Osip Mandelstam, 1915
Insomnia. Homer. The taut sails set.
I've read the vessel-list already till its middle:
this lengthy hatch of birds, this crain-train's misty riddle
- the one to rise above the Ellas land...
Like ibis brood to foreigner's frantiers
- the kings' - divine - and tsars' brows' foam and lather -
where do you sail? You, Achaean, would rather
pass over Troyan war, if you'd been Helen's peer.
Both Ocean and Homer are motioned by Affection.
Whom should I listen to? And there Homeros stops,
and sea the black, orating, loud talks,
and comes to bedside, crashing to distraction.
06/07.12.09
the original
I've read the vessel-list already till its middle:
this lengthy hatch of birds, this crain-train's misty riddle
- the one to rise above the Ellas land...
Like ibis brood to foreigner's frantiers
- the kings' - divine - and tsars' brows' foam and lather -
where do you sail? You, Achaean, would rather
pass over Troyan war, if you'd been Helen's peer.
Both Ocean and Homer are motioned by Affection.
Whom should I listen to? And there Homeros stops,
and sea the black, orating, loud talks,
and comes to bedside, crashing to distraction.
06/07.12.09
the original