Mantis 21 (Summer 2023)
Translations

Mihai Eminescu

translated from Romanian by Delia Radu

Odă

(în metru antic)

Nu credeam să-nvăț a muri vrodată;
Pururi tânăr, înfășurat în manta-mi,
Ochii mei nălțam visător la steaua
Singurătății.

Când deodată tu răsăriși în cale-mi,
Suferință tu, dureros de dulce...
Pân-în fund băui voluptatea morții
Nendurătoare.

Jalnic ard de viu chinuit ca Nessus,
Ori ca Hercul înveninat de haina-i;
Focul meu a-l stinge nu pot cu toate
Apele mării.

De-al meu propriu vis, mistuit mă vaiet,
Pe-al meu propriu rug, mă topesc în flacări...
Pot să mai renviu luminos din el ca
Pasărea Phoenix?

Piară-mi ochii turburători din cale,
Vino iar în sân, nepăsare tristă;
Ca să pot muri liniștit, pe mine
Mie redă-mă!

Ode

(in Sapphic stanzas)

Never did I contemplate learning death’s game
Young forever I believed I’d be, proudly
Wore my mantle, dreamily worshipped the fierce
Star of aloneness.

All at once you, suffering, crossed my pathway,
Out you stood, voluptuous; your seductive
Magic brew, so painfully sweet, I drank down;
Death-like it tasted.

Now I’m broken, tortured like Nessus, aching,
Or like poisoned Hercules in the centaur’s
Blood smeared shirt; extinguish this fire no one can,
Even the sea can’t.

Moaning, as my own dream devours me, sobbing,
Melting down in flames, at my own stake burning...
Will I ever rise from the ashes shining
Bright like a phoenix?

Troubling eyes, from me go away, depart now
Come to me, indifference, constant, sad friend,
So I die in peace, you return myself to
Me, let me find me!

MIHAI EMINESCU is often regarded as Europe’s last great Romantic writer, though some critics prefer to focus on the pre- modernist chords of his poetry. Born in 1850 in Moldova, he studied in the Germano-Romanian cultural centre of Cernauti (now Chernovtsy, Ukraine), Vienna and Berlin, where he was influenced by Schopenhauer’s philosophy, Western literature and German translations of ancient Indian texts. Most of his literary work came to a halt in 1883, when he suffered the onset of a mental illness that led to his death in 1889 in an asylum in Bucharest, Romania. Eminescu modernised and transformed Romanian literature profoundly.

DELIA RADU is a journalist, writer and translator. Born and educated in Bucharest, she’s lived and worked in London since 1999. Her journalistic work was published on the BBC News website and BBC Sounds. Her literary work has appeared in the Cardinal Points Literary Journal, La Piccioletta Barca, Circumference and Sepia Quarterly.