From the ravines of chaos burst

Huge lights which then abound,

And, floating, shape themselves in vast,

Bright seas below, above,

He speeds throughout them all and past,

Carried by burning love.

Where he arrives is nothingness,

Space lies behind, forlorn,

And time is trying less and less

To be from never born.

It’s emptiness, but there is

A thirst that does him swallow,

An undefinable abyss

As in oblivion’s hollow.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poezii/Poems, Translated from Romanian by Dan Solomon, Editura Univers, Bucureşti, 1998, pp. 223, 225.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

The Legend of the Evening Star

 (a fragment)

[English version by Adrian George Sahlean], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

So left the Evening Star. His wings

Grew large across the sky

As thousand years of reach would spring

And at a wink go by;

A canopy of stars below;

Above a starry dome:

An endless lightning seemed to flow

And through the heavens roam

And in the dark that streamed around,

As on the first day’s morn,

He glimpsed the chaos vales unbound

From where the light is born.

He flies aswim through seas of light

With love on wings of thought …

Until all perishes from sight,

Until all turns to naught;

He goes where there’s no bound or bourn,

Nor is there eye to know,

And time itself from voids uptorn

Struggles in vain to grow;

For there is naught, yet it is there

A thirst that draws him on,

A depth that lingers, like the snare

Of blind oblivion …

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Poezii alese/Selected Poems, Traducere de Adrian George Sahlean/Translations by Adrian George Sahlean, Editura Univers/Univers Publishing House, Bucureşti, 2000, pp. 83, 85.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

Evening Star

(a fragment)

[English version by Josef Johann Soltesz], [ suggestions welcomed at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

The Evening Star broke out. His wings

Grew high up in the heavens,

And miles for thousand years he seems

To make in a few seconds.

A heaven full with stars below,

And another one above,

He seemed to be a thunder, though

He was a fire-dove.

He could see that all around

From the Chaos’ stormy valley

How the lights had risen, flown,

As if it were a frenzy.

Rising lights round him surround,

The heaven and the see,

He flies, idea in a sound,

A fleeting fantasy.

Where he arrives there is no term,

Nor eye to search and spy,

And Time will try in vain to earn

Life out from the sky.

There is nothing and though there’s

A sipping thirst of seas,

Yawning like the lowest depth

Of the fierce blindness.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Luceafărul – Evening Star, Traducere de Josef Johann Soltesz, Asociaţia Română pentru Ex Libris, Oradea, 2004, p. 27.

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

The Evening Star

(a fragment)

[English version by Adrian Şoncodi], [ suggestions at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

The Evening Star departs. The sky

With growing wings he beckons,

And thousand-year-long flights go by

In just as many seconds.

A flood of stars unfolds below,

Above – more stars that twinkle;

He seems to be a lightning flow

Astray amidst their sprinkle.

Out of the chaos vales sublime

Surrounding him and surging,

He sees beyond the dawn of time,

The streaming lights emerging.

As they emerge and spill around

Like giant seas amassing,

He flies, his yearning mind unbound,

Until all turns to nothing.

For where he lands there’s no domain

Nor eye that can discover,

And time itself struggles in vain

From bareness to recover.

It’s but a void, yet he does find

A thirst that draws him over,

A deep abyss resembling blind

The failure to remember.

Bibliography

Poezii româneşti alese/Selected Romanian Poems, English translations by Adrian Şoncodi, Editura Cavallioti, Bucureşti, 2009, pp. (?)

Note: The spelling is according to the original.

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Mihai Eminescu

Luciferous

(a fragment)

[English version by Emil Ciolan], [ suggestions welcomed at lm_nlc_6002@yahoo.com ]

Set out Luciferous. On high

His wings grew magic, distant,

And ways of eon-years went by

As fast as many an instant.

Welkin of stars aloft all jam,

Welkin of stars ‘neath casting,

He seemed, as wandering through them,

A lightning everlasting.

And from the Chaos’ vales a spray

Right round his essence swinging,

Like on the first beginning day

He saw light-sources springing,

And as they sprang, surround him, churn

Like boundless seas, aswimming …

He flies, his thought gone with the yearn,

Till all of him – naught streaming,

For where he reaches there’s no bound,

Nor eye insight receiving,

And Time delusively goes wound,

From gaps to set its living.

‘Tis nothingness and yet it is

A sucking thirst, a kind

Of pits befalling him, appease

Like odd oblivion, blind.

Bibliography

Mihai Eminescu, Luceafărul/Luciferous (a fragment), Translated into English by Emil Ciolan, Petroşani, 2014