The Translations of NVR 2.1

Zamudio, Akhmatova, Bhartrihari, Rilke, Raïssa Maritain

New Verse Review publishes translations as well as original poetry. Here are the fine translations in our latest issue.

Adela Zamudio’s “Autumn,” translated from the Spanish by Laura Nagle

Already the mountain is coated in snow;
Cold and merciless the winds descend.
Dense is the fog that covers the horizon;
Dry and bare are the meadow, the plain.

The frostbitten wind is a bully, a brute.
The trees are powerless to defend
Their leaves from its wrath, and seeing the forest
All in yellow fills the heart with pain.

How sudden, how abrupt this change of season,
Destruction and sadness intertwined!
So, too, must human hearts, by age enfeebled,
Lose all hope and be consumed with grief.

I am not immune to that chill in the heart,
Even though my brow is yet unlined;
For the wind heralds winter’s desolation,
And for such sorrow there’s no relief.

Laura Nagle is a translator and writer based in Indianapolis. Her translations of prose and poetry from French and Spanish have appeared in journals including AGNI, The Southern Review, Gulf Coast, and Presence, and her short fiction has recently appeared or is forthcoming in The Common, North American Review, and Stanchion. Her translation of Prosper Mérimée’s 1827 hoax, La Guzla, was published in 2023 by Frayed Edge Press.

Anna Akhmatova’s “Untitled (January 1917),” translated from the Russian by Tim Tibbitts

Over the snow-encrusted bank         
We steal away to your white home—
Such a silent pair we make.   
Without a word, softly we go.
And sweeter to me than all the songs
That are sung: our waking dream, the brush
Of branches as we go along,
the faintest jangling of your spurs. 

Tim Tibbitts, an oncology nurse at Cleveland Clinic, has written two novels, Echo Still and Playing Possum; a handful of libretti for short operas, one of which was brought to life in a full production at Kent State University in 2018; and dozens of articles. He lives with his wife in Cleveland, OH. Tim would like to thank his French and Russian teacher, Sarah Kamkha, for help in understanding this poem.

Two Poems of Bhartrihari, translated from the Sanskrit by Louis Hunt

A vortex of whirling doubts,
a refuge for misbehavior,
a city of reckless deeds,

a basket of vices
woven of a hundred lies,
a field sown with distrust,

a bar to the gates of heaven
but entrance to hell’s citadel,
the abode of every illusion—

Who made woman the instrument
—poison and ambrosia at once—
to serve as snare for worldly men?   

---

No one, King, has reached the bounds of desire’s ocean.
Why seek out wealth when the body’s
youthful passions have trickled away?
Let us go home to our wives
before the insults of old age steal away
their beauty and shut the unfurled
flower of their lotus eyes.

Louis Hunt taught political theory at James Madison College, Michigan State University. He has published original poems as well as translations from Sanskrit in a variety of print and online journals including The Rotary Dial, Snakeskin, Lighten Up Online, Metamorphoses, The Brazen Head, Interpret, and The High Window. He is currently working on a volume of translations from the Sanskrit of Kalidasa, Bhartrihari, and Nilakantha Dikshita.

“Christ and the Samaritan Woman,” translated from the Old High German by Jacob Riyeff

“The one who has the bride is the bridegroom…” (John 3:29)
 
Jesus, so the gospels say, was weary on his way;
so at midday’s bell he stopped at a well.

Just then a woman, who was a Samaritan,
scooped up some water as he watched her.
His thanes were away finding food for the day,
so he sought some relief as they sat in the heat.
 
Samaritan Woman:

“Good man, why do you think to ask me for a drink?
Christ knows that the Jews don’t share our food.”

Christ:

“Woman, if only you’d notice how uncanny God’s gift is.
And if only you knew who’s sitting next to you,
you’d ask him to tell about his living well.” 

Samaritan Woman:

“This well goes so far down, and I live off in town…
But you don’t have a vessel to scoop up this water:
good man, do tell, how you receive this living well.
Are you greater than Jacob, our father,
who gave us this well where he drank his fill,
whose sheep and cattle also drank this water?”
 
Christ:

“Who drinks this water will thirst all the more;
who drinks of mine won’t thirst again.
In his breast and with pleasure it’ll well up forever.” 

Samaritan Woman:

“I pray you, O King: give me this spring,
so, freed from this curse, I’d no longer thirst.”

Christ:

“Woman, go find, go fetch here your husband.”
She said she’d so done that she didn’t have one.
“You are right to pronounce that you haven’t a spouse:
before you had five, with whom you did as you like.
And you know, of course, your current man’s not yours.”

Samaritan Woman:

“Lord, you shine so bright you may be a prophet.
Our forefathers, by right, prayed on this height;
our ancestors, in these prayers, sought mercy here.
Though you say it’s Jerusalem where God receives them…”

[the text unfortunately breaks off here]

Jacob Riyeff is a teacher, translator, and poet. His work focuses on the western contemplative tradition and the natural world. Many of his books make available Benedictine texts from the early medieval thru the modern periods, and his new collection of poems, Be Radiant, is out from Fernwood Press. Jacob lives in Milwaukee’s Riverside Park neighborhood with his, wife, three growing children, and an increasing number of plants.

Rainer Maria Rilke’s “The Knight,” translated from the German by Rachel A. Lott

The knight rides out in blackened mail:
out to the galloping world.

And all is out yonder: the day and the dale,
the friend and the foe and the hall of ale,
and May and the maid and the wood and the Grail,
and God Himself with a hundredfold Hail
is waiting on every road.

But deep in the knight’s iron sinews,
down past the darkest ring,
stoops Death, and must ceaselessly muse:
when will the keen blade spring?—
the swift and sudden edge
that will fetch through the hindmost seam
and free me from this niche
where I so many a day
have huddled pondering,—
that I at last may stretch
and play
and sing.

Rachel A. Lott holds a PhD in medieval philosophy from the University of Toronto. In her free time she writes and translates poetry. Her current passion project is a translation of 17th-century mystical poems, the first 100 of which have appeared in The Philosophers' Stone: Alchemical Poems by Angelus Silesius.

Raïssa Maritain’s “Eurydice,” translated from the French by Dan Rattelle

Eurydice
                is impossible!

If Orpheus turns his face,
                she doubts and cries.

But if he glances back
      Eurydice dies.

Dan Rattelle is the author of the book Painting Over the Growth Chart (Wiseblood, 2024). He holds an MFA from the University of St Andrews and lives in Western Massachusetts.