POEME ROMÂNESTI ÎN LIMBI STRĂINE
Emil BOTTA
Anacreontic Poem
Beware, a viper slithers in your hair !
When you bowed your head to drink
from the gleaming lily trumpet lair,
I perceived the viper’s tiny head slink.
The forest, rich in weaponry, besieges us.
A tyrant is the forest. So let us run away.
Drop the mirror, let our faces fleetly pass,
oh, let the muddy sea flood the murmurs in its sway,
while we’ll eternally be the serene zodiac signs.
You’ll be the Swan, the flower of the blue abyss,
I’ll be the Archer, shooting sparkling arrows;
oh, our love stories are much loftier billows
than the long-haired Getae’s high mountain bliss.
And the blizzard blows like dreams, like fancies...
Drop the gritstone, his country will never tie us in laces...
Oh, the wind deceives us with its enthralling tunes,
with his cherubic violin descending from hymn books.
I’ll be the Wolf, Master Wolf, the traveller,
you’ll be Lady Lamb, with your tender looks,
and plenty of passionate kisses we’ll share.
Don’t lend your ear to the stars’ phillipic aflare,
oh, no, take good care not to bare
your beauty in their clear light and smearing fumes;
since the stars wish to see us sallow
or melt like snow,
or like the impaled sinners, enslaved by harpoons.
Devote yourself to love, unto death.
In fact, death will shun our pathway;
yet, enthralled by skies and love’s breath,
it might happen one day
that we forget to wake from our dreamful lay.
English version by Gabriela PACHIA
