"Portuguese language", Olavo Bilac.
Two friends of mine last year decided to translate this sonnet. In order to introduce it, let me say beforehand that I don't want to give a full explanation about who was his author or what is his importance to our poetry. In a first moment all you have to know is that he's somehow a persona non grata in our literature, that is to say, for the high school student he's basically the foremost name of a literary movement taken as a bare and futile hardcrafted exercise, and, for the college student, Olavo Bilac is more an interesting chronicler of his own time than properly a skilful poet.
Of course that it hasn't to be so. My favourite example to argue the opposite is to use Décio Pignatari's opinion about him. Pignatari was a concretist poet and also a wonderful translator and critic. In some of his last interviews in life, he liked to say that Bilac, oh boy!, Bilac got it. Althought on the beginning of the concretist movement the parnasianist poets (the movement to which Bilac belongs) were treated as silly and trivial persons, some changings along the decades made them revisit this opinion. It is certainly a matter for another text, but let me say at least that after the concretist movement took place in brazilian's literary life, young poets emerged with a more loose poetics facing at the same time the military government and the literary totems: the great modernists, the experimental and the traditional lyrical poets... For Pignatari, representing the experimental side of the force, those young fellows didn't had the cultural heritage that they, concretists, had, they didn't knew for example the basic rules of versification. So that was a time to move back to Bilac, something that Pignatari in fact did in his last years.
It comes from a sequence of sonnets at the core of Olavo Bilac's last book, Tarde (Evening), in which he exalts some aspects of portuguese and brazilian culture. There you have, for example, Bilac singing the nation, brazilian music and a jesuitic priest named José de Anchieta, a somehow sympathetic figure absolutely important to our history. By praising the portuguese language, Bilac is also giving continuity to a long tradition of defenses of languages, a gender of writing that flourished specially in the sixteen and seventeen century, when many a modern idioms began to structure and see themselves as something more than just vulgar offshoots of latin incapable of creating unageing monuments of intellect. Centuries before we had Dante hunting the most apt dialect of his time or Sidney's comment about English being fit for both the ancient and modern styles of versifying.
The poet portrays the portuguese language as something wild and delicate at the same time: "inculta e bela", he says in portuguese, translated by Pedro and Rubens as "wild and sweet", "uncultured and fair" repectively. I think that in this passage Rubens got advantage, since in the adjective "inculta" we have the negative prefix "in-" not just describing the idiom as something equivalent to "wild" but, also, creating a peculiar perception by which the adjective highlights the fact that the brute idiom do have a culture - but a culture to be explored.
And this is one of the decisive aspects of the sonnet. The portuguese language and, more important than that, Brazil in its entire, is something to be explored bravely by citizens. To Olavo Bilac, who was the patron of obrigatory military enlistment and also the creator of the national flag's anthem, although by our native idiom we experience tender moments, for example the moment of a mother talking to his child, in other hand the experience of a idiom in its full power is something to be achieved by brave speakers, by those who can effectively explore its resources and capacities. That's why he also describes the portuguese language as native gold and uses, in the beginning of second stanza, the adjectives unknown and obscure to talk about it, and that's why to him the role the poet in a culture is a central one.
Both two recent translations, by Pedro and Rubens, are very resourceful in recreating some amazing features of the sonnet. For example, in line 7 we have a memorable sound effect in the original, that uses nasals monosyllabes suggesting the power and range of portuguese: "Tens o trom", followed by the somehow subtle and quick sound of the S in "e o silvo da procela". Rubens's translation got this neatly: "Thou hast the blast and hiss of the wild air", powerful not just in its strong internal rhyme between "hast" and "blast" but also by the S sound provoked specially by the masterly choice of the word "hiss", a word that also appears in others' translations. Right on the next verse, its time for Pedro to shine: "E o arrolo" begins bringing to memory the L sound in "siLvo da proceLa", but also gives a first step in a process, which began in the second part of the past verse, of punctuating all the five vogals: "e o sIlvo da procEla / e o arrOlo da saudAde e da ternUra". How to translate this? Of the many forms imaginable, of which we can quote Odile's choice in "lullaby's allure", dazzingly sonorous, Pedro almost punctuates all the five vogals in his line: "And so the lUll of tEnder thIngs lOng gOne"; and if indeed he almost got it, he compensates this loss by ending the stanza with the beautiful nasal sound of "thiNgs loNg goNe".
You are, at once, both splendor and the grave:
Pure gold, the gangue's impurities don't bare
A mine that´s veiled 'mid rocks and graveled.
I love you thus, unknown, obscure and hidden,
A blaring trumpet, lyre of guilelessness,
Whose fury's like the sea that's tempest ridden,
Whose lullabies are love and tenderness!
I love your lush green woods and perfume wrung,
From virgin jungles and expansive sea!
I love you, rude and sorrowful native tongue,
In which my mother said: "dear son of mine!"
In which Camões bemoaned, grieved exile he,
His luckless genius and love's tarnished shine!
You are at once splendor and tomb:
Native gold, the ore subsumes,
Coarse mine in gravel, undefiled…
I love you so, unknown, obscure,
Loud-clanging trumpet, simple lyre.
You have the hiss of tempests and the fire,
Tender saudade, lullaby’s allure!
I love your rural rankness and your scent
Of virgin forests and of boundless seas!
I love you, oh rough language of lament,
In which I heard a mother’s voice call “My son!”,
In which Camões in bitter exile wept
His ill-starred genius and lackluster love!
Thou art, at once, both sepulture and splendour:
Hidden in slag, a gold of native grandeur,
Which crude mines veil among the muddy grit...
I love thee as thou art: obscure, unknown,
O tuba of roaring clanks, O lyre warm,
Who hast the hiss and rumble of the storm,
And so the lull of tender things long gone!
I love thy wild luxuriance and thy scent
Of oceans deep and uninvaded isles!
I love thee, Tongue of bruteness and lament,
In which I heard from mother's lips: "my son!",
In which Camões once mourned, through dark exiles,
His wretched fate and heart that never sung!
At once a splendour and a sepulture:
Thou native gold, that on a gangue impure
The crude mine among gravels watch and care.
Thus I love thee, that art unknown, obscure.
High clanging tuba, and a lyre so bare,
That hast the blast and hiss of the wild air,
The lull of longing, tenderness secure!
I love thine rustic lushness and thy scent
Of virgin forests and of ocean wide!
I love thee, O brute language of lament,
Which from my mother's voice I heard: "my son!",
In which Camoens in harsh exile has cried
The mind's misfortunes and love's light undone!
Última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela,
És, a um tempo, esplendor e sepultura:
Ouro nativo, que na ganga impura
A bruta mina entre os cascalhos vela...
Amo-te assim, desconhecida e obscura,
Tuba de alto clangor, lira singela,
Que tens o trom e o silvo da procela
E o arrolo da saudade e da ternura!
Amo o teu viço agreste e o teu aroma
De virgens selvas e de oceano largo!
Amo-te, ó rude e doloroso idioma,
Em que da voz materna ouvi: "meu filho!"
E em que Camões chorou, no exílio amargo,
O gênio sem ventura e o amor sem brilho!
Of course that it hasn't to be so. My favourite example to argue the opposite is to use Décio Pignatari's opinion about him. Pignatari was a concretist poet and also a wonderful translator and critic. In some of his last interviews in life, he liked to say that Bilac, oh boy!, Bilac got it. Althought on the beginning of the concretist movement the parnasianist poets (the movement to which Bilac belongs) were treated as silly and trivial persons, some changings along the decades made them revisit this opinion. It is certainly a matter for another text, but let me say at least that after the concretist movement took place in brazilian's literary life, young poets emerged with a more loose poetics facing at the same time the military government and the literary totems: the great modernists, the experimental and the traditional lyrical poets... For Pignatari, representing the experimental side of the force, those young fellows didn't had the cultural heritage that they, concretists, had, they didn't knew for example the basic rules of versification. So that was a time to move back to Bilac, something that Pignatari in fact did in his last years.
It comes from a sequence of sonnets at the core of Olavo Bilac's last book, Tarde (Evening), in which he exalts some aspects of portuguese and brazilian culture. There you have, for example, Bilac singing the nation, brazilian music and a jesuitic priest named José de Anchieta, a somehow sympathetic figure absolutely important to our history. By praising the portuguese language, Bilac is also giving continuity to a long tradition of defenses of languages, a gender of writing that flourished specially in the sixteen and seventeen century, when many a modern idioms began to structure and see themselves as something more than just vulgar offshoots of latin incapable of creating unageing monuments of intellect. Centuries before we had Dante hunting the most apt dialect of his time or Sidney's comment about English being fit for both the ancient and modern styles of versifying.
The poet portrays the portuguese language as something wild and delicate at the same time: "inculta e bela", he says in portuguese, translated by Pedro and Rubens as "wild and sweet", "uncultured and fair" repectively. I think that in this passage Rubens got advantage, since in the adjective "inculta" we have the negative prefix "in-" not just describing the idiom as something equivalent to "wild" but, also, creating a peculiar perception by which the adjective highlights the fact that the brute idiom do have a culture - but a culture to be explored.
And this is one of the decisive aspects of the sonnet. The portuguese language and, more important than that, Brazil in its entire, is something to be explored bravely by citizens. To Olavo Bilac, who was the patron of obrigatory military enlistment and also the creator of the national flag's anthem, although by our native idiom we experience tender moments, for example the moment of a mother talking to his child, in other hand the experience of a idiom in its full power is something to be achieved by brave speakers, by those who can effectively explore its resources and capacities. That's why he also describes the portuguese language as native gold and uses, in the beginning of second stanza, the adjectives unknown and obscure to talk about it, and that's why to him the role the poet in a culture is a central one.
Both two recent translations, by Pedro and Rubens, are very resourceful in recreating some amazing features of the sonnet. For example, in line 7 we have a memorable sound effect in the original, that uses nasals monosyllabes suggesting the power and range of portuguese: "Tens o trom", followed by the somehow subtle and quick sound of the S in "e o silvo da procela". Rubens's translation got this neatly: "Thou hast the blast and hiss of the wild air", powerful not just in its strong internal rhyme between "hast" and "blast" but also by the S sound provoked specially by the masterly choice of the word "hiss", a word that also appears in others' translations. Right on the next verse, its time for Pedro to shine: "E o arrolo" begins bringing to memory the L sound in "siLvo da proceLa", but also gives a first step in a process, which began in the second part of the past verse, of punctuating all the five vogals: "e o sIlvo da procEla / e o arrOlo da saudAde e da ternUra". How to translate this? Of the many forms imaginable, of which we can quote Odile's choice in "lullaby's allure", dazzingly sonorous, Pedro almost punctuates all the five vogals in his line: "And so the lUll of tEnder thIngs lOng gOne"; and if indeed he almost got it, he compensates this loss by ending the stanza with the beautiful nasal sound of "thiNgs loNg goNe".
■
trad. Frederic G. William [2004]
Last flower of Latium, wild, uncultured, fair,You are, at once, both splendor and the grave:
Pure gold, the gangue's impurities don't bare
A mine that´s veiled 'mid rocks and graveled.
I love you thus, unknown, obscure and hidden,
A blaring trumpet, lyre of guilelessness,
Whose fury's like the sea that's tempest ridden,
Whose lullabies are love and tenderness!
I love your lush green woods and perfume wrung,
From virgin jungles and expansive sea!
I love you, rude and sorrowful native tongue,
In which my mother said: "dear son of mine!"
In which Camões bemoaned, grieved exile he,
His luckless genius and love's tarnished shine!
§
trad. Odile Cisneros [2009]
Latium’s last flower, lovely and wild,You are at once splendor and tomb:
Native gold, the ore subsumes,
Coarse mine in gravel, undefiled…
I love you so, unknown, obscure,
Loud-clanging trumpet, simple lyre.
You have the hiss of tempests and the fire,
Tender saudade, lullaby’s allure!
I love your rural rankness and your scent
Of virgin forests and of boundless seas!
I love you, oh rough language of lament,
In which I heard a mother’s voice call “My son!”,
In which Camões in bitter exile wept
His ill-starred genius and lackluster love!
§
trad. Pedro Mohallem [2018]
Last flower of the Latium, wild and sweet,Thou art, at once, both sepulture and splendour:
Hidden in slag, a gold of native grandeur,
Which crude mines veil among the muddy grit...
I love thee as thou art: obscure, unknown,
O tuba of roaring clanks, O lyre warm,
Who hast the hiss and rumble of the storm,
And so the lull of tender things long gone!
I love thy wild luxuriance and thy scent
Of oceans deep and uninvaded isles!
I love thee, Tongue of bruteness and lament,
In which I heard from mother's lips: "my son!",
In which Camões once mourned, through dark exiles,
His wretched fate and heart that never sung!
§
trad. Rubens Chinali [2018]
Last Lazian flower, uncultured and fair,At once a splendour and a sepulture:
Thou native gold, that on a gangue impure
The crude mine among gravels watch and care.
Thus I love thee, that art unknown, obscure.
High clanging tuba, and a lyre so bare,
That hast the blast and hiss of the wild air,
The lull of longing, tenderness secure!
I love thine rustic lushness and thy scent
Of virgin forests and of ocean wide!
I love thee, O brute language of lament,
Which from my mother's voice I heard: "my son!",
In which Camoens in harsh exile has cried
The mind's misfortunes and love's light undone!
■
Última flor do Lácio, inculta e bela,
És, a um tempo, esplendor e sepultura:
Ouro nativo, que na ganga impura
A bruta mina entre os cascalhos vela...
Amo-te assim, desconhecida e obscura,
Tuba de alto clangor, lira singela,
Que tens o trom e o silvo da procela
E o arrolo da saudade e da ternura!
Amo o teu viço agreste e o teu aroma
De virgens selvas e de oceano largo!
Amo-te, ó rude e doloroso idioma,
Em que da voz materna ouvi: "meu filho!"
E em que Camões chorou, no exílio amargo,
O gênio sem ventura e o amor sem brilho!
