All Too Archetypical

[naomichana]

Poetry meme from all over my friendslist -- pass on a passage of your choosing. Or, in my case, the original and the translation. (Yes, that's cheating, but I'm seeing mostly English poems, and I thought it'd be fun to shake that up a bit. Also, I think the translation is absolutely super up to the last quatrain, where it starts losing me.)


Sólo una cosa no hay. Es el olvido.
Dios, que salva el metal, salva la escoria
Y cifra en Su profética memoria
Las lunas que serán y las que han sido.
Ya todo está. Los miles de reflejos
Que entre los dos crepúsculos del día
Tu rostro fue dejando en los espejos
Y los que irá dejando todavía.
Y todo es una parte del diverso
Cristal de esa memoria, el universo;
No tienen fin sus arduos corredores
Y las puertas se cierran a tu paso;
Sólo del otro lado del ocaso
Verás los Arquetipos y Esplendores.
-- Jorge Luis Borges

One thing does not exist: Oblivion.
God saves the metal and he saves the dross,
And his prophetic memory guards from loss
The moons to come, and those of evenings gone.
Everything is: the shadows in the glass
Which, in between the day's two twilights, you
Have scattered by the thousands, or shall strew
Henceforward in the mirrors that you pass.
And everything is part of that diverse
Crystalline memory, the universe;
Whoever through its endless mazes wanders
Hears door on door click shut behind his stride,
And only from the sunset's farther side
Shall view at last the Archetypes and Splendors.
-- Richard Wilbur

Now, back to trying to explain all the things water means in the first ten chapters of Genesis for tomorrow morning. :)