Dezső Kosztolányi: Would You Like To Play?

 Dezső Kosztolányi: Would You Like To Play?

Tell me, would you like to be my playmate?
How would you like to play always and ever?
With a child’s heart, looking very clever,
would you like to hide in the dark till very late?
Solemnly to sit at the head of the table
pouring out water and wine with restraint,
yet throwing around beads and pearls and be able
to enjoy trifles and clothes that look funny and quaint?
All these things that make life — would you like to play
a snowy winter and a long-long autumn day,
together, silently, sipping our cups of tea,
with yellow steam, the drink the coulour of ruby?
With a pure, full heart, would you like to live
and between long silences sometimes to give
a sigh of fear, when this old man, November,
is strolling on the boulevards and under
our window he whistles now and again?
Would you like to play being a serpent or a bird,
a long voyage on a ship or on the train,
all the good things, a Christmas and dreams
and a happy lover, too, who only seems
to cry, who only pretends feeling blue?
To live inside a play which has become fully true,
how’d you like living like that forever and ever?
And here is a scene: between flowers you lie
on the ground… Would you like to play that we die?

Translator: Kabdebó Tamás

Kosztolányi Dezső: Akarsz-e játszani?

A játszótársam, mondd, akarsz-e lenni,
akarsz-e mindig, mindig játszani,
akarsz-e együtt a sötétbe menni,
gyerekszívvel fontosnak látszani,
nagykomolyan az asztalfőre ülni,
borból-vízből mértékkel tölteni,
gyöngyöt dobálni, semminek örülni,
sóhajtva rossz ruhákat ölteni?
Akarsz-e játszani mindent, mi élet,
havas telet és hosszu-hosszu őszt,
lehet-e némán teát inni véled,
rubin-teát és sárga páragőzt?
Akarsz-e teljes, tiszta szívvel élni,
hallgatni hosszan, néha-néha félni,
hogy a körúton járkál a november,
az utcaseprő, szegény, beteg ember,
ki fütyürész az ablakunk alatt?
Akarsz játszani kígyót, madarat,
hosszú utazást, vonatot, hajót,
karácsonyt, álmot, mindenféle jót?
Akarsz játszani boldog szeretőt,
színlelni sírást, cifra temetőt?
Akarsz-e élni, élni mindörökkön,
játékban élni, mely valóra vált?
Virágok közt feküdni lenn a földön,
s akarsz, akarsz-e játszani halált?

 

Vladimir Nabokov
My friend, I`m really just sorry...

My friend, I'm really just sorry
about who, in secret blindness,
passing all length of the green alley,
just can not notice on leaves
the striking network of the streaks
and points of the tubercles
or even the serrated tracks
from saws of the blue-horned slugs.

| a_ higher world of reality from The Psalms Of Islam Sahifa As Sajadiyya

  

Naked Girl And Mirror

This is not I. I had no body once-
only what served my need to laugh and run
and stare at stars and tentatively dance
on the fringe of foam and wave and sand and sun.
Eyes loved, hands reached for me, but I was gone
on my own currents, quicksilver, thistledown.
Can I be trapped at last in that soft face?

I stare at you in fear, dark brimming eyes.
Why do you watch me with that immoderate plea-
"Look under these curled lashes, recognize
that you were always here; know me-be me."
Smooth once-hermaphrodite shoulders, too tenderly
your long slope runs, above those sudden shy
curves furred with light that spring below your space.

No, I have been betrayed. If I had known
that this girl waited between a year and a year,
I'd not have chosen her bough to dance upon.
Betrayed, by that little darkness here, and here
this swelling softness and that frightened stare
from eyes I will not answer; shut out here
from my own self, by its new body's grace-

for I am betrayed by someone lovely. Yes,
I see you are lovely, hateful naked girl.
Your lips in the mirror tremble as I refuse
to know or claim you. Let me go-let me be gone.
You are half of some other who may never come.
Why should I tend you? You are not my own;
you seek that other—he will be your home.

Yet I pity your eyes in the mirror, misted with tears;
I lean to your kiss. I must serve you; I will obey.
Some day we may love. I may miss your going, some day,
though I shall always resent your dumb and fruitful years.
Your lovers shall learn better, and bitterly too,
if their arrogance dares to think I am part of you.