Louise Labé: Sonnet 23 "Men and their Clichés" (From French)

Sonnet 23 Louise Labé Translated by A.Z. Foreman What use to me that you sang long ago　 　The perfect praise of my gold flowing hair, 　Comparing my eyes' beauty to a pair 　Of suns, where Love had drawn a subtle bow To shot the shafts that needled you with woe?　　 　Ah momentary tears, where are you now? 　Where now the Death by which you bound that vow 　Of steadfast love which you repeated so? Was this the goal behind the ruse you gave me? —　 　Pretend to serve, the better to enslave me? 　Forgive me this time, love, for speaking free As I'm beside myself with rage and spite,　 　And yet I know, wherever you may be, 　That you're in no less agony tonight.

Sonnet 23 Louise Labé Las! Que me sert, que si parfaitement　　 　Louas jadis et ma tresse doree, 　Et de mes yeus la beaulté comparee 　A deus soleils, dont Amour finement Tira les trets causez de ton tourment?　 　Où estes vous, pleurs de peu de duree? 　Et Mort par qui devoit estre honoree 　Ta ferme amour et iteré serment? Donques c’estoit le but de ta malice　 　De m’asservir sous ombre de service? 　Pardonne moy, Ami, à cette fois, Estant outree et de despit et d’ire:　 　Mais je m’assure, quelque part que tu sois, 　Qu’autant que moy tu soufres de martire.

Two notes on the French text:

L5: Trets of course means "darts, arrows (of love)" and also "traits, features."

L9: Renaissance French Malice is not the malignity of Modern English "malice" though almost all Labé's translators into English seem to have taken this as the primary sense. The word has, and has had over the history of the French language, a multitude of meanings and shades thereof. By this word, in her time and place, Labé probably means something like "toying" or more precisely: screwing around with someone without due regard for their well-being, but more for your own pleasure than out of a desire to do them harm. Yet the word also has other resonances, and polysemy is one of Labé's best skills.

Nizar Qabbani: Pregnant (From Arabic)

Qabbani was famous and/or infamous (your milage may vary) for writing poems in a woman's voice- something most male Arab poets of the time would have considered unmanly in both the literal and figurative sense. When Qabbani did so, it was almost always an act of social protest, directed toward misogynists and the society that enabled them. His odd ability to make impassioned speech in Literary Arabic sound totally natural saves such poems from sounding ridiculous. This translation was done rather freely so as to preserve the metrical and rhymed character present even in what Arab's of the time called šiˁr ḥurr "free verse."

Pregnant
By Nizar Qabbani
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Arabic

Don't go pale now, baby.
Maybe I shouldn't have said it,
But I really think I may be
Pregnant.
You yelled like someone stung by a bee:
"No. NO! We'll rip that kid apart"
You wanted to kick me out,
To kick me hard.
You started to swear at me.
But there's no scaring me.
I've always known what a cowardly bastard you are.

You sent for the servant to toss me
Out to the lonely nasty street.
You with your blasted seed!
You who sowed shame in my crotch,
Who broke my heart so you could watch
A little boy give me my answer:
"Sorry, the master isn't home yet"
Oh yes he is! That spineless "master"
Tried to hide from me the moment
He realized I was pregnant.

What? Are you really throwing me out
While I'm wracked by the throw-up in my own mouth?
While nausea's fingers throttle me?
While my body bears you a damned heir?
While my shame holds me down on my back
To ravage me with the dark fact
That I'm…pregnant?

These fifty liras of yours aren't even funny.
Who's it for, this money?
For an abortion?...Oh why, honey
You want to sew my shroud! How nice.
So this, then, is my retail price?
The price of my fidelity, you cheap little heap of trash?
I didn't come for your stinking cash.
But thanks.
I'll take this baby and abort it.
I want no coward father for it.

The Original:

حُبلى

نزار قباني

‎لا تَمْتَقِعْ !

‎هي كِلْمَةٌ عَجْلى

‎إنّي لأَشعُرُ أنّني حُبلى ..

‎وصرختَ كالملسوع بي .. " كَلاّ " ..

‎سنُمَزِّقُ الطفلا ..

‎وأخذْتَ تشتُِمُني ..

‎وأردْتَ تطردُني ..

‎لا شيءَ يُدهِشُني ..

‎فلقد عرفتُكَ دائماً نَذْلا ..

‎وبعثتَ بالخَدَّامِ يدفعُني ..

‎في وَحشةِ الدَربِ

‎يا مَنْ زَرَعتَ العارَ في صُلبي

‎وكسرتَ لي قلبي ..

‎ليقولَ لي :

‎" مولايَ ليسَ هُنا .. "

‎مولاهُ ألفُ هُنا ..

‎لكنَّهُ جَبُنا ..

‎لمّا تأكّدَ أنّني حُبلى ..

‎ماذا ؟ أتَبْصِقُني

‎والقَيءُ في حَلقي يدمِّرُني

‎وأصابعُ الغَثَيانِ تَخنُقُني ..

‎ووريثُكَ المشؤومُ في بَدَني

‎والعارُ يَسْحَقُني ..

‎وحقيقةٌ سوداءُ .. تملؤني

‎هي أنّني حُبلى ..

‎ليراتُكَ الخمسون ..

‎تُضحِكُني ..

‎لمَن النقودُ .. لِمَنْ ؟

‎لتُجهِضَني ؟

‎لتخيطَ لي كَفَني ؟

‎هذا إذَنْ ثَمَني ؟

‎ثمنُ الوَفا يا بُؤرَةَ العَفَنِ ..

‎أنا لم أجِئكَ لِمالِكَ النتِنِ ..

‎" شكراً .. "

‎سأُسقِطُ ذلكَ الحَمْلا

‎أنا لا أريدُ لهُ أباً نَذْلا ..

Xi Peilan: Crossing the Yangtze (From Chinese)

Crossing the Yangtze
By Xi Peilan
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original in a reconstruction of mid-Qing guanhua pronunciation

And suddenly our boat is like a leaf,　
whirled over waves' terrain and up from rest.
The bleary sky　 now stretches from high to low.
　The blanked expanse　 confuses east and west.
Our ferry-launch　 is plunged in the paling clouds,
　The heart of waves　 is bathing the reddening sun.
Kept ladylike indoors¹, could I ever see this?
　My sight-seeing spirit's manhood has begun².

Notes:
¹-she's talking about the 深閨 shēnguī or "Innermost Quarters," which is the section, inside a palace or main building of an estate, wherein wealthy men could hide their women.
²-in its time, this line would have carried overtones of the debate that raged during Xi Peilan's lifetime over whether it was permissible for a woman to develop literary talent, as it might pollute their virtue. Xi Peilan herself was the most well-known pupil of Yuan Mei, a male scholar who had become infamous or famous (your mileage may vary) among the literate classes for not only stating that women who showed literary talent should be taught the skills of verse-making, but for actually taking on female pupils himself. The following fulmination, penned by the historian  Zhang Xuecheng, is an example of the ire Yuan Mei provoked among conservatively-minded men:
Lately a certain wanton imbecile, basking in his own licentiousness, has gone about poisoning the minds of young men and women, hoodwinking everyone by engaging actors and putting on plays about heroes and damsels. South of the Yangtze, many women from noteworthy families have been taken in by him. He has even gussied up his own reputation by collecting their verse and publishing their compositions! He has quite simply lost all appreciation for the differences between men and women, practically to the point of ignoring their biological sex! 
(translation mine)

The Original, with transcriptions:

Han Characters　 渡江　 席佩蘭　 頓覺舟如葉，　 飄然萬頃中。 混茫連上下， 空濶失西東。 渡口沈雲白， 波心浴日紅。 深閨曾未見，　 放眼膽俱雄。

Mid-Qing Guānhuà　 tú kjāŋ　 sɪʔ pʰʊ́jlân　 twǽn kyɛʔ tʂə̄w ʐŷ jɛʔ　 pʰjāuʐɛ̂n wánkʰɪ̀ŋ tʂʊ̄ŋ　 xwǽn mâŋ ljɛ̂n ʂáŋxjá　 kʰʊ̄ŋ kʰwɔʔ ʂɪʔ sītʊ̄ŋ　 túkʰǝ̀u tʂʰɪ̂n ŷn pəʔ　 pɔ̄ sīn jʊʔ ʐɪʔ xʊ̂ŋ　 ʂɪ̄nkʊ̄j tsʰæ̂ŋ wí kjɛ́n　 fáŋŋjɛ̀n tàn ký xjʊ̂ŋ

Modern Standard Chinese　 Dù jiāng　 Xí pèilán　 Dùn jué zhōu rú yè　 Piāorán wànqǐng zhōng　 Hùn máng lián shàngxià　 Kōng kuò shī xīdōng　 Dùkǒu chén yún bái　 Bō xīn yù rì hóng　 Shēnguī céng wèi jiàn　 Fàngyǎn dǎn jù xióng

Nizar Qabbani: Refinement by Reading your Body (From Arabic)

Refinement by Reading your Body
By Nizar Qabbani
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Arabic

The day the conversation ended
Between your breasts awash in water
And the tribes that battled over water,
That day ended our Golden Age
And began the Age of Decay.
The rainclouds went on strike and said no rain
For the next five hundred years
The spring birds went on strike and stopped all flying
And the ears of grain abstained from procreation
And the fertile crescent moon took on the shape
Of a bottle full of crude oil.

The day they exiled me from the tribe
For leaving a poem and a rose
At the doorflap of your tent,
That day ended our Golden Age
And began the Age of Decay
An age that knew its grammar and syntax
But not a thing of womanhood,
The generations of degeneration
And the erasure of all women's names
From the memory of the nation.

Oh darling
What kind of nation is this,
Policing love like a dirty cop,
Considering the rose
A conspiracy against the regime,
Considering the poem
A manifesto of the underground?
What kind of nation is this
In the form of a yellow locust
Crawling out on its gut from the ocean to the Gulf
From the Gulf to the ocean,
Talking like a holy man all day
And woozy over a woman's navel all night?

What kind of nation is this?
Deleting love's material from curricula.
Deleting poetry,
And women's eyes.
What kind of nation is this?
Going to war with every raincloud,
Opening a classified file for every breast
And filing a police report for every rose.

Oh darling
What are we to do in this nation?
This nation that dare not see its body in the mirror
For fear of craving it?
That dare not hear a woman's voice on the phone
For fear of being too impure to pray?
What are we to do in this nation
That knows all there is to know
Of the October revolution,
Of the Zanj slaves who rose against their Caliph master
Of the Karmathians who stood against the Caliph's armies
And still keeps talking down to women like some Sheikh?
What are we to do in this nation
Between the works of Imam Ash-Shafi'i... and the works of Lenin
Between Qur'anic exegeses.... and Playboy magazines
Between Mu'tazilism... and the music of The Beatles?

O darling dumbfounder, you
Who amaze me like a child's toy,
I feel civilized
For loving you.
I call my poems historical
Because they have been your contemporaries.
All time before your eyes had yet to be,
All time after them went to pieces.
Do not ask me why I'm with you.
I just want an escape from being backwater,
To re-enter the time of water,
I want to defect from the Republic of Thirst,
To leave my backward desert life,
To sit beneath the trees
And bathe in springwater
And learn the names of the flowers.

I want you to teach me to read and write
For writing on your body is the ABC
Of entry into civilization.
Your body is not counterculture.
No, it is culture incarnate.
Whoever does not read the notebooks of your body
Will spend his life illiterate.

The Original:

أقرأ جسدك وأتثقف

نزار قباني

يوم توقف الحوار بين نهديك المغتسلين بالماء

وبين القبائل المتقاتلة على الماء

بدأت عصور الانحطاط

أعلنت الغيوم الإضراب عن المطر

لمدة خمسمئة سنه

وأعلنت العصافير الإضراب عن الطيران

وامتنعت السنابل عن إنجاب الأولاد

وصار شكل القمر كشكل زجاجة النفط

يوم طردوني من القبيلة

لأني تركت قصيدة على باب خيمتك

وتركت لك معها ورده

بدأت عصور الانحطاط

إن عصور الانحطاط ليست الجهل بمبادئ النحو الصرف

ولكنها الجهل بمبادئ الأنوثة

وشطب أسماء جميع النساء من ذاكرة الوطن

آه يا حبيبتي

ما هو هذا الوطن الذي يتعامل مع الحب

كرجل بوليس ؟

فيعتبر الوردة مؤامرة على النظام

ويعتبر القصيدة منشورا سريا ضده

ما هو هذا الوطن

المرسوم على شكل جرادة صفراء

تزحف على بطنها من المحيط إلى الخليج

من الخليج إلى المحيط

والذي يتكلم في النهار كقديس

ويدوخ في الليل على سرَّة امرأة

ما هو هذا الوطن ؟

الذي ألغى الحب من مناهجه المدرسية

وألغى فن الشعر

وعيون النساء

ما هو هذا الوطن ؟

الذي يمارس العدوان على كل غمامة ماطرة

ويفتح لكل نهد ملفاً سرياً

وينظّم مع كل وردة مَحْضَر تحقيق !!.

يا حبيبتي

ماذا نفعل في هذا الوطن ؟

الذي يخاف أن يرى جسده في المرآة

حتى لا يشتهيه

ويخاف أن يسمع صوت امرأة في التلفون

حتى لا يُنقـَضَ وضوءُهُ

ماذا نفعل في هذا الوطن ؟

الذي يعرف كل شيء عن ثورة أكتوبر

وثورة الزنج

وثورة القرامطة

ويتصرَّف مع النساء كأنه شيخُ طريقةٍ

ماذا نفعل في هذا الوطن ؟

بين مؤلَّفات الإمام الشافعي .. ومؤلفات لينين

بين كتب التفسير .. ومجلة ( البلاي بوي )

بين فرقة ( المعتزلة ) .. وفرقة ( البيتلز ) .

أيتها المُدهِشةُ كألعاب الأطفال

انني أعتبر نفسي متحضِّراً

لأني أحبك

وأعتبر قصائدي تاريخية

لأنها عاصرتك

كل زمن قبل عينيك هو احتمال

كل زمن بعدهما هو شظايا

فلا تسأليني لماذا أنا معك

إنني أريد أن اخرج من تخلفي

وأدخل في زمن الماء

أريد أن أهرب من جمهورية العطش.

أريد أن أخرج من بداوتي

وأجلس تحت الشجر

وأغتسل بماء الينابيع

وأتعلم أسماء الأزهار

أريد أن تعلميني القراءة والكتابة

فالكتابة على جسدك أول المعرفة

والدخول إليه دخول إلى الحضارة

إن جسدك ليس ضد الثقافة

ولكنه الثقافة

ومن لا يقرأ دفاتر جسدك

يبقى طول حياته ....أمياً .

Anna Akhmatova: Lot's Wife (From Russian)

Lot’s Wife
By Anna Akhmatova
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Click to hear me recite the original Russian

But his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt.
-Genesis 19:26

The righteous man then trailed Jehovah's guide,
Hulking and bright, across a ridge of black,
But in his wife a keening anguish cried:
“It's not too late for you. You can look back

upon your Sodom’s old red towers, the square
where once you sang, the garden where you wove,
the emptied windows of the mansion where
you bore your children by your husband’s love.”

She turned and looked. The bitter vision burned,
Welding her eyelids shut with mortal pain.
Into transparent salt her body turned,
As each quick foot took root into the plain.

Who weeps for such a woman, for so small
A loss in such a brutish circumstance?
Yet ever in my heart I will recall
That wife who laid her life down for a glance.


The Original:

Лотова жена

Жена же Лотова оглянула позади его и стала соляным столпом.
-Книга Бытия

И праведник шел за посланником бога,
Огромный и светлый, по черной горе.
Но громко жене говорила тревога:
Не поздно, ты можешь еще посмотреть

На красные башни родного Содома,
На площадь, где пела, на двор, где пряла,
На окна пустые высокого дома,
Где милому мужу детей родила.

Взглянула - и, скованы смертною болью,
Глаза ее больше смотреть не могли;
И сделалось тело прозрачною солью,
И быстрые ноги к земле приросли.

Кто женщину эту оплакивать будет?
Не меньшей ли мнится она из утрат?
Лишь сердце мое никогда не забудет
Отдавшую жизнь за единственный взгляд.