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Martinus Nijhoff
The Ferry
Vertaling van zijn gedicht Het Veer door Henriëtte Schuurbeque Boeye
As evening fell, slowly Sebastian
Untied the length of rope with which his wrists
Were fettered to the tree, and, one by one
Drawing the arrows from his breast, his thigh,
Thrust them away behind him, in the grass.
Then, loosening his loincloth, he began
To wash his wounds at a small pond nearby,
Cleansing his body from pollution and blood.
Scanning the wide-spread land, where, on the left
Dunes lay in light that mounted from the sea,
Far on the right the city with its towers,
Viaducts against the sky-line and red fire,
He chose the upward-mounting path by which,
Along a dyke, one reached the water-way,
And at its quietude, broad bed of peace
Squeezed up out of the lower-lying land
Like a great gash, a glowing mirror now
Between the reeds, for some hours, leant against
The wall of a small farm, Sebastian tarried.
A ferry-boat crossed back and forth. The ghost,
Hid in the ivy, saw over the hedge
Of the small, messy farmyard where he stood
The people waiting on the landing-stage
While, packed with passengers, cattle and cycles,
Carts and, at times, a car, chuffing and snorting
With grind of coil and chain, towards it the ferry
Pushed o'er the coloured stilness of the water.
Then hooves of horses thudded on the planks,
Wheels scrunched on gravel and soon, from afar,
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One heard the car hum down the polder-road.
A bell clanged and the bridge went up and once
Again with the embarked, the twofold image
Pushed over ever-darkening reflection
Of evening skies on to an opposite goal
No longer seen for falling dew. Mist had
Spread halfway the canal and presently
Sebastian, still lingering, only saw
Time after time a small light disappear
And then loom up again out of the dark.
So night descended, and he who had died
Wondered at the strange silence there. A dog
That had forborne to bark at him, remained
Watching him, keenly on the alert-the hens,
Huddled against each other though they ceased
Their alarmed cackling, did not go to roost.
Then, from a window suddenly lamplight
Shone out, and in the whitewashed peasant's room
Wherein he looked, Sebastian saw a man
Sit at a table in a farmer's blue
Jerkin, sleeves pushed to the elbow, in his fist
A paper, crumpled, folded still, while limp
In a deep bed, her gaze fixed on the window,
A woman lay, seeing and hearing things
Beyond her ken, the tired mouth drawn with pain
And in the eyes a look of wonderment.
That silence was the silence not of death,
Nor yet the heavenly light Sebastian
When arrows pierced his body, had beheld.
No rest it was, no song becoming ever
More clear until its broad monotony
Falls back in silence, like unto a sea,
A hive of bees, a forest full of wind -
That silence there was earthy, warm and pregnant,
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A hope and a beginning - 't was a breath
Held at its deepest intake - happiness
That, mutely, holds a hand before its eyes
And, deep in brooding thought reflects - delay
Wherein, as 't were in sleep the blood, set free,
Gathers unto itself the day and dreams
Unhampered of new days to it alike.
Silence as on a first day, and therein
Sebastian, the shadow, stood amazed
That he, when still alive, had set his hopes
On a fulfilment reaching higher than
This homecoming - this sleep warm in the womb -
Reaching for spirit when the wondrous body
In time wholly possessed him - and he saw
How one must die to know that, deeper than
The heavens are high, blood and its issues are.
't Was pain to him that he should have no son -
That he should have neglected thus to leave
Part of his youth wakeful here, ere he went,
And now from barren grave would have to set
Out on that pilgrimage to the other side,
On chance, blind, but for sunlight on his hand.
One comforts us by saying that God's mercy
Transcends his law - so then it cannot be
That, when they failed to find Sebastian's body
The sight of a white bird was seen, upright
And drifting with stretched neck towards the sea.
Then, sooner, I give credence to the tale
Of how that night, in the farm by the ferry
A child was born, so radiant and fair
That, on beholding the warmth of his glance
Of blue skies, milk and fruit, one needs must think
Of running water where one bathes and after
Lies down to slumber, naked, on the grass.
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