Eneas en Washington
Yo mismo vi a Neoptólemo enfurecido
con sangre, los negros átridas a su lado,
Hécuba y las cien hijas, Príamo
acabado, su inmundicia empapando los fuegos
sagrados.
En semejante trance me mantuve imperturbable
un verdadero caballero, valiente en armas,
generoso y honesto. Luego huí:
esa era el tiempo en que la civilización
gobernada por unos pocos cayó en manos de
unos muchos, y
se derrumbó al grito de los hombres, al
sonido metálico de las armas:
tomé unos víveres, cargué
a mi anciano padre en mis espaldas,
entre la niebla me hice al mar buscando un
nuevo mundo
conservando poco—una mente inmortal
si es que el tiempo lo es, el amor por las
cosas pasadas débiles
como la vacilación de un amor que se desvanece.
(A las conquistadas y no aludidas costas
trajimos sobre todo el vigor de la profecía,
nuestra
hambre engendrando conjeturas
y triunfos anticipados).
Vi a la paloma sedienta
en los encendidos campos de Troya, cáñamos
madurando
y maíz rojizo, el pasto de invierno engrosándose
todos fértiles bajo el nuevo sol.
Veo cada cosa por separado, las torres que
los hombres
planifican y yo también planifiqué hace
mucho, mucho tiempo.
Ahora pido poco. La pasión única
sostiene su propósito y consume el deseo
en la sombra circundante de su apetito.
Hubo un tiempo en que los jóvenes ojos eran
lentos,
su llama firme más allá del fuego inicial,
permanecí bajo la lluvia, lejos de casa al
anochecer
junto al Potomac, la gran cúpula iluminando
el agua,
la ciudad que mi sangre construyó era ahora desconocida para mí
mientras el búho chistaba su nueva fascinación
en consecuencia oscura.
Atascado en el húmedo lodazal,
a cuatro mil leguas de la novena ciudad
sepultada
pensé en Troya, para qué la habíamos
construido.
Allen
Tate, Winchester, Kentucky, 1899- Nashville, Tennessee, 1979
Traducción
©Silvia Camerotto
imagen de Giorgio Ghisi, The Fall of Troy and Escape of Aeneas (1545), en Harvard Art Museums
Aeneas At Washington
I myself saw furious with blood
Neoptolemus, at his side the black Atridae,
Hecuba and the hundred daughters, Priam
Cut down, his filth drenching the holy fires.
In that extremity I bore me well,
A true gentleman, valorous in arms,
Distinterested and honourable. Then fled
That was a time when civilization
Run by the few fell to the many, and
Crashed to the shout of men, the clang of arms:
Cold victualing I seized, I hoisted up
The old man my father upon my back,
In the smoke made by sea for a new world
Saving little—a mind imperishable
If time is, a love of past things tenuous
As the hesitation of receding love.
(To the reduction of un-cited littorals
We brought chiefly the vigor of prophecy,
Our hunger breeding calculation
And fixed triumphs)
I saw the thirsty dove
IN the glowing fields of Troy, hemp ripening
And tawny corn, the thickening Blue Grass
All lying rich forever in the green sun.
I see all things apart, the towers that men
Contrive I too contrived long, long ago.
Now I demand little. The singular passion
Abides its object and consumes desire
In the circling shadow of its appetite.
There was a time when the young eyes were slow,
Their flame steady beyond the firstling fire,
I stood in the rain, far from home at nightfall
By the Potomac, the great Dome lit the water,
The city my blood had built I knew no more
While the screech-owl whistled his new delight
Consecutively dark.
Stuck in the wet mire
Four thousand leagues from the ninth buried city
I thought of Troy, what we had built her for.
Neoptolemus, at his side the black Atridae,
Hecuba and the hundred daughters, Priam
Cut down, his filth drenching the holy fires.
In that extremity I bore me well,
A true gentleman, valorous in arms,
Distinterested and honourable. Then fled
That was a time when civilization
Run by the few fell to the many, and
Crashed to the shout of men, the clang of arms:
Cold victualing I seized, I hoisted up
The old man my father upon my back,
In the smoke made by sea for a new world
Saving little—a mind imperishable
If time is, a love of past things tenuous
As the hesitation of receding love.
(To the reduction of un-cited littorals
We brought chiefly the vigor of prophecy,
Our hunger breeding calculation
And fixed triumphs)
I saw the thirsty dove
IN the glowing fields of Troy, hemp ripening
And tawny corn, the thickening Blue Grass
All lying rich forever in the green sun.
I see all things apart, the towers that men
Contrive I too contrived long, long ago.
Now I demand little. The singular passion
Abides its object and consumes desire
In the circling shadow of its appetite.
There was a time when the young eyes were slow,
Their flame steady beyond the firstling fire,
I stood in the rain, far from home at nightfall
By the Potomac, the great Dome lit the water,
The city my blood had built I knew no more
While the screech-owl whistled his new delight
Consecutively dark.
Stuck in the wet mire
Four thousand leagues from the ninth buried city
I thought of Troy, what we had built her for.
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