De Amerikaanse dichter Charles Reznikoff werd op 30 augustus 1894 in New York geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Charles Reznikoff op dit blog.

KING DAVID (Fragment)

“And David said to Solomon, ‘My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the Lord my God: But the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Thou has shed blood abun-dandy, and hast made great wars: thou shall not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight.” —I Chronicles XXII: 7,8.

I
His height was six cubits and a span;
his helmet brass,
the weight of his coat-of-mail is five thousand shekels of brass,
he had greaves of brass upon his legs,
and a target of brass upon his shoulders;
the staff of his spear is like a weaver’s beam,
the weight of his spearhead is five hundred shekels of iron.
He stood before our camp and shouted,
Am I not a Philistine and you servants of Saul?
Choose a man to fight with me;
if he is able to kill me, we are your servants,
if not, you are ours.
And we stood there, dismayed—
even Jonathan.
Now there had come to the camp a lad from Bethlehem,
whose three eldest brothers had followed Saul to battle:
the lad brought them parched corn, and loaves and cheese for their captain.
And he asked of the soldiers, Who is this Philistine that he should
……………………..challenge the armies of the living God?
They told him how the king had said that he would enrich the man
……………………who killed the Philistine,
and give the man Michal—the king’s daughter—for a wife;
and then the soldiers jeered at him and said, Do you think to kill him?
His eldest brother pushed through the soldiers and said,
What are you doing here?
With whom have you left our few sheep in the wilderness?
I know your naughtiness: you have come to see the battle.
The lad answered them all, I will go and fight with this Philistine,
and they reasoned with him: What are you thinking of?
You are only a lad and he has been a man of war since his youth.
I will go with my staff and sling and the stones in my scrip.
Goliath called out, Am I a dog that you come against me with a stick?
Come on, and I will give your flesh to the birds of heaven and the beasts
………………………..of the field,
but as he lifted his spear,
the lad took a stone and slung it, and it sank into Goliath’s forehead.
At this we rushed upon the Philistines.
Jonathan
has given the lad his own robe, girdle, sword and bow;
now David shall stay among the men of war,
and be Michal’s husband.

De Amerikaanse schrijfster en dichteres Rita Frances Dove werd geboren op 28 augustus 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor Rita Dove op dit blog.

Dagorders

Na de gebulderde wekroep de koude druppelwasbeurt
en het opmaken van onze bedden; nadat de taken waren uitgedeeld
en we brood kruimelden in de zure kool, om vervolgens

te worden geteld in de rij, je nummer beduidde je lot;
was er een ogenblik – vóór het rennen naar de klas,
uitkijkposten onder de zolderkast, niet meer dan

een zweem, een helder, wreed herinneren –
dat we weer onszelf werden,
met spuuglok en vlecht, blozend van gepikte appels

of weggestopt snoep. We hurkten niet in de regen
nadat we geteld waren en rilden niet
onder dakspanten om vast te houden aan

onze dromen van de buitenwereld.
We waren nog maar kinderen. En dat
korte vergeten, die woeste bedwelming

die we stil trachtten te houden in ons hoofd
als in een boordevolle bokaal
tot de dag loodrecht aanrukte, zijn orders blafte –

was het meest zalige of schokkende moment
dat we op aarde zouden doormaken:
op deze harde, stuurse aarde

die we niet langer herkenden maar waar we
onze ziel maar al te snel aan zouden toevertrouwen
als ten slotte onze lichamen verkruimelden

hun laatste rustplaats in.

Vertaald door Jabik Veenbaas

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 30^e augustus ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2023 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2019 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2017 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2016.

De Amerikaanse dichter Charles Reznikoff werd op 30 augustus 1894 in New York geboren. Zie ook alle tags voor Charles Reznikoff op dit blog.

Spain: Anno 1492

Torquemada. Now that Castile and Aragon in holy wedlock
are Spain,
and the last city of the Moors in Spain is Spanish
except for Moor and Jew—
about every crucifix in every market-place
and in the court itself the Jews!—
as seven centuries of Christian valor, Christian piety
triumph
stay not your hand;
Spain of the knights,
one in fealty to your majesties,
become one in faith,
Spain of the saints!
Like the sun,
rising as our Savior from His tomb into the brilliant sky
blaze
until the clouds that still obscure the light
are drawn into His brightness
and earth is brilliant as the sky is bright.
Spain newly united
still divided—
as the season of cold is the season of darkness
in the spring of our rejoicing that the Moor is gone from Spain,
the Jew go too!
But if the Spaniard speaks,
I speak no less a Christian:
throw away the curse, you Jews,
of fifteen hundred years;
stay and prosper
and Church and Heaven prosper,
in our nets a goodly catch.
Think not that we want aught of you
but your souls;
your money and your jewels—
all your trash—
keep if you stay and are Christian,
take if you are Jews and go;
we ask of you nothing but your Judaism
which has brought you so much misery
and will bring each of you—
the youngest and the gentlest—
to the flames of Hell
and the worm that dies not.
We give you,
miserable sinners,
the waters of
Paradise;
we give you the blessings of the saints,
the blessings of Mary, the blessed mother of Christ,
and the blessings of our Lord Jesus.
Isabella. There is a sweet reasonableness in the words of our
prior;
it is Saint Dominic who speaks to us
through his Dominican or Saint James himself.
Abrabanel. No noble in your court, your majesties,
proud of his forefather, conquering Goth or Visigoth or Vandal,
is of an older Spanish line than we—
Jews in Iberia before the Romans came.
No noble boasting his service
boasts of more than that Jew who through a thousand shoals
and reefs
piloted Aragon to Castile—your marriage and Spain’s glory.
The rest of us, many tens of thousands,
serve you humbly
in smithy, field or vineyard, soldiers or physicians,
as we have served in Spain two thousand years,
Spaniards, true to your majesties
as we are to the God of Israel—and of Spain,
unlike the others only in our faith
for which, if we must answer,
we shall answer to our God.
Torquemada. Since all we do,
and each word spoken, if only in our hearts,
must be in worship—
not a leaf falls slowly but in His service—
to be unlike us in our faith
is to be unlike in everything.
True, you Jews must answer to your God,
and in the flames and burning ice of Hell forever
you shall answer;
but we too, priests, bishops, queen and king,
must answer for you:
farmer or captain answers;
shall we be less answerable for souls?
Abrabanel. You do not honor your God
by bringing Him captives,
like a mere emperor
who must have retainers and retinue,
serfs and forced labor;
the loadstone
without visible motion
draws to itself every particle of iron;
the sword—even though a winged angel swings it—
served only
to drive Adam from his paradise.
Your fingers stiff with rings and jewels,
you dishonor your faith, your majesties, by cruelty,
give it whatever noble name you will
as princes make a rogue knight or lord.
Will thieves and pirates be gentler with us
than your constables and soldiers?—
your majesties will hear of many
ripped up for the jewels it will be said they swallowed;
many left by sailors to die on reefs and sandbars
for a smock or a pair of hose; many dead of plague
or found like birds in winter
dead in the fields about towns or like fish upon a beach;
many will die as slaves at work
beasts would be fitter for but costlier,
who have written a page of Castilian
or handled a Toledo blade with the best.
And yet the weak has each his strength,
Spain of Spaniard, Basque, and Catalonian, Moor and Gypsy,
else all beasts were tigers,
all fish sharks,
and only giants left;
the stricken remember—
as wounds and scars last longer than the blow—
and if drops of water wear channels in the rock
on which the earth itself is,
in the action of centuries
how powerful are tears.
Would you have our religion
like our clothes—for comfort and the eyes of men,
put off at night,
and we left lying naked in the darkness?
The body is like roots stretching down into the earth—
forcing still a way over stones and under rock, through sand,
sucking nourishment in darkness,
bearing the tread of man and beast,
and of the earth forever;
but the spirit—
twigs and leaves
spreading
through sunshine
or the luminous darkness
of twilight, evening, night, and dawn,
moving
in every wind of heaven
and turning
to whatever corner of the sky is brightest,
compelled by nothing stronger than the light;
the body is like earth,
the spirit like water
without which earth is sand
and which must be free or stagnant;
or if the body is as water,
the spirit is like air
that must have doors and windows
or else is stuffy and unbreathable—
or like the fire
of which sun and stars have been compounded,
which Joshua could command but for an hour.
Isabella. If our eye offends us,
pluck it out!
Even so, we will sweep away the Jews
from every town and hamlet, field and corner of our dominion,
though they are the sands for number.
Go and begone—but stay as Christians;
come and be dear to us,
as the Prodigal!
Abrabanel. We Jews have been accused of love of wealth,
but not for all our wealth in Spain,
fields and vineyards, houses of timber and houses of stone
that we must leave,
and all the wealth that will be stolen from us,
will we stay;
we Jews have been accused of arrogance,
but not for all the dignities that we must leave,
our offices and honors
in this, the proudest court of Christendom,
will we stay;
we Jews have been accused of love of life,
delighting in the flesh,
but though we shall die along a thousand roads
we will not stay—
striking roots
somewhere
to flourish
as we flourished,
giving shade and fruit.

De Amerikaanse schrijfster en dichteres Rita Frances Dove werd geboren op 28 augustus 1952 in Akron, Ohio. Zie ook alle tags voor Rita Dove op dit blog.

De voorjaarskrekel overdenkt de kwestie van de zwarte mens

Ik speelde mijn wijsjes helemaal alleen;
Ik kende niemand anders
die met me mee kon spelen.

Zeker, de wijsjes waren droevig –
maar ook mooi en kwamen pas
als de dag ten einde liep: je weet

hoe de hemel soms haar laatste
heldere sliertjes achterhoudt? Dan
woekerde de pijn van binnen

tot ik niet kon wachten; ik knielde neer
om mezelf schoon te schrapen,
wat iedereen mocht horen.

Toen kwam het schreeuwen en fluiten
het in potten stoppen, wild geklauter.
Nu waren er anderen: gevallen,

bedrukt. Ik kende hun namen niet.
We waren een muzieklantaarn;
kinderen sliepen op onze raspende zuchten.

En als nu en dan een van ons
zich losrukte en zong terwijl hij
naar de rand klom, viel hij steevast

weer neer. Waarop zij lachten
en in hun handen klapten. Toen wisten we
ten minste wat ze fijn vonden,

en waar de grens lag.

Vertaald door Jabik Veenbaas

Zie voor nog meer schrijvers van de 30^e augustus ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2023 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2019 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2017 en ook mijn blog van 30 augustus 2016.