DECEPTIONS
"Of course I was drugged, and so
heavily I did not regain
consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to
discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt."
consciousness until the next morning. I was horrified to
discover that I had been ruined, and for some days I was inconsolable,
and cried like a child to be killed or sent back to my aunt."
Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor
Even so distant, I can taste the grief,
Bitter and sharp with stalks, he made
you gulp.
The sun's occasional print, the brisk
brief
Worry of wheels along the street outside
Where bridal London bows the other way,
And light ,
unanswerable and tall and wide,
Forbids the scar to heal, and drives
Shame out of hiding. All the unhurried day,
Your mind lay open like a drawer of
knives.
Slums, years, have buried you. I would
not dare
Except that suffering is exact, but
where
Desire takes charge ,
readings will grow erratic?
For you would hardly care
That you were less deceived, out on that
bed,
Than he was, stumbling up the breathless
stair
To burst into fulfillment's desolate
attic.
Philip Larkin (1922 - 1985 / West Midlands / England)
The Less Deceived, 1950
The Less Deceived, 1950
DECEPÇÕES
na
Londres, noivando
e
Ficou-te, ao
da
Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived, 1950
Tradução de Paulo Mendes de Campos , in O Pasquim
IF,
MY DARLING
If my darling were once to decide
Not to stop at my eyes,
But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt into my head,
She would find no table and chairs,
No mahogany claw-footed sideboards,
No undisturbed embers;
The tantalus would not be filled, nor the fender-seat cosy,
Nor the shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath,
Nor the butler bibulous, the housemaids lazy:
She would find herself looped with the creep of varyinglight ,
Monkey-brown, fish-grey, a string of infected circles
Loitering like bullies, about to coagulate;
Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman's glove,
Then sicken inclusively outwards. She would also remark
The unwholesome floor, as it might be the skin of agrave ,
From which ascends an adhesive sense of betrayal,
A Grecian statue kicked in the privates, money,
A swill-tub of finer feelings. But most of all
She'd be stopping her ears against the incessantrecital
Intoned by reality, larded with technical terms,
Each one double-yolked with meaning and meaning's rebuttal:
For the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot,
And to hear how the past is past and the future neuter
Might knock my darlingoff her
unpriceable pivot.
If my darling were once to decide
Not to stop at my eyes,
But to jump, like Alice, with floating skirt into my head,
She would find no table and chairs,
No mahogany claw-footed sideboards,
No undisturbed embers;
The tantalus would not be filled, nor the fender-seat cosy,
Nor the shelves stuffed with small-printed books for the Sabbath,
Nor the butler bibulous, the housemaids lazy:
She would find herself looped with the creep of varying
Monkey-brown, fish-grey, a string of infected circles
Loitering like bullies, about to coagulate;
Delusions that shrink to the size of a woman's glove,
Then sicken inclusively outwards. She would also remark
The unwholesome floor, as it might be the skin of a
From which ascends an adhesive sense of betrayal,
A Grecian statue kicked in the privates, money,
A swill-tub of finer feelings. But most of all
She'd be stopping her ears against the incessant
Intoned by reality, larded with technical terms,
Each one double-yolked with meaning and meaning's rebuttal:
For the skirl of that bulletin unpicks the world like a knot,
And to hear how the past is past and the future neuter
Might knock my darling
Philip Larkin, The Less Deceived, 1950
[Post original: http://comunidade.sol.pt/blogs/josecarreiro/archive/2010/07/26/larkin.aspx]
