La tribu prophétique aux prunelles
Hier s'est mise en route, emportant ses
Sur son dos, ou livrant à leurs fiers
Le trésor toujours prêt des mamelles pendantes.
Les hommes vont à pied sous leurs armes
Le long des chariots où les leurs sont blottis,
Promenant sur le ciel des yeux
Par le morne regret des chimères absentes.
Du fond de son réduit sablonneux, le grillon,
Les regardant passer, redouble sa chanson;
Cybèle, qui les aime, augmente ses verdures,
Fait couler le rocher et fleurir le
Devant ces voyageurs, pour lesquels est ouvertL'empire familier des ténèbres futures.
Gypsies
The prophetical tribe, that ardent eyed people,
Set out last night, carrying their children On their backs, or yielding to those fierce appetites The ever ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men travel on foot with their gleaming weapons Alongside the wagons where their kin are huddled,
Surveying the heavens with eyes rendered heavy By a mournful regret for vanished illusions.
The cricket from the depths of his sandy retreat Watches them as they pass, and louder grows his song;
Cybele, who loves them, increases her verdure,
Makes the desert blossom, water spurt from the rock Before these travelers for whom is opened wide The familiar domain of the future's darkness.— Translated by William
Gipsies on the Road The tribe of seers, last night, began its match With burning eyes, and shouldering its young To whose ferocious appetites it swung The wealth of hanging breasts that nought can parch.
The men, their weapons glinting in the rays,
Walk by the convoy where their folks are carted,
Sweeping the far-off skylines with a gaze Regretful of Chimeras long-departed.
Out of his hole the cricket sees them
And sings the louder.
Greener grows the
Because Cybele loves them, and has
The barren rock to gush, the sands to flower,
To greet these travellers, before whose power Familiar futures open realms of shade.— Translated by Roy
The
They set out yesterday, the tribe of ragged seers With burning eyes — bearing their little ones in nests Upon their backs, or giving them, to stop their tears,
The teats of inexhaustible and swarthy breasts.
The men walk shouldering their rifles silently Beside the hooded wagons with bright tatters hung,
And peer into the sky, as if they hoped to see Some old mirage that beckoned them when they were young.
No matter where they journey through the meager land,
The cricket will sing louder from his lair of sand,
And Cybele, who loves them, will smile where they advance:
The desert will be fruitful, the arid rock will flow Before the footsteps of these wayfarers, who go Eternally into the lightless realm of chance.— Translated by George
Travelling
The prophetic tribe of the ardent
Yesterday they took the road, holding their
On their backs, delivering to fierce
The always ready treasure of pendulous breasts.
The men stick their feet out, waving their
Alongside the caravan where they tremble together,
Scanning the sky their eyes are weighted
In mourning for absent chimeras.
At the bottom of his sandy retreat, a
Watched passing, redoubles his song,
Cybele, who loves, adds more flower,
Makes fountains out of rock and blossoms from
Opening up before these travelers in a yawn—A familiar empire, the inscrutable future.
Translated by William A.
Sigler
