March: Carnival and the Clown
(click on photo to enlarge)
Fastnacht
"...They laugh at everything my craziness does,
I play dog, play human, play elephant:
I bark, I cry, I dig around with my snout—
..."

from The Wanderer,
a book by Martinus Nijhoff.

This week, an image from Fastnacht, the
German version of Carnival, with
a new translation of a Dutch
poem.


The guest poem for this week is a new translation from the work of the much-loved Dutch language
poet,
Martinus Nijhoff;


| listen in streamed RealAudio: Dutch or English
or English and Dutch together |




Clown

Met blauw-papieren pijlen op mijn wangen
En op mijn hoofd een gele ster geplakt,
Blijf ik, terwijl een aap mijn handen pakt,
Onderste-boven aan een rekstok hangen.

Mijn meester wil de wereld vroolijk maken,
-,,Satans Apostel'' noemt mij 't aanplakbord -
En 't volk, een optocht gekke pelgrims, wordt
Hierheen gestuurd, en ik moet het vermaken.

Het lacht om alles wat mijn waanzin doet,
Ik speel voor hond, voor mensch, voor olifant:
Ik blaf, ik schreeuw, ik daver met mijn snuit -

Laat in den nacht stroomt het de tent weer uit:
Ik leun op 't plein, waar de lantaren brandt,
Tegen den paal, en keur mijn daden goed.


          Martinus Nijhoff
(1894-1953)
         
  uit:
De wandelaar (1916)
Clown

With blue-paper arrows on my cheeks
And a yellow star stuck to my head,
I stay, as a monkey takes my hand,
hanging upside-down on a balancing beam.

My master wants to make the world happy,
—"Satan's Apostle" I'm called by my sign—
And the people, a procession of mad pilgrims,
are sent here, and I am to entertain them.

They laugh at everything my craziness does,
I play dog, play human, play elephant:
I bark, I cry, I dig around with my snout—

Late at night the tent empties itself:
On the plain, where the lanterns are burning,
I lean against a pole, and call my deeds good.


          (tr. Cliff Crego)

            from:
The Wanderer (1916)





See
also:

new
"Straight roads,
Slow rivers,
Deep clay."
A collection of contemporary Dutch poetry
in English translation, with commentary
and photographs
by Cliff Crego


| See also a selection of recent Picture/Poem "Rilke in translation" features at the Rilke Archive.

See also another website
by Cliff Crego:
The Poetry of
Rainer Maria Rilke
A presentation of 80 of the
best poems of Rilke in
both German and
new English translations
:
biography, links, posters


| # listen to other recordings in English and German of eight poems from
The Book of Images
at The Rilke Download Page (# Includes instructions)
|
| back to r2c | back to Picture/Poems: Central Display |
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Photographs and Texts © 2000 Cliff Crego
(created
III.26.2000) Comments to crego@picture-poems.com