There is a willow grows aslant the brook,
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream,
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious silver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook, her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and endued
Unto that element, but long it could not be
Till that her garments heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet 4.7.137-154
That shows his hoary leaves in the glassy stream,
There with fantastic garlands did she make
Of crowflowers, nettles, daisies and long purples,
That liberal shepherds give a grosser name,
But our cold maids do dead men's fingers call them.
There on the pendant boughs her coronet weeds
Clamb'ring to hang, an envious silver broke,
When down her weedy trophies and herself
Fell in the weeping brook, her clothes spread wide,
And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,
Which time she chanted snatches of old lauds,
As one incapable of her own distress,
Or like a creature native and endued
Unto that element, but long it could not be
Till that her garments heavy with their drink,
Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay
To muddy death.
~ William Shakespeare, Hamlet 4.7.137-154
posted by dyingember at 12:12 PM
1 Comments:
Ophelia
I.
Where the stars sleep in the calm black stream
like some great lily, pale Ophelia floats,
slowly floats, wound in her veils like dream.
- half heard in the woods, halloos from distant throats.
A thousand years sad Ophelia gone
glimmering on the water, a phantom fair;
a thousand years her soft distracted song
has waked the answering evening air.
the wind kisses her breasts and shakes
her long veils lying softly on the stream;
the shivering willows weep upon her cheeks;
across her dreaming brows the rushes lean.
the wrinkled water lilies round her sigh;
and once she wakes a nest of sleeping things
and hears the tiny sound of frightened wings;
mysterious music falls from the starry sky.
II.
O pale Ophelia, beautiful as snow!
Yes, die, child, die, and drift away to the sea!
for from the peaks of Norway cold winds blow
and whisper low of bitter liberty;
For a breath that moved your long heavy hair
brought strange sounds to your wandering thoughts;
your heart heard Natures singing everywhere,
in the sighs of trees and the whispering of night.
For the voice of the seas, endless and immense,
breaks your young breast, too human and too sweet;
for on an April morning a pale young prince,
poor lunatic, sat wordless at your feet!
Sky! Love! Liberty! What a dream, poor young
Thing! you sank before him, snow before fire,
your own great vision strangling your tongue,
Infinity flaring in you blue eye!
III
And the Poet says that by starlight you came
to pick the flowers you loved so much at night,
and he saw, wound in her veils like a dream,
like some great lily, pale Ophelia float.
by Arthur Rimbaud
translated by Paul Schmidt
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