Gunnar Mascoll Silfverstolpe (1893-1942): 'Slut på sommarlovet'

 

Slut på sommarlovet

Det var den tid, då våra fickor spändes
av kantstött frukt med regnvåt lera på.
Det var den tid, då trädgårdsstaken tändes
och sken på kräftfat i en mörk berså.
Det började bli nästan kallt att bada,
och snåren sveptes in i spindelväv.
När sista lasset kördes till sin lada,
var rymden kyligt klar och blåsten sträv.

Det var de dagar, då man girigt vägde
var timma, som fanns kvar till lovets slut.
Det var den tid, då varje timma ägde
en egen kraft, som måste vinnas ut.
Och ändå hände det, man smög sig undan
från leken till en backe, där man låg
och såg med tioårig, svart begrundan
på svalors flykt och vita skyars tåg.

Så reste man en kväll, då solen väckte
en djupröd glöd ur alla timmerhus.
Man höll den avskedsgåva, sommarn räckte,
en påse astrakaner mot sin blus.
I tårögd tystnad for man till stationen,
och runt omkring en höjde syrsor gällt
den sista glädjedruckna sommartonen
från boskapstrampade och tomma fält.

 

End of the summer holidays

This was the time our pockets all hung low
with fall-clipped fruit now smeared with streaks of clay.
This was the time the garden candles’ glow
lit up the crayfish dish with quivering ray.
It almost felt too cold to take a swim,
and cobwebs draped themselves round scrub and fern.
When too the last hay had been taken in,
the sky was chill and clear, the wind quite stern.

These were the days when grudgingly one weighed
each hour till summer’s quota had been filled.
This was the time when every hour displayed
an inner force that was to be distilled.
And yet at times one left all play behind
sought out a hill where it was good to lie
and with a ten-year-old’s dark-musing mind
observe the swallows’ flight and clouds file by. 

One evening, with the wooden houses burnished

a glowing crimson by the sun, one left –

holding the farewell gift that summer furnished,

a bag of Astrakhans, clasped to one’s chest.
One rode off to the station, tearful-eyed,
while crickets, drunk with joy, still chirped and squealed
their final summer notes on every side
from what were empty, cattle-trampled fields.

 

 

ZKV91 (Maggie as Hedda Gabler)

 

 

  

 

IBSEN À LA CARTE

 

On 18 July 1970, Clive Barnes wrote a review in The New York Times on two interpretations of ‘Hedda Gabler’ by Henrik Ibsen – by Miss Worth (in Ontario) and Miss Smith (in London). He found them extremely different but equally valid. The latter was directed by Ingmar Bergman, whose interpretation ‘eloquently scales down the play to a point where heroism is an illusion and tragedy a lapse of good manners’. Bergman’s ‘total concern is the sad littleness of life’. No heroics, no passion, like that of the Hedda played by Miss Worth. ‘Miss Smith is something both more wary and more vulnerable. She is suburban rather than patrician […] and there is a dry bitterness, a kind of sad humor, to her portrayal that in context is both sardonic and pathetic.’

 

It sounds convincing, but it wasn’t quite the case. I know. I was there in London. And saw Miss Smith in action – Miss Maggie still-going-strong Smith, to be more precise. She was electric on stage, dominating it by refusing to do so. And since I was brought up to believe that ‘heroism is an illusion and tragedy a lapse of good manners’, I was surprised that I could be so convinced by any play whatsoever, with my built-in distrust of ‘theatricals’. More means less if a concert by one classical guitarist on stage seems more powerful than a symphony orchestra at full throttle. Bergman took liberties with Ibsen, because he had his own obsessions and demons he wanted to get across. Miss Smith did the job.

ZKV91 (originally posted in 2019)

Lars Gustafsson: Sonnet XXVII ('För den som är på isens undersida')

 

This sonnet, Lars Gustafsson wrote to me (with his highly distinctive typing), proved to be a lifesaver!

You can find it here

Lars Gustafsson: 'Svamparna' and 'Världens tystnad före Bach'

 

 

 

Fungi

 

 

When fungi start to appear at the end of July, on the forest paths, in the old thickets down by the lake, under the birch trees, it always comes as a surprise.

Their shapes are completely alien; clubs, hats, spikes, parasols, but only one word really applies: fungi. Just as unclear what they actually consist of. Where was the substance that caused them to grow?

In the ground? In the air?

Between the end of July and the end of October it is as if an other, perhaps an older, vegetation were trying to conquer nature, and is then forced to retreat once more.

 

 

The starry sky, the staring of the galaxies.

The stubborn capacity of the universe to maintain unheard-of distances, as opposed to our just as eager attempts to see the world as small, as surveyable, frequentable for signals and observations.

The quantum logic of physics and chemistry. The same thing: the stubborn refusal of matter to be anything else than probabilities, shadows that play over bare rocks in the sunset, sudden gusts of wind that pass through a solitary aspen in the coppice yet leave the aspens next to it completely still. And our stubborn eager struggle for a substance, particles, individualities that refuse to exist in real physics.

This world of distances and shadows and random leaps between spectral lines, this frightening silent dance is what I mean by the silence of the world before Bach.

 

 

Human existence must thus be conceived as something enacted on a narrow spit of land between one sea and the next sea.

That narrow strip of knowledge between two vast realms of ignorance, deep as unconsciousness or death.

So how do we know if that narrow strip lies still, that it is not constantly in motion, is fast drifting in a maelstrom?

A spit of land. A strip of land. What speaks for it being so large? Perhaps what we are now talking about is as thin as the membrane of a rainbow, where the colours waver and  move in Newtonesque interference patterns?

 

 

It just came to me, one says about the great, the liberating ideas in one’s life, by which we mean from within.

The world outside us is like a sea, or a space that loses itself in black transfinite depths.

The accounts of astronomers have long since accustomed us to gain at least a diffuse picture of this.

It is harder though to accept the idea of an inner space that is not us.

The existence of historical schemata on the basis of which we unknowingly act, categories of concepts which we acquire without realising that they exist, and the sudden shifts and glides in these systems that every hundred years can take place and suddenly demonstrate how random they are, provide us with an inkling that these depths actually exist.

 

In old books of physics, 19th century books of experiments with lithographs, 18th century ones with woodcuts as well as those even older, one can see just how unsure and changeable the landscape of natural science is.

Earlier, electricity was thought to be a fluid and from that period we still have the Leyden jar, once light was thought of as a ray than could be broken and sifted, since when there are lenses and prisms.

Like flocks of birds in the autumn, hypotheses can sudden break out from an area and roam into another one, all questions can wander off from a landscape into another one where other instruments and other hypotheses flourish.

Knowledge roams through the world without ever wanting to stay in one and the same place for a sufficient length of time to take up residence there.

 

                       (Lars Gustafsson, Valda Skrifter 1, pp.389-391)

 

 

The silence of the world before Bach

 

There must have existed a world before

the Trio Sonata in D, a world before the A minor Partita,

but what was that world like?

A Europe of large unresonating spaces

everywhere unknowing instruments,

where Musikalisches Opfer and Wohltemperiertes Klavier

had never passed over a keyboard.

Lonely remote churches

where the soprano voice of the Easter Passion

had never in helpless love twined itself round

the gentler movements of the flute,

gentle expanses of landscape

where only old woodcutters are heard with their axes

the healthy sound of strong dogs in winter

and – like a bell – skates biting into glassy ice;

the swallows swirling in the summer air

the shell that the child listens to

and nowhere Bach nowhere Bach

skating silence of the world before Bach

 

                       (Lars Gustafsson, Valda Skrifter 1, p.369)

 

Dèr Mouw: 'Laag hangt de zon'

 

Laag hangt de zon. De lange bossen, dijken

van ondoorschijnendheid, weren de baren

van ’t rode licht, dat afdruipt van de blaren,

doorsijplend, waar tot lek de twijgen wijken;

 

de vlakke stromen, die ’t doorzichtig strijken,

kan niet het voorland, ruigbegroeid met varen,

niet kan de takkenglooiing doen bedaren

de steile vloed, die heen spoelt over de eiken;

 

over de kruin en – dijkbreuk – door de wanden

stort zich de oranje branding op de landen,

wijd vloeiend goud, als uit een fabelbron;

 

in ’t oosten bouwt de nacht zijn wolkendammen;

meezuigt de zon de vloed van koele vlammen,

en ze ebben weg onder de horizon.

 

 

The sun hangs low. The long woods, dike-like shield

of dense opacity, hold back and sheathe

bars of red light that drip down from the leaves,

seeping through leaks where twigs and branches yield;

 

the foreland, roughly fern-clad, can no more

hold back the flat, transparent streams that stroke

now over it than can slopes topped with oak

the steep waves sweeping over all the shore;

 

over the crown and – dike breach – one thick band,

the orange breakers sweep across the land,

liquid gold surge, as from a fabled spring;

 

out in the east the night builds cloud-bank dams;

the sun sucks up the flood of cooling flames

that ebbs away beneath the skyline’s ring.

 

Dèr Mouw: 'Zwevend op winden waait de zee door 't duin'

 

Zwevend op winden waait de zee door ’t duin,
en ’t zout blijft achter in ’t diep-koele zand;
geen bloemengloed, geen groen van sapp’ge plant
kleurt ’t bleke egaal van vér-zichtbare kruin;

 

maar ’t water, neerfiltrend, doet, tuin naast tuin,
laaien van tulpenrood ’t wijdvlammend land,
en ruist als bossen op, tot waar de rand
vaal is door helm en zieklijk struikenbruin:

 

Stormend door open mensenleven, laat
de Godheid bloemloos ’t oppervlak, waar ’t zaad
van blijdschap sterft, door lang verdriet geschroeid;

 

tot ondergrondse zuiverheid vervloeid,
herrijst Ze als ’t rijk van schijn en rijm en maat,
waar ’t Denken tulpt en lovert, ruist en gloeit.

 

 

Wind-borne the sea through duneland floats and glides,

the salt left lying in the deep-cool sand;

no glow of flowers, no sap-filled plant’s green strand

colours the smooth pale crest seen far and wide;

 

the filtering water, though, ignites a blaze

in countless gardens of bright tulip-red,

and rustles up as woods, to where the edge

is drab with marram, sickly brushwood-beige:

 

The Godhead, storming through our open life,

leaves flowerless the surface, and in time

joy’s seed dies, parched with suffering’s long strife;

 

but coalesced to purity below,

a bright realm reascends of pulse and rhyme,

where Thought now leaves and flares, rustles and glows.

Lars Gustafsson: 'Fantasier från ett järnvägsfönster'

 

Fantasier från ett järnvägsfönster

 

Det stilla, silverfärgade vattnet

i ålderdomliga dammar bortom Loirekanalen.

En gräsand flyger oförmodat upp

och försvinner in i den våta dimman.

 

På regnvåta stigar

som vi inte når

möter en pojke med ränsel

en liten flicka med mörka flätor.

Här börjar en av dessa romaner

som vi sedan aldrig skall återfinna

i bibliotekens hyllor.

 

I halmklädda kupor

sover vinterns bin.

Snart skall han överge henne.

Det vet hon inte än.

All tomhet har en doft av godhet.

 

*

 

Körsbärsträdet föll

en plötslig stormnatt

och när krona, stam och kvistar

delats upp och lagts åt sidan

lyste trädets sista bär

i gräset som de fallit.

De hade inget särskilt,

ingen speciell smak eller egenskap

Bara det att de var de sista.

 

Fantasies from a railway window

 

The still, silvery water

of ancient dams beyond the Loire Canal.

A mallard unexpectedly flies up

and disappears into the damp mist.

 

On rain-wet paths

that we do not reach

a boy with a knapsack meets

a young girl with dark plaits.

He one of those novels starts

that we will afterwards never find again

on the shelves of libraries. 

 

In straw-covered hives

the winter’s bees sleep.

Soon he will abandon her.

She does not know this yet.

All emptiness has a scent of goodness.

 

*

 

The cherry tree fell

one sudden stormy night.

and when top, trunk and branches

had been divided up and laid aside,

the tree’s last berries gleamed

in the grass as they had fallen.

They had nothing notable about them,

no special taste or attribute.

Only the fact they were the last.

 

(Valda skrifter 1, p. 454)

Benny Andersen: 'Syltningens poetik' (1996)

 

The poetics of preservation

 

As a boy I kept caterpillars

was very fond of them

preserved one during the occupation

picked from the hedge a caterpillar

a fine fat multicoloured privet hawkmoth caterpillar

with a black crooked horn behind

put it in a jam jar

with a supply of privet leaves

with a lid of perforated greaseproof paper

but instead of munching away

it became motionless

the fine colours

the wriggling fatness

became wrapped up and hidden

in a lifeless colourless pupa.

 

I placed the glass

at the back of the larder

autumn passed

winter passed

it was forgotten

there were other things to think about

Hitler and Rommel

with Eisenhower and Montgomery

spring drew nearer

one spring day mother called out

A mouse a mouse there’s

a mouse in the larder

you must get rid of it right away

 

A flapping sound from the bottom of the cupboard

a wing-span larger than the jam jar

a beauty that demanded the whole universe

full of paternal pride I let out

my young privet hawkmoth into the light

just wait

soon you will get to see both the dark

and all the stars you have deserved

 

Now

old and bereft of parents

I often resort to the same method

preserve fat wingless poems

in dark drawers for months

miss my mother

deputise for her

listen expectantly terror-stricken

to the foreboding flapping from the dark of oblivion

that announces liberation is near

that the poem is now on the wing

 

Thanks for the m(o)use

Mother.

 

 

Samlede digte (Jubilæumsudgave) pp. 891-92

Astrid Hjertenæs Andersen: 'Hestene står i regnet' (1948)

Hestene står i regnet

 

Når mitt sinn er fylt av drømmer,

mere dunkle, mere fjerne,

enn min tanke kan forklare,

mere ville, mere hete

enn mitt hjerte kan forstå,

vil jeg bare stå i regnet

slik som hester står i regnet

på en bred og saftig slette

mellom tunge fjell, som her.

 

Stå og kjenne kroppen suge

dette svale, sterke, våte,

som i strie strømmer siler

over ansikt, hår og hender.

Likne skogen der den suger,

som et barn, av himlens bryster.

Likne sletten, full av sødme,

sitrende av fromt begjær.

 

Slik som hester står i regnet,

lutende, med våte flanker,

og lar duft av muld og væte

drive sterkt og søtt i sinnet,

vil jeg stå og bare være

og la himmel-yret falle,

inntil tanken fri for feber

følger drømmene til klarhet

i en steil og stille ro.

 

 

Horses standing in the rain

 

When my mind is full of dreaming,

ever vaguer and more distant

than my thought can find the words for,

ever wilder and more torrid

than my heart can comprehend,

I want just to stand where rain falls

stand out in the rain like horses 

on expanses of lush grassland

midst the mountains’ weight, as here.

 

Stand and feel my body sucking

all this coolness, strength and wetness

that in steady streams now trickles

down my face, my hair and hands.

Be just like the forest sucking

at the sky’s breasts like an infant.

Be like grassland, full of sweetness,

trembling with devout desire.

 

Just stand in the rain like horses,

with wet flanks and leaning sideways,

letting scent of soil and moisture

strongly, sweetly fill my mind,

I just want to stand there being

let the drizzle sift down on me,

until thought that’ free from fever

follows dreams to perfect clearness

in a stillness sheer and calm.

 

 

 

René-François Sully Prudhomme: 'Le vase brisé' (1865)

Sully Prudhomme, first winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature

 

Le vase brisé

 

Le vase où meurt cette verveine

D’un coup d’éventail fut fêlé;

Le coup dut l’effleurer à peine:

Aucun bruit ne l’a révélé.

 

Mais la légère meurtrissure,

Mordant le cristal chaque jour,

D’une marche invisible et sûre

En a fait lentement le tour.

 

Son eau fraîche a fui goutte à goutte,

Le suc des fleurs s’est épuisé;

Personne encore ne s’en doute ;

N’y touchez pas, il est brisé.

 

Souvent aussi la main qu’on aime,

Effleurant le cœur, le meurtrit;

Puis le cœur se fend de lui-même,

La fleur de son amour périt;

 

Toujours intact aux yeux du monde,

Il sent croître et pleurer tout bas

Sa blessure fine et profonde ;

Il est brisé, n’y touchez pas.

 

 

The broken vase

 

The vase where this verbena dies

When fan-struck opened up a split;

The blow scarce brushed it where it lies:

No sound revealed the gentle hit.

 

But the light bruising, though obscure,

Prises the crystal every day,

Makes progress that’s unseen yet sure

And slowly edges on its way.

 

Its water drop by drop seeps out,

The flowers’ sweet sap is forced to quit;

And no one has the slightest doubt:

It’s broken, stay away from it.

 

And often too a much-loved hand

Touching the heart can bruise it sore;

Then of itself it is unmanned,

Its love-flower nothing can restore.

 

While still intact to people’s eyes,

Its wound is deep though just a slit

Is felt to weep and grow in size:

It’s broken, stay away from it.