poem

Ballade IV from Les Cent Ballades

english translation

Ballade IV from Les Cent Ballades

original French poem

Ballade IV

Par envie, qui le monde desroye,
Est trayson couvertement nourrie
En mains faulz cuers, qui se mettent en voye
De mettre a fin leur fausse lecherie,
Et en leurs fais usent de tricherie,
Dont ilz prenent sur maint grant avantage,
En traïson, non pas par vacellage.

En grant pouoir fu la cité de Troye,
Un temps qui fu, sur toute seigneurie
Et la regnoit de ce monde, a grant joye,
En haulte honneur, fleur de chevalerie;
Qui par Grigois fu puis arse et perie,
Et Troyens pris et menez en servage,
En traïson, non pas par vacellage.

Alixandre qui du monde ot la proye
Si fu trahy; aussi grant desverie
Reffist Mordret a Artus par tel voye,
Dont maint dient qu'il est en faerie.
Le preux Hector, ou ot bonté florie,
Ne l'occist pas Achillès par oultrage,
En traïson, non pas par vacellage.

Princes, je dis, nel tenez moquerie,
Que l'en se gard de tel forsennerie,
Voire qui puet, car on fait maint domage
En traïson, non pas par vacellage.

 

Christine de Pizan

Christine de Pizan (1364 – c. 1430) was the daughter of the official astrologer to the French court, who gave her the same education that a son would have received. When her husband died of plague, leaving her a widow with three children at the age of 25, she began a career of writing, both prose and poetry, which marks her as a first European woman to support herself entirely by her pen.

 

Maryann Corbett

Maryann Corbett’s third book of poetry, Mid Evil, won the 2014 Richard Wilbur Award and is forthcoming from The Evansville Press. Her poems, essays, reviews, and translations have appeared widely in journals in print and online and in a variety of anthologies and have also won the Lyric Memorial Award and the Willis Barnstone Translation Prize.

 

Chestnut Tree

english translation

Chestnut Tree

original Spanish poem

(castaño)

 

Tú,
En esa vida
Más alta.
Siempre en esa quietud
En que te manifiestas.
En ese ahí que veo y que no alcanzo.
Siempre en ese silencio
Que nunca nada pide sino estar
Para ser desnudez,
Hojas, flores y frutos.  Para ser
Consuelo y paz para el que mira.  Árbol,
Hermano con quien sueño
Fusionarme algún día

 

The House

english translation

The House

original Spanish poem

La Casa

 

De mi casa, piedra tras piedra,
Soporto la demolición

René Char

Fue la casa el primer
Espacio del que fui desposeído.
La marca del exilio allí estaba presente.
Del lugar primordial fui despojado
Y ahora cuando pronuncio
Conventino, laurel,
Cortinal, campocasa,
Sala, cocina, escalerón, alcoba,
Cerezo junto al río,
Mi voz expresa al aire las heridas
De la caligrafía de la ausencia.
Otros ámbitos luego
Acogieron mi estar en el espacio,
Mas ninguno fue cifra
Del lugar primordial que me fue dado
Para habitar el mundo.
Hoy no existe esa casa
Que me acogió en la tierra,
Que recibió el inicio de mi aliento;
Sólo el peregrinaje de lugar en lugar
Y un espacio en la luz de la memoria
Que da sentido al mundo y que nos salva:
El lugar primordial,
La casa que fue reino,
Exilio del lugar es mi palabra.
Cuando se ha conocido
El espacio indeleble del jardín,
Toda la vida es búsqueda
Para volver a hallarlo.


 

 

José Luis Puerto

José Luis Puerto (b. 1953) was born in the village of La Alberca, in the Sierra de Francia of Salamanca Province. Graduating from the University of Salamanca with a degree in Romance Philology, he served as secretary to Rafael Alberti. In addition to his many volumes of poetry, he has edited several anthologies, translated Portuguese poetry, and produced works of ethnography focusing primarily on folk legends of Northern Spain. He has taught in Sevilla, Segovia and León, where he now resides with his wife María.

 

Michael Bradburn-Ruster

Michael Bradburn-Ruster, a native of Carmel, California, has published poetry, fiction, translations, and scholarly essays in international journals including Able Muse, Sacred Web, Cincinnati Review, Grey Sparrow Journal, Perigee, Broken Bridge Review, Marginalia, Berkeley Poetry Review, Rain City Review, Damazine (Syria), and Antigonish Review. He is a frequent contributor to Poetry Salzburg Review, and was a featured reader at the Monterey Bay Poetry Festival.

 

The Two Old Nags

english translation

The Two Old Nags

original Scots poem

The Twa Cummeris

Rycht airlie on Ask Weddinsday,
Drynkand the wyne satt cumeris tway;
The tane cowth to the tother complene,
Graneand and suppand cowd scho say,
“This lang Lentern makis me lene.”

On cowch besyd the fyre scho satt,
God wait gif scho wes grit and fatt,
Yit to be feble scho did hir fene,
And ay scho said, “Latt preif of that,
This lang Lentern makis me lene.”

“My fair, sweit cummer,” quod the tuder,
“Ye tak that nigertnes of your muder;
All wyne to test scho wald disdane
Bot mavasy, scho bad nane uder;
This lang Lentern makis me lene.”

“Cummer, be glaid both evin and morrow,
Thocht ye suld bayth beg and borrow,
Fra our lang fasting ye yow refrene,
And latt your husband dre the sorrow;
This lang Lentern makis me lene.”

“Your counsale, cummer, is gud,” quod scho,
“All is to tene him that I do,
In bed he is nocht wirth a bene;
Fill fow the glass and drynk me to;
This lang Lentern makis me lene.”

Off wyne owt of ane choppyne stowp,
They drank twa quartis, sowp and sowp,
Off drowth sic exces did thame strene;
Be than to mend thay had gud howp
That Lentrune suld nocht mak thame lene.

 

Sonnet: In Orkney

english translation

Sonnet: In Orkney

original Scots poem

Sonet. In Orknay

Upon the utmost corners of the warld,
and on the borders of this massive round,
quhaire fates and fortoune hither hes me harld,
I doe deplore my greiffs upon this ground;
and seing roring seis from roks rebound
by ebbs and streames of contrair routing tyds,
and phebus chariot in there wawes ly dround,
quha equallye now night and day devyds,
I cal to mynde the storms my thoughts abyds,
which euer wax and never dois decress,
for nights of dole dayes Ioys ay ever hyds,
and in there vayle doith al my weill suppress:
so this I see, quhaire ever I remove,
I chainge bot sees, but can not chainge my love.

 

from Book 7 of Eneados

english translation

from Book 7 of Eneados

original Scots poem

from Book 7 of Eneados

Unsterit lang tyme and unmovit, Itale
Now birnis into fury bellicall.
Sum grathis thame on fute to gae in feild,
Sum hie montit on hors bak under scheild
The dusty pouder updrivand with ane stoure,
And every man socht wappinnis and armoure:
Thare schynand scheildis sum did burnis wele,
And sum polist scharp spere hedis of stele,
To mak thame bricht with fat creische or same,
And on quhitstanis thare axis scharpis at hame:
To bere pyncellis it gladis thame up and doun,
And are rejocit to here the trumpettis soun.
Five of the gretest and maist cheif cieteis,
Thare wappinnis to renew in all degreis,
Set up forgis and stele styddyis fyne,
Riche Atina, and the proude Tiburine,
Ardea the ciete, and Crustumerie
And eik Antemne with strang towris hie,
And werelie wallis battellit all about:
The sikkir helmes penys and forgis out,
Thare targis bow thay of the licht sauch-tre,
And bos bukleris coverit with corbulye:
Sum stele hawbrekis forgis furth of plate,
Birnyst flawkertis and leg harnes fut hate,
With latit sowpyl silver weil ammelyt:
Al instrumentis of pleuch graith irnit or stelit,
As culturis, sokkys, and the sowmes grete,
With sythis and all hukis that scheris quhete,
War thidder brocht, and tholis tempyr new,
The lust of all sic werklomes wer adew:
Thay dyd thame forge in swerdis of mettal brycht,
For to defend thare cuntre and thare richt.
Be this thare armour grathyt and thare gere,
The draucht trumpet blawis the brag of were:
The slughorn, ensenye, or the wache cry
Went for the battall all suld be reddy:
He pullis doun his sellat quhare it hang,
Sum dele affrait of the noyis and thrang:
He drivis furth the stampand hors on raw
Unto the yoik, the chariotis to draw:
He clethis him with his scheild and semys bald,
He claspis his gilt habirihone and thrinfald:
He in his breistplait strang and his birnye,
Ane sovir swerd beltis law doun by his the.
Ze Musis now, sueit Godessis ichone . . .

 

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