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Breytenbach vertaal deur Mark Sanders
One of the most significant South African writers of his generation, Breyten Breytenbach died in Paris on November 24, 2024, at the age of 85. Breytenbach was best known as a poet in Afrikaans, and was celebrated as a painter.
I had the pleasure of getting to know Breyten as a colleague at NYU, where he was Global Professor in the mid-2000s, teaching creative writing. I last spoke to him in 2019 in Wellington in South Africa. Backed by a rock band, he had just stood tall, upright, and suffused with the energy of the artist, reading his poems at Tuin van die Digters (Garden of the Poets), a literary festival held at a center for writers established at the house where he grew up. The Tuin was celebrating his eightieth birthday.
For readers in English, Breytenbach’s best known work is probably The True Confessions of an Albino Terrorist, his extraordinary account of his seven years in jail as a political prisoner of the apartheid state, published in 1983.
But his 2014 poem, “klein etimologiese les (maar filologie is nader aan vlieg)” (little etymological lesson [but philology is nearer to flying]), resonates with all of us philologists. My impromptu translation follows the poem.[1]
klein etimologiese les
(maar filologie is nader aan vlieg)
oor die middaguur in die ravyn
waar dit dig en groen bebos genoeg is
om die son se vuur te demp
kweel en kwitter die nagtegaal
soet snikgeluidjies,
en jy dink: dis goed en wel om ’n woordsifter
te wees met skiwwe indrukke
waarmee jy die papier probeer bind
asof dit ’n wêreld sou vergestalt
van beboste heuwels en ’n sekelmaan
wat as herout van nag- en reisruimtes
se sterre in mens se verbeelding
sing, maar wat is jou tog tog vergeleke
met die onsigbare rossinyol s’n—
die ruiseñor, riviermeneer—
as hy hierdie seisoen sy nessie
kom bou in boom en kreupelhout
en ravyn om die oorhoofse trekvoël,
die wyfietjie, hoog genag soos sterre,
met getjikker en lang melodieuse note
van vleitaal óm te sing om haar eier te lê
in sy gedig? jy hoor en jy eer hom,
die nihtegala, die nagsanger,
roesbruin gedou op die skouers,
wat ’n wêreld bind
asof dit papier is met verhale
van verwante in verre klimate:
die Kaapse lyster donker gerug
met nagvlerke en ’n oranje pens,
die klipwagter (Monticola rupestris)
wat in bergagtige streke skaam
sy blougrys kop en nek sal wys,
die lysternagtegaal (Luscinia luscinia)
so skaars soos liefdestaal
in Natal en die Transvaal
en die lemoenvoël. en jy dink:
dit hoef nie opgeskryf te lê
as uiteensetting van aanhoulewe
sedert die aanvang van tyd nie,
want met middernagvuur en ook oor die middag
in die kloof waar dit groen en dig genoeg
is om die vlugwete van son as ster
te verdoof, bid jy in skamele gebied-
stameling jou woordklopklop se nabootsing
van nagmaal onder die hemp[2]
****
little etymological lesson
(but philology is nearer to flying)
past the midday hour in the ravine
where it is dense and greenly wooded enough
to damp the fire of the sun
the nightingale trills and warbles
sweet little sobbing sounds,
and you think: it’s well and good to be a word-sifter
with threadbare impressions
with which you try to bind the paper
as if it would body forth a world
of wooded hills and a sickle moon
that as herald sings in human imagining
of stars of night- and journey-spaces,
but what is yours though anyway compared
with the invisible rossinyol’s—
the ruiseñor, river-mister—
when this season he comes to build
his little nest in tree and undergrowth
and ravine to persuade with song the bird of passage overhead,
the little female, nighted high like stars,
with chitter and long melodious notes
of flattering language to lay her egg
in his poem? you hear and you honor him,
the nihtegala, the night-singer,
dewed rust-brown on the shoulders,
that binds a world
as if it is paper with stories
of relatives in far climes:
the Cape thrush dark-backed
with night-wings and an orange belly,
the rock thrush (Monticola rupestris)
that in mountainous regions will shyly
show his blue-grey head,
the thrush nightingale (Luscinia luscinia)
as rare as love language
in Natal and the Transvaal
and the olive shrike. and you think:
it does not have to lie written up
as exposition of life carrying on,
since the beginning of time,
because with midnight fire and also past the midday
in the cleft where it is green and dense enough
to dim the flight lore of sun as star,
you pray in meagre bidding-
stammering your word-throb-throb’s mimicry
of communion[3] beneath your shirt
— Mark Sanders
[1] I thank Andries Visagie for kindly taking the time to discuss and make suggestions for my translation. He is, of course, not responsible for the final choices that I have made.
[2] In Vyf-en-veertig skemeraandsange uit die eenbeendanser se werkruimte (Cape Town: Human & Rousseau, 2014), 10-11.
[3] In the original, the word is “nagmaal,” which sounds a little like “nagtegaal,” or nightingale.
Hooffoto: © Stephane Burlot/Hans Lucas/Redux[:]
