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Traducendo Brecht Franco Fortini Un grande temporale per tutto il pomeriggio si è attorcigliato sui tetti prima di rompere in lampi, acqua. Fissavo versi di cemento e di vetro dov’erano grida e piaghe murate e membra anche di me, cui sopravvivo. Con cautela, guardando ora i tegoli battagliati ora la pagina secca, ascoltavo morire la parola d’un poeta o mutarsi in altra, non per noi più, voce. Gli oppressi sono oppressi e tranquilli, gli oppressori tranquilli parlano nei telefoni, l’odio è cortese, io stesso credo di non sapere più di chi è la colpa. . Scrivi mi dico, odia chi con dolcezza guida al niente gli uomini e le donne che con te si accompagnano e credono di non sapere. Fra quelli dei nemici scrivi anche il tuo nome. Il temporale è sparito con enfasi. La natura per imitare le battaglie è troppo debole. La poesia non muta nulla. Nulla è sicuro, ma scrivi. |
Translating Brecht Franco Fortini A tremendous storm all through the afternoon twisted round the rooftops before breaking out in lightning, water. I stared at verses of cement and of glass in which lay cries and wounds walled and appendages mine too, which I’ve survived. Carefully, observing now the pummelled shingles and then the dry page, I listened to the dying word of a poet or its transformation into some other, for us no more, voice. The oppressed are oppressed and serene, the serene oppressors speak on phones, the hatred is courteous, I too believe I no longer know who’s to blame. . Write, I say to myself, hate those who gently to that oblivion lead the men and women who go with you and believe they also do not know. Among the names of the enemies, write your name too. The storm has gone out in a flash. Nature is not strong enough to imitate the struggle. Poetry changes nothing. Nothing is sure, but write. . Translation ©Matilda Colarossi 2019 |
In the poem, “Traducendo Brecht” (1959), outside, the storm distracts the poet, who is translating Brecht. He looks at the rooftops and then the page where the “cries and wounds” of the oppressed lie trapped within the words, like his own pain, which he survives. As he looks from the storm to the “dry page”, Brecht’s words change, from cement and glass (strong and clear), and die. They are no longer contemporary; that time is distant; and today the oppressors and the oppressed live side by side, serenely. They are no longer at war. All that remains is a courteous hatred. And the author too has lost his sense of that struggle, and in doing so, he too has become an enemy of the oppressed (“write your name too“). He was led, like those who accompany him, to oblivion, to the place where his perception of the facts is placated, but an inner voice awakes in him and drives him forward (Nothing is sure, but write)! There is also a hint of the eternal debate of the role of poetry: must literature, too, strive for a better world? In a concise language made of simple words and syntax, the rhythm is quick. The metaphors (storm/twisted, wounds/walled), the repetition (the oppressed/the oppressors) and the juxtaposition (oppressors/oppressed) reinforce the tension with hints of irony (hatred…courteous). The imperative form underlines the thoughts of the poet/translator.
“An die Nachgeborenen“, 1939, was translated by Fortini and Leiser in 1959. The winds of war were strong, the battle raging. When Fortini translated the poem, however, Brecht’s hope for change was a thing of the past. The war had ravaged and passed. The present was a world of oppressed and oppressors who lived together serenely, led gently by others to forget.
Please find below three verses from the poem by Bertolt Brecht; the Italian translation by Fortini/Leiser; and the English, translation by John Willett, Ralph Manheim & Erich Fried:
| Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!
Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin. Der Lachende Hat die furchtbare Nachricht Nur noch nicht empfangen. Was sind das für Zeiten, wo Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt! Der dort ruhig über die Straße geht Ist wohl nicht mehr erreichbar für seine Freunde Die in Not sind? […] Die Straßen führten in den Sumpf zu meiner Zeit. Die Sprache verriet mich dem Schlächter. Ich vermochte nur wenig. Aber die Herrschenden Saßen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich. So verging meine Zeit Die auf Erden mir gegeben war. |
Davvero, vivo in tempi bui!
La parola innocente è stolta. Una fronte distesa vuol dire insensibilità. Chi ride, la notizia atroce non l’ha saputa ancora. Quali tempi sono questi, quando discorrere d’alberi è quasi un delitto, perchè su troppe stragi comporta silenzio! E l’uomo che ora traversa tranquillo la via mai più potranno raggiungerlo dunque gli amici che sono nell’affanno? […] Al mio tempo le strade si perdevano nella palude. La parola mi tradiva al carnefice. Poco era in mio potere. Ma i potenti posavano più sicuri senza di me; o lo speravo. Così il tempo passò che sulla terra m’era stato dato. |
Truly, I live in dark times!
The guileless word is folly. A smooth forehead Suggests insensitivity. The man who laughs Has simply not yet had The terrible news. What kind of times are they, when A talk about trees is almost a crime Because it implies silence about so many horrors? That man there calmly crossing the street Is already perhaps beyond the reach of his friends Who are in need? […] All roads led into the mire in my time. My tongue betrayed me to the butchers. There was little I could do. But those in power Sat safer without me: that was my hope. So passed my time Which had been given to me on earth. |
Links to the works:
https://www.ronnowpoetry.com/contents/brecht/ToThoseBorn.html
Bertolt Brecht, A coloro che verranno in the collection Poesie e canzoni, R. Leiser and F. Fortini, Einaudi, Torino, 1959
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
parallel texts: words reflected 
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