Bokelskere.no

...siden det allerede finnes en meget lang dikttråd med for det meste norske og skandinaviske dikt, lager jeg en egen for dikt på engelsk.

Det sies at dikt er det som er vanskeligst å oversette, og vanskeligst å oppleve på et fremmed språk. Men vi har ingen problemer med engelsk sang eller rap. Vel, vi tror i hvert fall vi forstår dem. Kanskje det er en naturlig musikalitet i det engelske språket, som gjør at vi kan nyte uten egentlig å skjønne...

Oscar Wildes "The Ballad of Reading Gaol" er et dikt jeg leser igjen og igjen. Nå skal jeg ikke lime inn hele her, for det er langt, så spesielt interesserte kan heller lese det her. Men et lite høydepunkt må jeg dele med dere:

I only knew what haunted thought
Quickened his step, and why
He looked upon the garish day
With such a wistful eye;
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

Yet each man kills the thing he loves,
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

Ja, det er flott. Så underlig å bli satt i fengsel, og skrive dikt om de andre fangene.

Ellers er det vel ikke så mange av diktene til Wilde som blir husket, men dette er bra:

"E Tenebris"

Come down, O Christ, and help me! reach Thy hand,
For I am drowning in a stormier sea
Than Simon on Thy lake of Galilee:
The wine of life is spilt upon the sand,

My heart is as some famine-murdered land
Whence all good things have perished utterly,
And well I know my soul in Hell must lie
If I this night before God's throne should stand.

'He sleeps perchance, or rideth to the chase,
Like Baal, when his prophets howled that name
From morn to noon on Carmel's smitten height.'

Nay, peace, I shall behold, before the night,
The feet of brass, the robe more white than flame,
The wounded hands, the weary human face.

Siden du nevner det om at det sies at dikt er mest vanskelig å oversette, så poster jeg et som er nettopp det; oversatt.

"The Beauty of flying"

There are those threetops
whispering;
come!
and a Me answering them

with just staying here paying attention.

-Sommerfugla -

Jeg starter selv, med et lite men nesten perfekt dikt:

"Adlestrop"

Yes, I remember Adlestrop –
The name because one afternoon
Of heat the express-train drew up there
Unwontendly. It was late June.

The steam hissed. Someone cleared his throat.
No one left and no one came
On the bare platform. What I saw
Was Adlestrop – only the name

And willows, willow-herb, and grass,
And meadowsweet, and haycocks dry,
No whit less still and lonely fair
Than the high cloudlets in the sky.

And for that minute a blackbird sang
Close by, and round him, mistier,
Farther and farther, all the birds
Of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire.

Edward Thomas.