The French
Prisoner
If only I
could forget that Frenchman.
I saw him,
just before dawn, creeping past our quarters
into the
dense growth of the back garden
so that he
almost merged into the ground.
As I
watched he looked back, he peered all round—
At last he
had found a safe hideout.
Now his
plunder can be all his!
He'll go no
further, whatever happens.
Already he
is eating, biting into the turnip
which he
must have smuggled out under his rags.
He was
gulping raw cattle-turnip!
Yet he had
hardly swallowed one mouthful
before it
flooded back up.
Then the
sweet pulp in his mouth mingled
with
delight and disgust the same
as the
unhappy and happy come together
in their
bodies' voracious ecstasy.
Only to
forget that body, those quaking shoulder blades,
the hands
shrunk to bone,
the bare
palm that crammed at his mouth,
and clung
there
so that it
ate, too.
And the
same, desperate and enraged
of the
organs embittered against each other
forced to
tear from each other
their last
bonds of kinship.
The way his
clumsy feet had been left out
of the gibbering
bestial joy and splayed there,
crushed
beneath the rapture and torture of his body.
And his
glance—if only I could forget that!
Though he
was choking, he kept on
forcing
more down his gullet—no matter what—
only to
eat—anything—this—that—even himself!
Why go on?
Guards came for him.
He had
escaped from the nearby prison camp.
And just as
I did then, in that garden,
I am
strolling here, among garden shadows, at home.
I look into
my notes and quote:
'If only I
could forget that Frenchman...'
And from my
ears, my eyes, my mouth
the
scalding memory shouts at me:
'I am
hungry!' And suddenly I feel
the eternal
hunger
which that
poor creature has long ago forgotten
and which
no earthly nourishment can lessen.
He lives on
me. And more and more hungrily!
And I am
less and less sufficient for him.
And now he,
who would have eaten anything,
is clamouring
for my heart.
Translated
by Ted Hughes and János Csokits
On the Wall
of a KZ Lager
Where
you've fallen, you will stay.
In the
whole universe this one
and only
place is the sole place
which you
have made your very own.
The country
runs away from you.
House,
mill, poplar—every thing
is
struggling with you here, as if
in
nothingness mutating.
But now
it's you who won't give up.
Did we
fleece you? You've grown rich.
Did we
blind you? You watch us still.
You bear
witness without speech.
Translated
by George Gömöri and Clive Wilmer
Fable
Once upon a
time
there was a
lonely wolf
lonelier
than the angels.
He happened
to come to a village.
He fell in
love with the first house he saw.
Already he
loved its walls
the
caresses of its bricklayers.
But the
windows stopped him.
In the room
sat people.
Apart from God
nobody ever
found them
so beautiful
as this
child-like beast.
So at night
he went into the house.
He stopped
in the middle of the room
and never
moved from there any more.
He stood
all through the night, with wide eyes
and on into
the morning when he was beaten to death.
Translated
by Ted Hughes and János
November
Elysium
Convalescence.
You hang back, at the verge
of the
garden. Your background
a peaceful
yellow wall's monastery silence.
A tame
little wind starts out across the grass. And now,
as if hands
assuaged them with holy oils,
your five
open wounds, your five senses
feel their
healing and are eased.
You are
timid, And exultant. Yes,
with your
childishly translucent limbs,
in the
shawl and coat grown tall,
you are
like Alyosha Karamazov.
And like
those gentle ones, over yonder,
who are
like the child, yes, you are like them.
And as
happy too, because
you do not
want anything any more.
Only to
gleam like the November sun,
and exhale
fragrance, lightly, as a fir-cone.
Only to
bask, like the blest.
Translated by
Ted Hughes and János Csokits
Quatrain
Nights soaked in poster-loneliness.
You left the light on in the corridor.
Today my blood is shed.
Nails asleep under frozen sand.
Translated by Ted Hughes and János Csokits
Fish in the
Net
We are
tossing in a net of stars.
Fish hauled
up to the beach,
gasping in
nothingness,
mouths
snapping dry void.
Whispering,
the lost element
calls us in
vain.
Choking
among edged stones
and
pebbles, we must
live and
die in a heap.
Our hearts
convulse,
our
writhings maim
and
suffocate our brother.
Our cries
conflict but
not even an
echo answers.
We have no
reason
to fight
and kill
but we
must.
So we atone
but our atonement
does not suffice.
No
suffering
can redeem
our hells.
We are
tossing in a starry net
and at
midnight
maybe we
shall lie on the table
of a mighty
fisherman.
Translated by
Ted Hughes and János Csokits
Posthumous
Passion
In the end
you simply disturbed everyone.
The
rhythmical, hobnailed noise of your boots
becoming
too heavy, always around midnight,
that you've
come home, and this vexation,
ultimately
all that's left of you.
And yet, by
then you were just
thrashing
around with your legs,
like a
laboratory animal
marching,
marching on the air.
Translated
by Peter Jay
Rembrandt
The
father’s house: ashes and vinegar.
A kiss and
a hand-kiss: ashes and vinegar.
Closed eyes
in the grave and in the bed,
a
discipline persisting after death.
Translated
by George Gömöri and Clive Wilmer
On a
Forbidden Star
I was born
on a forbidden star. From there
driven
ashore, I trudge along the sand.
The surf of
celestial nothingness takes me up,
and plays
with me, then casts me on the land.
Why I
repent I do not even know.
It is a
puzzle buzzing in my ear.
If any of
you should find me on this beach,
this sunken
beach, don’t run away, stay here.
And don’t
be scared. Don’t run away. Just try
to mitigate
the suffering in my life.
Shut your
eyes and press me to yourself.
Press me
boldly, as you would a knife.
Be reckless
too: look on me as the dead
look on the
night, seeing it as their own,
your
shoulder there to aid my weaker one.
I can no
longer bear to be alone.
I never
wanted to be born. It was nothingness
who bore
and suckled me; with her I started.
so love me
darkly. Love me cruelly. Love me
like the
one left behind by the departed.
Translated
by George Gömöri and
Relationship
What a
silence, when you are here. What
a hellish
silence.
You sit and
I sit.
You lose
and I lose.
Translated by Peter Jay
Life
Sentence
The bed
shared.
The pillow
not.
Translated
by Peter Jay
I’ve read
his poetry in a Dutch translation by Erika Dedinszky. Publications
:
Krater –
Vianen , Kwadraat, 1984.
De toren
van het zwijgen : een keuze uit de moderne Hongaarse poëzie: Sándor Weöres,
János Pilinszky, Sándor Csoóri, Imre Oravecz, Ottó Tolnai, József Bakucz,
György Vitéz - Rotterdam, Poetry
International, 1977.
One of 20th
century Hungary's most esteemed poets, János Pilinszky was extremely reserved
and deeply distressed. His unique poetry resulted from a curious combination of
a profound Roman Catholic faith with a dark pessimism that was at least as
powerful as his faith. Drafted into the Axis Hungarian army in 1944 as the end
was near, Pilinszky's unit followed the retreating Nazis into Germany, where he
saw the Ravensbrück concentration camp, among others, an experience that shaped
much of his future work. This experience of the worst of human nature was
reinforced by the Communist takeover of Hungary at the end of the war and then
the brutal suppression of the Hungarian uprising in 1956. Unwilling to
compromise with the authorities, the publication of his second book of poems -
particularly scarred by his wartime experience - was forbidden for a decade.
From Goodreads
Ted Hughes
on János Pilinszky.
This essay
is a version of the introductory essay to the volume of translations by Ted
Hughes and János Csokits. PoetryMagazines
George
Gömöri on translating Pilinszky. PoetryFoundation
On the
launch of ‘Passio’, consisting of fourteen poems by János Pilinszky translated
by Clive Wilmer and George Gömöri, is published by the Worple Press. University of Cambridge
John R.
Carpenter reviews Metropolitan Icons:
Selected Poems of János Pilinszky in
Hungarian and in English. Edited and translated by Emery George. MichiganQuarterly Review, winter 1998.
Obituary
János Csokits. TheGuardian, September 22, 2011
More on János Pilinszky
here :
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