Sunday 11 December 2022

Martinus Nijhoff: 'De Moeder de Vrouw' (Danish and English translations)



MODEREN FRUEN

 

Jeg tog til Bommel for at se på broen.

Jeg så den nye bro. Og de to bredder

der ville undgås måske før blev atter

naboer. Noen minutter nød jeg roen

og lå så dér, i græsset, teen drukket,

hovedet fyldt af landskab vidt og bredt –

da midt i alt det evige hørs brat

en stemme hvori ørene blev vugget.

 

Det var en kvinde. Med hende om bord

gled skibet gennem broen ned ad floden

Hun var alene på dækket, stod til rors,

 

og det hun sang var psalmer, ku’ jeg høre.

O, tænkte jeg, hvis bare det var mor.

Pris gud sang hun, Hans hånd må dig bevare.

 

 

‘THE OLD LADY’

 

I went to Bommel just to see the bridge.

I saw the new bridge. Two opposing shores

that shunned each other seemingly before

are neighbours once again. A grassy verge

I lay on, tea consumed, for some ten minutes

my head filled with the landscape far and wide –

when from that endlessness on every side

this voice came, and my ears resounded with it.

 

It was a woman. And the boat she steered

was passing downstream through the bridge quite slowly.

She stood there at the helm, alone on deck,

 

and what she sang were hymns, I now could hear.

Oh, I thought, oh, were mother there instead.

Praise God she sang, His hand shall safely hold thee.

 

  

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