Bzzlletin. Jaargang 4

[p. 43]

Michael Hamburger
Mad lover, dead lady

Oh, my Diotima.
Is it not my Diotima you are speaking of?
Thirteen sons she bore me, one of them is Pope,
Sultan the next, the third is the Czar of Russia.
And do you know how it went with her?
Crazy, that's what she went, crazy, crazy, crazy.

Thirteen funerals they gave me when I died.
But she was not there. Locked up in a tower.
That's how it goes: round the bend
Out of the garden where lovers meet,
Walking, talking together. Over the wall.
No one there. Till you visitors come:
Will the corpse write a poem today
About his mad lady?

But I'll tell you a secret: we meet.
Round the bend, on the other side of the wall
Our garden is always there,
Easy, with every season's flowers.
Each from a dark street we come
And the sun shines.
She laughs when I tell her
What it's like to be dead.
I laugh when she gives me
News of our crazy children
Who've made their way in the world.

No poem today, sir.
Go home. In a dream you'll see
How they remove themselves, your dead
Into madness. And seem to forget
Their loved ones, each in his own dark street.
How your mad loved ones
Seem to forget their dead.
That's how it goes. No one there.
Oh, my Diotima.
Waiting for me in the garden.

MICHAEL HAMBURGER (Berlijn, 1924) vluchtte in 1933 met zijn ouders naar Engeland. Sinds vele jaren geldt hij daar niet alleen als een belangrijk dichter, maar vooral ook als een briljant vertaler van Franse en Duitse literatuur. Hij is bovendien essayist en criticus en doceerde aan tal van Britse en Amerikaanse universiteiten. Eerder dit jaar hield hij op uitnodiging van The British Council lezingen in ons land. Een goed overzicht van zijn poëzie vindt men in ‘Ownerless earth’ (1973).