Wislawa Szymborska

stage fright

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Life While You Wait
–Wisława Szymborska
Life while you wait.
Performance without rehearsal.
Body without fitting.
Head without reflection.

I don’t know the role I’m playing.
I only know it’s mine, non-convertible.

What the play is about
I must guess only after it’s begun.

Poorly prepared for the dignity of life,
I barely keep up with the pace of the action imposed.
I improvise, though I loathe improvisation.
At every step I stumble over my lack of expertise.
My way of life smacks of provincialism.
My instincts are those of a rank amateur.
Stage fright, although an excuse, is all the more humiliating.
Extenuating circumstances I perceive as cruel…

If only one Wednesday could be practiced ahead of time,
or if only one Thursday could again be repeated!
But here it is nearly Friday, with a scenario I don’t know.
Is it fair—I ask
(with hoarseness in my voice,
because I wasn’t even allowed to clear my throat in the wings).

Illusory is the thought that this is just a pop quiz
Taken on temporary premises. No.
I stand amid the scenery and see how solid it is.
I am struck by the accuracy of all the props.
The revolving stage has long been in operation.
Even the most distant nebulae have been switched on.
Ah, I have no doubt that this is opening night.
And whatever I may do
Will be forever changed into that which I have done.

Original

Życie na poczekaniu
-Wisława Szymborska
Życie na poczekaniu.
Przedstawienie bez próby.
Ciało bez przymiarki.
Głowa bez namysłu.

Nie znam roli, którą gram.
Wiem tylko, że jest moja, niewymienna.

O czym jest sztuka,
zgadywać muszę wprost na scenie.

Kiepsko przygotowana do zaszczytu życia,
narzucone mi tempo akcji znoszę z trudem.
Improwizuję, choć brzydzę się improwizacją.
Potykam się co krok o nieznajomość rzeczy.
Mój sposób bycia zatrąca zaściankiem.
Moje instynkty to amatorszczyzna.
Trema, tłumacząc mnie, tym bardziej upokarza.
Okoliczności łagodzące odczuwam jako okrutne.

Nie do cofnięcia słowa i odruchy,
nie doliczone gwiazdy,
charakter jak płaszcz w biegu dopinany –
oto żałosne skutki tej nagłości.

Gdyby choć jedną środę przećwiczyć zawczasu,
albo choć jeden czwartek raz jeszcze powtórzyć!
A tu już piątek nadchodzi z nie znanym mi scenariuszem.
Czy to w porządku – pytam
(z chrypką w głosie,
bo nawet mi nie dano odchrząknąć za kulisami).
Złudna jest myśl, że to tylko pobieżny egzamin
składany w prowizorycznym pomieszczeniu. Nie.
Stoję wśród dekoracji i widzę, jak są solidne.
Uderza mnie precyzja wszelkich rekwizytów.
Aparatura obrotowa działa od długiej już chwili.
Pozapalane zostały najdalsze nawet mgławice.
Och, nie mam wątpliwości, że to premiera.
I cokolwiek uczynię,
zamieni się na zawsze w to, co uczyniłam.

Photo by Rob Laughter on Unsplash

too near

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In the years immediately preceding Wisława Szymborska‘s surprising Nobel Prize for Literature win, I devoured her work (what I could get my hands on). I would revisit the same poems again and again, always finding something new to savor. This applied in particular to “I Am Too Near”. Recently re-reading Szymborska, it/she no longer holds the same sway over me. Is it because I am older, different and respond to things differently? Or is it that I spent so much time and energy living inside the work back then that I find it almost too familiar… wandering into an abandoned house I lived in nearly 25 years ago to find the place similar but worn with time, much like myself? Am I, in fact, too near?

“For her now in him a valley grows…”

I Am Too Near
-Wisława Szymborska
I am too near to be dreamt of by him.
I do not fly over him, do not escape from him
under the roots of a tree. I am too near.
Not in my voice sings the fish in the net,
not from my finger rolls the ring.
I am too near. A big house is on fire
without me, calling for help. Too near
for a bell dangling from my hair to chime.
Too near to enter as a guest
before whom walls glide apart by themselves.
Never again will I die so lightly,
so much beyond my flesh, so inadvertently
as once in his dream. Too near.
I taste the sound, I see the glittering husk of this word
as I lie immobile in his embrace. He sleeps,
more accessible now to her, seen but once
a cashier of a wandering circus with one lion,
than to me, who am at his side.
For her now in him a valley grows,
russet-leaved, closed by a snowy mountain
in the bright blue air. I am too near
to fall to him from the sky. My scream
could wake him up. Poor thing
I am, limited to my shape,
I who was a birch, who was a lizard,
who would come out of my cocoons
shimmering the colors of my skins. Who possessed
the grace of disappearing from astonished eyes,
which is a wealth of wealths. I am near,
too near for him to dream of me.
I slide my arm from under the sleeper’s head
and it is numb, full of swarming pins,
on the tip of each, waiting to be counted,
the fallen angels sit.

Translation lie

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Another of those times we (or at least I) must accept the lie and limitations of translation. I can look at the Polish original and glean what I think the meaning and ultimate English-language translation should be, but ultimately it could go so many ways. I fed this infernal despair and frustration with translation years ago by immersing myself in language study so that I could create reasonable simulacra of translations. Never ended up particularly happy with these seeming facsimiles or even with comparative studies of existing translations.

Yet, at the same time, I want people to see and read these works, even in translation, because there are so many works in the world that just scream out to be read!

Gratitude (links to a different translation, which might be useful for comparison’s sake)
–Wisława Szymborska
I owe a great deal
to those I do not love.

The relief with which I accept
they are dearer to someone else.

The joy that it is not I
who am wolf to their sheep

Peace unto me with them,
and freedom with them unto me,
and that is something that love cannot give
or contrive to take away.

I do not wait for them
from window to door.
patient
almost like a sundial,
I understand
what love does not understand,
I forgive
what love would never forgive.

From meeting to letter
passes not an eternity
but merely a few days or weeks.

Travels with them are always a success,
concerts heard,
cathedrals visited,
landscapes in sharp focus.

And when we are separated
by seven mountains and rivers
they are mountains and rivers
well known from the map.

It is thanks to them
that I live in three dimensions
in a space non-lyrical and non-rhetorical,
with a horizon real because movable.

They themselves do not know
how much they bring in empty hands –

“I owe them nothing,”
love would say
on this open question.

Here’s the original if you’d like to put your skills to work deciphering its code and interpreting its meaning and unveiling it in English as well.

Podziękowanie
–Wisława Szymborska

Wiele zawdzięczam
tym, których nie kocham.

Ulgę, z jaką się godzę,
że bliżsi są komu innemu.

Radość, że nie ja jestem
wilkiem ich owieczek.

Pokój mi z nimi
i wolność mi z nimi,
a tego miłość ani dać nie może,
ani brać nie potrafi.

Nie czekam na nich
od okna do drzwi.

Cierpliwa
prawie jak słoneczny zegar,
wybaczam,
miłość nie wybaczyłaby nigdy.

Od spotkania do listu
nie wieczność upływa,
ale po prostu kilka dni albo tygodni.

Podróże z nimi zawsze są udane,
koncerty wysłuchane,
katedry zwiedzone,
krajobrazy wyraźne.

A kiedy nas rozdziela
siedem gór i rzek,
są to góry i rzeki
dobrze znane z mapy.

Ich zasługą,
jeżeli żyję w trzech wymiarach,
w przestrzeni nielirycznej i nieretorycznej
z prawdziwym, bo ruchomym horyzontem.

Sami nie wiedzą,
ile niosą w rękach pustych.
“Nic im nie jestem winna” –
powiedziałaby miłość
na ten otwarty temat.

Image (c) Stephen Donaghy