A Poem by Jorge Luis Borges

[lindsay]

Para una versión del I King

El porvenir es tan irrevocable
Como el rígido ayer. No hay una cosa
Que no sea una letra silenciosa
De la eternal escritura indescrifrable
Cuyo libro es el tiempo. Quien se aleja
De su casa ya ha vuelto. Nuestra vida
Es la senda futura y recorrida.
Nada nos dice adiós. Nada nos deja.
No te rindas. La ergástula es oscura,
La firme trama es de incesante hierro,
Pero en algún recodo de tu encierro
Puede haber un descuido, una hendidura,
El camino es fatal como la flecha
Pero en las grietas está Dios, que acecha.


For a Version of I Ching

The imminent is as immutable
As rigid yesterday. There is no matter
That rates more than a single, silent letter
In the eternal and inscrutable
Writing whose book in time. He who believes
He’s left his home already has come back.
Life is a future and well-traveled track.
Nothing dismisses us. Nothing leaves.
Do not give up. The prison is bereft
Of light, its fabric is incessant iron,
But in some corner of your mean environs
You might discover a mistake, a cleft.
The road is fatal as an arrow’s flight
But God is watching in the narrowest light.

-- Jorge Luis Borges (trans. by Eric McHenry)

Jorge Luis Borges. Selected Poems. Edited by Alexander Coleman. New York: Viking, 1999. Pages 382-383.

[sparhawk]

Mind you, my translation for this forum, three years ago, was much more literal than Mr. Eric McHenry's but in retrospect it wasn't as bad as I thought...

Ah, translations... Mr. McHenry took quite a bit of literary leeway. His translation is poetry piled upon poetry.

L