dubitanda (ever in doubt)

crumpled ⋮ radiance

THE CRIME OF LONELINESS


Every when the dusk falls dangerously,

your voice rouses inside to ravage me;

and when the night ousts every last sweet image,

there looms within me your sordid beauty

to wipe away God’s splendour from my eyes. 

And it’s then that I give in to the crime of loneliness,
for years now have I readied it inside me,

and there is no more heavenly radiance,
no more cherubic choirs,
only a soliciting of spasms,
night cash crumpled.

Dinos Christianopoulos

ΤΟ ΕΓΚΛΗΜΑ ΤΗΣ ΜΟΝΑΞΙΑΣ

Κάθε ποὺ πέφτει ἐπικίνδυνα τὸ βράδυ,
ξυπνάει ἡ φωνή σου μέσα μου καὶ μὲ ρημάζει·
κι ὅταν ἡ νύχτα ὅλες τὶς γλυκιὲς εἰκόνες διώχνει,
προβάλλει ἐντός μου ἡ βρώμικη ὀμορφιά σου
καὶ σβήνει ἀπὸ τὰ μάτια μου τὴ λάμψη τοῦ Θεοῦ.

Καὶ τότε δίνομαι στὸ ἔγκλημα τῆς μοναξιᾶς,
ποὺ χρόνια τώρα μέσα μου τὸ ἑτοιμάζω,
καὶ πιὰ δὲν ἔχει οὐράνιο φεγγοβόλημα,
δὲν ἔχει πιὰ παιδικὲς χορωδίες,
μονάχα μιὰ προσπάθεια γιὰ σπασμούς,
νυχτερινὰ χαρτονομίσματα τσαλακωμένα.

Poem taken from the collection Stranger Knees [ΞΕΝΑ ΓΟΝΑΤΑ] by Dinos Christianopoulos (1952–1957).

 

Personal and ongoing translation project.

 

The image shows a fallen early Classical (and so: unsmiling) warrior from the East Pediment of the Temple of Aphaia on the island of Aegina.

 

He now lives (ever breathing out his last breath) inside the Munich Glyptothek.

 

One knee strangely vacant.

 
 

see also
(this dubitandum lives alone)