Letter I [Scrisoarea I] - Mihai Eminescu

When with weary eyes I'm blowing out the candle late at night,
Only the big clock can follow time's long trail in rapid flight,
Because when you pull the curtains to the sides and moon will shine
Spilling in your tiny chamber its cold fire, so divine,
From the darkness of remembrance it will bring out an array
Of harsh pains that seem to hurt us like those dreams doleful and gray.

Dearest Moon, which are the mistress of the sea and glide on high,
You give life to the good thinking and remove the pain and cry;
Thousands deserts keep on shining under your enchanting wings
And the woods hide in their shadow the bright sparkling of their springs!
Many shores covered by flowers, palaces, all filled with light,
When you cross the vault of heaven you discover with delight!
And in thousands homes you enter through the windows, without fuss,
Looking at the thinking foreheads, hearing all they will discuss!
And you see a king who's brooding plans for centuries ahead,
When the poor is hardly hoping that tomorrow won't be dead...
Even if their fate is different and they have a different luck,
Both of them by you are lighted and by death they both are struck;
They are slaves searching for pleasures that will always be the same,
Be they weak or be they mighty, well-behaved or without shame!
One is looking in the mirror and is curling his long hair,
While another wants to fathom what is true and what is fair,
So, from faded books he gathers many crumbles, like a prize,
And their names, so ephemeral, on the tally he'll incise;
Still another splits the planet on a stand of wooden chips
Reckoning all gold the ocean carries in its large black ships.
The old teacher with his garment at the elbows thinned and torn
Without respite counts, deciphers, feeling tired and forlorn
And then buttons up his wrapper, cold has filled his eyes with tears,
Pulls his head into the collar, fills with cotton his old ears;
And although is thin, round-shouldered, and by people has been banned,
All the universe is resting in his small and shaking hand,
At the back of his tall forehead past and future ceased their fight
And unravels all the secrets of eternity's long night;
And like Atlas, who supported on his shoulder the blue sky,
He supports now with a number the whole world, it's not a lie.

While the moon is shining brightly on the scraps of books below,
All his thoughts fly in a moment many centuries ago,
When existence, non-existence, hadn't yet begun to be
So, the life and the volition hadn't started to be free,
When the things were not enshrouded, even though they were concealed...
And when resting in His essence there was just the unrevealed.
Was then chasm? was then chaos? or an ocean large and deep?
No one ever has been able to imagine or to peep,
For the darkness reigned all over and there was no ray to shine
And no eyes to look enchanted, no mind able to define.
The big shadow was still resting, all alone and full of bliss,
And the darkness was enveloped in an everlasting peace!...
But, behold! A point is moving, the first, solitary crumb
And the chaos will be mother, while he Father will become.
And that point, always in motion, smaller than the drop of foam,
Is the just and mighty ruler of the huge heavenly dome...
Since then, the eternal darkness has been splitting every day,
Since then rise the world, the sunlight and the moon above the bay...
Since that moment to the present lots of worlds lost in the dark
Climb the valleys of the chaos and eventually they spark
And in swarms of light emerging from the vast and boundless space
They are drawn to life by passion, feeling strongly a warm grace.
In this world so huge and wondrous, we live like the children spoiled
Building on our lovely planet anthills straight and anthills coiled;
Petty nations, kings and soldiers, scholars ready to create,
Even though we're ephemeral, yet we think that we are great;
Flies, which live one day or even much more less on this small land,
We make fuss in the vast cosmos, but we fail to understand
That the world is ephemeral, for in time it is confined
And in front of it is darkness and is darkness still behind.
As the dust is playing gladly in the many rays of light,
But when these begin to dwindle it will vanish out of sight,
So do we, in the deep darkness, which forever it will last,
Still possess the ray one moment, but it soon will become past...
When dies out, the world will perish like a shadow in the dark,
Universe is just a vision, nothingness, a short-lived spark...

Nowadays, the thorough thinker looks for answers in his head
And his mind flies in an instant many centuries ahead;
The bright sun, today so lofty, seems to him worn-out and bleak
And behind the clouds, in darkness, it will hide its reddish cheek,
So that ice will seize the planets, while they plunge into the space
Freed from light and from that burning which was scorching their face;
And the world's iconostasis in its core has become dark,
Like the leaves which die in autumn, all the stars have lost their spark;
The dead time gets longer, longer and becomes eternity,
Because in that empty cosmos there's no sign of novelty,
In the night of non-existence the deep silence will increase
For withdrawn in its pure essence reigns again the former peace...

...............................................................................

Starting with the common people who take care of minor things
And climbing the social ladder up to emperors and kings,
All of them take care with passion only by their secret fate,
But we cannot tell for certain who is humble, who is great...
In them lives the same one being, as the one is in all things
Above them a few are rising carried by the fate's strong wings,
While the others lie in darkness with a sad and gloomy heart
And unknown get lost for ever, like the foam that breaks apart –
Why should care the fate to ponder what they think, what each one craves?...
It is passing without mercy, like the wind over the waves.

If he's praised by all the writers and on top he will ascend
What will gain from all these trifles the old teacher in the end?
Immortality, they answer. It is true, the world agrees,
For he creeps on an idea like the woody vines on trees.
„If I die”, he says in secret, „centuries will know my fame
And from mouth to mouth in future they will carry my good name,
Everywhere, forever, always, in the brains will steady lurk
Because there will find a shelter both my name and all my work!”
Oh, poor fellow! Can you really now recall with your smart head
What you've seen during your lifetime and how many things you've said?
It's too little. Only fragments which you gather here and there
A small shadow of your thinking or a paper kept with care;
When you can't recall in detail your own life for a good cause
You expect that other people will inquire how it was?
Maybe only a scholastic with green eyes, wearing a cap,
Among scraps of books abiding, he himself a mere scrap,
Who will like your work in future and your words that overflow,
And the dust settled on covers off his glasses he will blow,
Will then cite your thoughts in passing, somewhere in the final stage,
In a poor and lonely footnote on a dull and silly page.
You can build a world of wonders, you can break it with disgust,
In the end it will be covered by a shovel of fine dust.
And your hand wishing the scepter and your head wishing rewards,
And your thoughts looking for greatness will end up between four boards...
Then a lot of heedless people to your funeral will come,
In a convoy full of splendor they will watch detached and dumb...
Then a man of no importance will come out to take the floor,
Wishing not to praise you greatly... but to show that he's worth more,
Using thus your name, your glory. This is all you can expect.
The posterity, however, will show even less respect.

Do you think they will admire you, when they can't compare to you?
They will clap their hands for certain at your flimsy life review,
Yet, they will reduce your merits, you were not so great, they say,
But a man, like all the others... Each one thinks that he's okay
And that you were not so famous. And they swell their rounded cheeks
In the boring expert meetings, when of you a member speaks.
For they have agreed to praise you in their speeches from the floor,
But behind the words they gossip, they have irony in store.
All these people will continue to preserve you in their clasp
Saying that you were mistaken when your words they cannot grasp...
In addition, they will rummage through your life, trying to find
Many stains, a lot of evils and expressions unrefined –
These will make you seem like others, not your value or the light
That you shed on this old planet, but the sins, the guilt, the spite,
The fatigue and all the weakness you've inherited from birth,
Tied by fate with skill for ever to a body made of earth;
All the little wrongs and evils, which a great soul leaves behind,
Will attract them much more strongly than your thoughts profound and kind.

........................................................................................

Among walls, beneath the blossoms falling slowly on the ground
It's impressive how the moonlight spreads at leisure on the ground!
From the darkness of remembrance it draws longings in a stream;
Their sharp pain is numb at present and they seem to be a dream,
For it opens wide the entrance into our soul, no doubt,
Raising then a lot of shadows when the candle light goes out...
Thousands deserts keep on shining under your enchanting wings
And the woods hide in their shadow the bright sparkling of their springs!
You rule over waves and shorelines, for you light them from the sky
When you cross at night the oceans all alone, seeming to fly,
And all those who on this planet are forever ruled by luck
See the light that you spread always and by death they all are struck!

Added by: Octavian

Translator: Octavian Cocoş
Language: English


see more poems written by: Mihai Eminescu



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