Laudator Temporis Acti

Marin Sorescu (1936-1996), "Ulysses," The Biggest Egg in the World, tr. Michael Hamburger (Newcastle upon Tyne: Bloodaxe Books, 1987) p. 28:

The mere thought of what awaits me at home —
Those suitors, the swine, blind
Drunk, their greasy armour hung up,
Nothing inside their heads but the board game,
The dice as limp as their members,
Nothing doing, even if
A woman much more alluring than Penelope
Were ready for them, (Can she
Really be old by now?)

True, on the other hand, that tearful
Demented female at the spinning-wheel
Who gets all the threads in a tangle, out of sheer greed!
I can imagine the welcome at the gate:
— What on earth have you been up to?
— Troy wasn't child's play. So please let up.
— All right, but Agamemnon! Clytemnestra's
Agamemnon. How come he could be back so soon
That his bones are rotting by now?
Wasn't it everyone's war? —
— I was at sea for ten years, because Neptune ...
— Leave Neptune out of it. Why don't you
Just tell me bluntly
With whom?
And for such a long time?
What kind of sea could that have been? —

Huh, if only I could build myself
A hovel here on the waves,
Put up a tiny tent
Here on this more sheltered patch
Between Scylla and Charybdis.

---

Când mă gândesc ce mă aşteaptă şi acasă,
Porcii aceia de peţitori,
Beţi chiori, slinoşi pe armurile din cuier
Jucând toată ziua table
Până li se înmoaie şi muşchii şi zarurile, de-a valma,
Că numai de însurătoare nu mai sunt buni
Chiar de-ar cere în căsătorie o babă
Mai ceva decât Penelopa
(O fi îmbătrânit, într-adevăr şi ea?)

Şi femeia aceea, plângăreaţă, pe de altă parte,
Care ţese-n neştire, de nervi,
De zgripţuroaică ce este, să încurce ea toate firele de pe lume!
Parcă văd că mă ia de la poartă-n primire:
— Unde-ai putut să fii până acum?
— Am făcut războiul Troii, nu fii scorpie ...
— Bine, bine, dar Agamemnon al Clitemnestrei
Cum de-a scăpat mai devreme, că a şi putrezit până acuma,
N-aţi avut toţi acelaşi război?
— Am rătăcit zece ani pe mare, întrucât Neptun ...
— Fără Neptun, te rog, spune clar
Cu cine?
Şi chiar până acum?
Chiar până acum?
Ce mare-a fost aia?

Of, să-mi fac o căsuţă
Aici pe valuri,
Să-mi ridic un cort în colţişorul ăsta
Mai ferit
Între Scyla şi Caribda.

Yannis Ritsos (1909-1990), "Penelope's Despair," Repetitions, Testimonies, Parentheses, tr. Edmund Keeley (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991), p. 91:

It wasn't that she didn't recognize him in the light from the hearth: it wasn't
the beggar’s rags, the disguise — no. The signs were clear:
the scar on his knee, the pluck, the cunning in his eye. Frightened,
her back against the wall, she searched for an excuse,
a little time, so she wouldn't have to answer,
give herself away. Was it for him, then, that she'd used up twenty years,
twenty years of waiting and dreaming, for this miserable
blood-soaked, white-bearded man? She collapsed voiceless into a chair,
slowly studied the slaughtered suitors on the floor as though seeing
her own desires dead there. And she said "Welcome,"
hearing her voice sound foreign, distant. In the corner, her loom
covered the ceiling with a trellis of shadows; and all the birds she'd woven
with bright red thread in green foliage, now,
on this night of the return, suddenly turned ashen and black,
flying low on the flat sky of her final enduring.

---

Δεν ήτανε πως δεν τον γνώρισε στο φως της παραστιάς· δεν ήταν
τα κουρέλια του επαίτη, η μεταμφίεση — όχι· καθαρά σημάδια:
η ουλή στο γόνατό του, η ρώμη, η πονηριά στο μάτι. Τρομαγμένη,
ακουμπώντας τη ράχη της στον τοίχο, μια δικαιολογία ζητούσε,
μια προθεσμία ακόμη λίγου χρόνου, να μην απαντήσει,
να μην προδοθεί. Γι' αυτόν, λοιπόν, είχε ξοδέψει είκοσι χρόνια,
είκοσι χρόνια αναμονής και ονείρων, για τούτον τον άθλιο,
τον αιματόβρεχτο ασπρογένη; Ρίχτηκε άφωνη σε μια καρέκλα,
κοίταξε αργά τους σκοτωμένους μνηστήρες, στο πάτωμα, σα να κοιτούσε
νεκρές τις ίδιες της επιθυμίες. Και: «καλωσόρισες», του είπε,
ακούγοντας ξένη, μακρινή, τη φωνή της. Στη γωνιά, ο αργαλειός της
γέμιζε το ταβάνι με καγκελωτές σκιές· κι όσα πουλιά είχε υφάνει
με κόκκινες λαμπρές κλωστές σε πράσινα φυλλώματα, αίφνης,
τούτη τη νύχτα της επιστροφής, γυρίσαν στο σταχτί και μαύρο
χαμοπετώντας στον επίπεδο ουρανό της τελευταίας της καρτερίας.

Hat tip: Eric Thomson.