Monday, April 18, 2011

 

Only What Is Past Is What Is Real

Jorge Luis Borges, To a Sword at York Minster (A una espada en York Minster, tr. Charles Tomlinson):
The strong man in its iron still lives on,
Now changed to planet dust who once in wars
On the rough seas and in the flattened fields
Brandished it, at last in vain, at death.
Vain, even death itself. Here is the man
Who white and feral out of Norway came
Urged forward by an epic destiny;
His sword is now his image and his name.
In spite of long death and his exile,
The inhuman hand clutches the iron still.
And I am shade within a shade before him
Whose shade is here. I am a single instant
And the instant ashes and not diamond,
And only what is past is what is real.

En su hierro perdura el hombre fuerte,
Hoy polvo de planeta, que en las guerras
De ásperos mares y arrasadas tierras
Lo esgrimió, vano al fin, contra la muerte.
Vana también la muerte. Aquí está el hombre
Blanco y feral que de Noruega vino,
Urgido por el épico destino;
Su espada es hoy su imagen y su nombre.
Pese a la larga muerte y su destierro,
La mano atroz sigue oprimiendo el hierro
Y soy sombra en la sombra ante el guerrero
Cuya sombra está aquí. Soy un instante
Y el instante ceniza, no diamante,
Y sólo lo pasado es verdadero.



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