silance des agneaux

Jorge Luis Borges

That one

Oh days devoted to the useless burden
of putting out of mind the biography
of a minor poet of the Southem Hemisphere,
to whom the fates or perhaps the stars have given
a body which will leave behind no child,
and blindness, which is semi-darkness and jail,
and old age, which is the dawn of death,
and fame, which absolutely nobody deserves,
and the practice of weaving hendecasyllables,
and an old love of encyclopedias
and fine handmade maps and smooth ivory,
and an incurable nostalgia for the Latin,
and bits of memories of Edinburgh and Geneva
and the loss of memory of names and dates,
and the cult of the East, which the varied peoples
of the teeming East do not themselves share,
and evening trembling with hope or expectation,
and the disease of entymology,
and the iron of Anglo-Saxon syllables,
and the moon, that always catches us by surprise,
and that worse of all bad habits, Buenos Aires,
and the subtle flavor of water, the taste of grapes,
and chocolate, oh Mexican delicacy,
and a few coins and an old hourglass,
and that an evening, like so many others,
be given over to these lines of verse.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Vladimir Mayakovski


The violin got all worked up, imploring
then suddenly burst into sobs,
so child-like
that the drum couldn't stand it:
"All right, all right, all right!"
But then he got tired, couldn't wait till the violin ended,
slipped out on the burning Kuznetsky
and took flight.
The orchestra looked on, chilly,
while the violin wept itself out
without reason
or rhyme,
and only somewhere,
a cymbal, silly,
kept clashing:
"What is it,
what's all the racket about?"
And when the helicon,
brass-faced, sweaty,
hollared:
"Crazy!
Crybaby!
Be still!"
I staggered,
on to my feet getting,
and lumbered
over the horror-stuck music stands,
yelling,
"Good God"
why, I myself couldn't tell;
then dashed, my arms round the wooden neck to fling:
"You know what, violin,
we're awfully alike;
I too
always yell,
but can't prove a thing!"
The musicains commented,
contemptuously smiling:
"Look at him-
come to his wooden-bride-
tee-hee!"
But I don't care-
I'm a good guy-
"You know, what, violin,
let's live together,
eh?"


Skripka izdergalas', uprashivaya,
i vdrug razrevelas'
tak po detski,
chto baraban ne vyderzhal:
"Horosho, horosho, horosho!"
A sam ustal,
ne doslushal skripkinoi rechi,
shmygnul na goryashii Kuzneckii
i ushel.
Orkestr chuzho smotrel, kak
vyplakivalas' skripka
bez slov,
bez takta,
i tol'ko gde-to
glupaya tarelka
vylyazgivala:
"Chto eto?"
"Kak eto?"
A kogda gelikon --
mednorozhii,
potnyi,
kriknul:
"Dura,
plaksa,
vytri!"--
ya vstal,
shatayas' polez cherez noty,
sgibayushiesya pod uzhasom pyupitry,
zachem-to kriknul:
"Bozhe!"
Brosilsya na derevyannuyu sheyu:
"Znaete chto, skripka?
My uzhasno pohozhi:
Ya vot tozhe
oru --
a dokazat' nichego ne umeyu!"
Muzykanty smeyutsya:
"Vlip kak!
Prishel k derevyannoi neveste!
Golova!"
A mne -- naplevat'!
Ya -- horoshii.
"Znaete chto, skripka?
Davaite --
budem zhit' vmeste!
A?"

Vladimir Mayakovski, 1914