Post by depletedreasons on Oct 17, 2007 6:19:22 GMT -5
There is talk again that Nazim Hikmet will be repatriated from a cemetery in Moscow to...Well he already has a poetic last will and testament. And just for the occasion I decided to give it a new English translation thinking that a better job can be done. it might be possible to make it feel more poetic and true to the soundscape rhythm of the Turkish original. The judgment is yours.
Mavi Boncuk
Nazim Hikmet (1902, Salonica - June 3, 1963, Moscow)
Last Will
Translated by MAM September 20, 2007
Comrades, say I did not happen to see that day
I mean say I die before freedom’s day
Take me away
To a village cemetery in Anatolia, bury me
One side of me should lay ranch hand Osman
ordered shot by master Hasan
and giving birth in a rye field
martyred Ayse who died in less than forty days, on my other side
Ballads on tractors should pass from burials lower end
in the light of dawn fresh men, smell of burnt gasoline
commonly owned land, water in the canals
neither draught, nor fear of the gendarmes
a far chance of hearing these songs for us
laying all the way below the earth
rotting like dark branches, the dead
interred deaf, blind, dumb
But, I did sang those songs
well before they were versed,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
even before a picture of the tractors were drawn
As for my neighbors,
the martyred Ayse and the ranch hand Osman,
they felt the great longing while healthy,
without even knowing what it was maybe.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
seems a lot like that recently
To a village cemetery in Anatolia, bury me
and if there's happens to be,
a maple tree above me
well, no need for a head stone or anything really
Nazim Hikmet, 27 April 1953
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
To read the poem in Turkish, please follow the link:
maviboncuk.blogspot.com/2007/09/poetry-in-translation-nazim-hikmet.html
Mavi Boncuk
Nazim Hikmet (1902, Salonica - June 3, 1963, Moscow)
Last Will
Translated by MAM September 20, 2007
Comrades, say I did not happen to see that day
I mean say I die before freedom’s day
Take me away
To a village cemetery in Anatolia, bury me
One side of me should lay ranch hand Osman
ordered shot by master Hasan
and giving birth in a rye field
martyred Ayse who died in less than forty days, on my other side
Ballads on tractors should pass from burials lower end
in the light of dawn fresh men, smell of burnt gasoline
commonly owned land, water in the canals
neither draught, nor fear of the gendarmes
a far chance of hearing these songs for us
laying all the way below the earth
rotting like dark branches, the dead
interred deaf, blind, dumb
But, I did sang those songs
well before they were versed,
I smelled the burnt gasoline
even before a picture of the tractors were drawn
As for my neighbors,
the martyred Ayse and the ranch hand Osman,
they felt the great longing while healthy,
without even knowing what it was maybe.
Comrades, if I die before that day, I mean
seems a lot like that recently
To a village cemetery in Anatolia, bury me
and if there's happens to be,
a maple tree above me
well, no need for a head stone or anything really
Nazim Hikmet, 27 April 1953
Moscow, Barviha Hospital
To read the poem in Turkish, please follow the link:
maviboncuk.blogspot.com/2007/09/poetry-in-translation-nazim-hikmet.html