Mon corps, souviens-toi

Mon corps, souviens-toi, non seulement combien tu fus aime
Non seulement des lits ou tu t'es etendu
Mais souviens-toi, aussi, de ces desirs
Qui, dans certains regards, si ostensiblement brillaient
Pour toi, et tremblaient dans les voix
Et qu'un obstacle fortuit a jamais empecha de s'accomplir.
A present que tout cela git dans le passe,
Il semble presque que tu te sois livre
Aussi a ces desirs - souviens-toi comme ils brillaient
Dans les regards qui te fixaient; comme ils tremblaient
Dans le timbre des voix - souviens-toi, mon corps.

Gaivota

I have spent many years crying over this song, never knowing what it means, not caring what it means:

Se uma gaivota viesse
Trazer-me o céu de lisboa
No desenho que fizesse,
Nesse céu onde o olhar
É uma asa que não voa,
Esmorece e cai no mar.

Que perfeito coração
No meu peito bateria,
Meu amor na tua mão,
Nessa mão onde cabia
Perfeito o meu coração.

Se um português marinheiro,
Dos sete mares andarilho,
Fosse quem sabe o primeiro
A contar-me o que inventasse,
Se um olhar de novo brilho
No meu olhar se enlaçasse.

Que perfeito coração
No meu peito bateria,
Meu amor na tua mão,
Nessa mão onde cabia
Perfeito o meu coração.

Se ao dizer adeus à vida
As aves todas do céu,
Me dessem na despedida
O teu olhar derradeiro,
Esse olhar que era só teu,
Amor que foste o primeiro.

Que perfeito coração
No meu peito morreria,
Meu amor na tua mão,
Nessa mão onde perfeito
Bateu o meu coração.

For years I felt that I knew enough: Lisboa, gaivota, coração (Lisbon, seagull, heart) -- one understands enough, no? Certainly enough to cry in one's cups in the hour before dawn.

And now, willy nilly, I find that Portuguese is rubbing off on me -- undesired, unbeknownst -- and that I now know what the song says -- and, guess what, no, I don't, no, not really.

For it says this:

Oh that a seagull could come
And draw for me the sky of Lisbon
In a drawing he sketched
In that sky where to look
Is to be like a wing that fails to fly
Faints and falls into the sea.

Oh that a perfect heart
Could beat in my chest --
My love in your hand --
This hand where it fit
So perfectly, my heart.

Oh that a Portuguese sailor,
Wanderer of the seven seas,
Who knows just the thing
To tell me first of all that he has discovered,
Oh that a gaze at the new brilliance
Might become ensnared in my looking.

Oh that a perfect heart
Could beat in my chest --
My love in your hand --
This hand where it fit
So perfectly, my heart.

Oh that saying goodbye to life
All the birds of the sky
Could give me in their farewell
Your last gaze,
That gaze that was solely yours
Love that oh were it could have been the first.

Oh that a perfect heart
Could beat in my chest --
My love in your hand --
This hand where it fit
So perfectly, my heart.

Which is what I had known for years already: Lisboa, gaivota, coração. All this time here, all that stealthy, unplanned for linguistic progress amounts to a single gain: the image of one's gaze cast into the liquid sky of Lisboa dropping down into the sea like Icarus, like a seagull which has fainted on the wing, fainted on the wing with pleasure.

I will leave my beloved Lisboa soon to go to other lands, other sea coasts, and when there I will remember (whenever I see a sea gull) to say to myself: oh that that sea gull might bring me a piece of the sky of Lisboa.

(Sniff).

Guardar o rio

One really nice thing about lisbon is the nature of her graffiti. Most places in the world the graffiti say something like

***

or

###

or

$%#!

but here it's mostly... poetry. On my walk yesterday I saw a poem by pablo neruda and this morning this --

(I'm quoting from memory, I have no Portuguese grammar, and my computer refuses to type Portuguese diacriticals, so this is probably jumbled up in more ways than one, but still I am sure you will be able to figure out and correct the mistakes and will still get it:)

It graces a wall overlooking the river and it says

e tao dificil guardar o rio
cuando il corre dentro de nos

And you turn your gaze towards the river and you think to yourself:

E verdad.

Raise thyself unto poesy, mensch!

.
Polyphemus is -- well -- Poliphermanator. But he is also a poet:

Air

Polyphemus

O ruddier than the cherry,
O sweeter than the berry,
O nymph more bright
Than moonshine night,
Like kidlings blithe and merry.

Ripe as the melting cluster,
No lily has such lustre;
Yet hard to tame
As raging flame,
And fierce as storms that bluster!

O ruddier. . . etc. (da capo)

The poetry is mighty good: Poliphemus is so taken with his creation that repeats the opening two lines three times (what is good to hear once, etc.) and then breaks out into a bleating ornamentation. ("Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee").

Ah, the transformative power of love!

A good singer will sing the aria badly -- off beat ("o sweeter than the berry") and bleat like a sheep on the eeeeee ornamentando. Mathew Rose does this brilliantly here. Bryn Terfel does it badly: he doesn't know how to discard his singer's pride in the name of -- well, a good joke.

Which this aria is.

(Who says Germans have no sense of humor?)

Dog days

Dog days are upon us; one lies in shade all day, like a beached sunfish, barely breathing, reading poetry:

Il brille, le sauvage Été,
La poitrine pleine de roses.
Il brûle tout, hommes et choses,
Dans sa placide cruauté.

Il met le désir effronté
Sur les jeunes lèvres décloses ;
Il brille, le sauvage Été,
La poitrine pleine de roses.

Roi superbe, il plane irrité
Dans des splendeurs d'apothéoses
Sur les horizons grandioses ;
Fauve dans la blanche clarté,
Il brille, le sauvage Été.

Théodore de Banville -- look -- he looked hot. Then, at dusk, life begins: one strolls slowly through the empty streets, under the tropical canopies, and stops at street-side cafes for coffees and sweets.