O Cataclismo e as Canções Cataclysm and Songs

O Cataclismo e as Canções

Feliz o que de mim restar, depois de mim
Se uma só das canções cantadas
Viver além daquele que em mim agora canta.
Da hecatombe não salvaria contudo
Uma só das canções que cantei e canto.
Às entranhas do olvido
Antes roubaria o riso das crianças
E a idade do provérbio.
 
Assim aos vindouros
Intacto ofertaria o enigma da luz.
 

Cataclysm and Songs

Happy what's left of me after I'm gone
If only one of the songs sung
Lives beyond the person singing in me now.
Yet I would not save from the slaughter
A single one of the songs I sang and sing.
 
Instead from the entrails of oblivion
I would steal the laughter of children
And the age of the proverb.
 
And so to those who come 
I would offer intact the enigma of light
 

The Cataclysm and the Songs

Happy what remains of me, after me
If just one of the sung songs
Lives beyond the person who sings in me now.
Yet I would not save from the massacre [literally: hecatomb]
A single one of the songs I sang and sing.
From the entrails of oblivion
I would instead steal the laughter of children
and the age of the proverb.
 
And so I would offer intact   [Assim - also = Like this / in this way]
To those to come the enigma of light.   [posterity, future generations - os
                                                               vindouros]
 

This small poem was by far the most complex of the three short poems by Conceição Lima we translated as a result of the compact nature and ambiguity of the original.

The opening lines were difficult to unpack, but we were pleased with the resulting ‘S’ sounds which matched the ‘C’ sounds in the original: this was why we fixed on ‘slaughter’, for example.

We changed the syntax of the final stanza to make it clearer in English.

Sarah Maguire, Workshop Facilitator

Original Poem by

Conceicao Lima

Translated by

Stefan Tobler with The Poetry Translation Workshop Language

Portuguese

Country

São Tomé and Príncipe