Fumus. Jaargang 14
(2016)– [tijdschrift] Fumus–
[pagina 35]
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Love in the Madhouse: Cupid's Prologue,
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[pagina 36]
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Tot slot enige voorbeelden van poëzievertalingen: 100 Dutch-Language Poems, From the Medieval Period to the Present Day, selected and translated by Paul Vincent and John Irons (Holland Park Press, London, 2015); bekroond met de Oxford-Weidenfeld-vertaalprijs 2016.Ga naar voetnoot8 Herman Gorter. Poems of 1890. A Selection, translated by Paul Vincent (UCLPress, London, 2015). (Elly Groenenboom-Draai) | |
Love in the Madhouse
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[pagina 37]
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Often the greatest nonsense brew.
Must you then look down on me,
Being as I am, a young lad?
When all want more sagacity
Than from my poor self can be had?
A Child has childish smells, in truth.
Stupidity in girl and chap
Can never be detached from youth,
For each one wears his motley Cap.
So I who rule the hearts' own pleadings
Of all the young as my domain
Am blamed for all the mad proceedings
That young folk daily set in train.
I know the world correctly blames,
Since I myself am the cause of these
A hundred thousand silly games
That I force on my devotees.
How oft I've made some nitwits rare,
Put on pure madness' own crown,
From Beards and Heads pull out the hair,
When some lady's turned them down?
How oft I have one full of heat,
Make love's sweet notions pour,
Or write sheet after silly sheet
With which his mistress sweeps the floor?
How oft I make a foolscap leap
Past a house where all is bliss
And all lie deeply sunk in sleep,
Giving step or knocker a kiss?
How often I have serenades
Murdered for some baggage queer,
Who for all the Journals, Ballad parades,
Is lying snoring on one ear!
How often I have hair and locks,
Greased, smarmed down and stiffened with glue,
Or fallen out because of the pox,
Saved for a shrine where they can coo!
How often I've made a group of arses
Full of fool's fire they can't hide,
Chew many Flutes and other Glasses
And swallow them down inside!
How often I've told a Dunce,
Stiffened by foolish feeling's flame
To drink deep from two loaded guns
To the health of his fair dame!
While another may, quite a lot,
When the same fires his innards roast,
From Urinal and chamber pot,
Drinks a foolish drudge's toast.
Another for his Mistress' sake
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[pagina 38]
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Seized by an all-too-crazy ire
His doublet, breeches, hat can take
And throw the nonsense on the fire.
Someone else assumes another air,
Of which the Source of this account
(Since you find them everywhere)
Could name examples, without count.
If with all one's Friends around
One asked the Chorus the way,
One might find that souls abound
Who know better any day.
It's for these things beyond compare
(For which as a Boss I'm disgraced)
That he has had me make this chair
And it here in the Madhouse has placed;
To let you all together know it,
Whether he spoke with reason plain,
When he called me a Fool and Twit,
With all that lives in my domain.
Whether these rags me then befit
And all that Madhouse livery
As if I had grown up in it
He shows you that at first in me.
Shortly he will, for your delight
Show you, with the strangest din,
How such Love Affairs take flight
In the Messieurs of the Loony Bin.
Since he plans to show you well
That Love can't in a better place
Than within Bedlam's strong walls dwell
And with a very stupid race.
After Stupidity and love intense
Are coupled so closely in teams
That they must have lost their sense
Or must at least be mad, it seems,
Before they fall prey to desire;
For, be it a ghost or a real thing,
Love and the Lover's life's all fire.
Is nought but Madness, on a string.
(Paul Vincent)
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