When you are dressed,
Nobody imagines
The worlds hidden
Under your clothes.
(Thus, in the day light,
We do not have notion
Of the stars that shine
In the deep sky.
But naked is the night
And naked in the night,
Vibrate your worlds
And the worlds of the night.
Your knees shine.
Your navel shines,
Shines all your
Abdominal lyre.
Your exiguous bosoms
- As two small fruits
in the firmness
Of your firm torso
- Your bosom shines)
Ah! Your hard nipples!
Your back!
Your flanks!
Ah, your shoulders!
When naked, your eyes
Become naked also:
Your gaze lingers longer,
Slower, more liquid.
Then, within those eyes,
I float, swim, jump,
Lower in a perpendicular
Diving!
I dive to the depths
Of your being, there where
Your soul smiles at me,
Naked, naked, naked.
Notes
For the original Portugese version click here http://oldpoetry.com/opoem/show/117686-Manuel-Bandeira-Nu
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Comments
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Wow!
the subtle romance and playful words he uses to express their intimate moments alone is so... what's the word?...magical...? i don't know, but he uses the right words to keep it still intimate between the two of them, but still enough to let his readers feel such passion between these two lovers.
loved it!!
*Rianna -
simply beautiful... the poem has a quality of a mystery cloaked in darkness, where night is a veil and we are behind it...obscured but seeing everything... a remarkable translation here, capturing so much of the style and intellect of Bandeira, and quite lyrical, a wonderful flow... remarkable work....PK
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Beautiful isn't word enough to describe it...fortunately I'm a prolix fellow, lol.
It's that feeling that the one we love can only be truly understood by us...it's vanity of course, but in one sense it is hopefully true. Ideally (I'd assume) romantic love is something shared between two, it should be an experience only those two share, so that is an understanding only those two can have, a depth only they can share. Bla bla bla
The translation (thanks MariGoes!) for this English reader seems simple, but beautiful...something Bandeira seemed good at...and railed against at times (from the poems I've read.) He seems to want to get at the essence, not only of words, but humans as well. I suppose at the bottom is where you find truth and some type of purity...so I'm starting to find anyway.
One word about lyra and it shows the difficulties that translators have. I believe in Portuguese (and MariGoes can correct me) lyra means not only a musical instrument but a small constellation. In English, the word would be lyre (mainly) but would loose that double meaning...which is important in the context I think.
Anyway, it was sensuous, beautiful, a poem to be shared between lovers I'd think.
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I read Lyra, I thought it was the antiquity lyra... an ancient musical instrument with a certain appearance. It was called lyra and the constellation intended to resemble it : a rectangled stringed instument; it has the prominent beautiful bright star...Vega.
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