Read Across the Land and the Water: Selected Poems, 1964-2001 Page 7


  in their luggage not

  one of them uttering

  a spoken word. With

  the witching hour

  past they lie

  stretched out under

  blue blankets

  asleep while outside

  the fog gradually

  shifts revealing

  once again

  through the darkness

  the runways & lit

  steps the enormous

  bodies & tail

  fins of the vessels

  lying at anchor

  at their quays. Not

  a single movement

  around me now

  only the sparrows

  who have survived

  for years in this

  part of the terminal

  whirr back &

  forth across the hall

  & up & down

  the arcade settling

  in the green palms

  & ficus trees

  jerking their little

  heads this way &

  that looking out

  between the artificial

  leaves with their shiny

  black eyes &

  chattering raucously among

  themselves as if something

  were not quite right.

  In the Paradise Landscape

  of the younger Brueghel

  on a surface roughly

  thirty by forty

  centimeters in size

  before which I stood

  for a time at the Städel

  Museum all manner

  of beasts & birds

  have come together

  in peace an eagle

  owl with horned

  ears an ostrich

  with button eyes &

  a strangely flat

  beak a billy

  goat & a few sheep

  two polecats or martens

  a wolf a horse

  a peacock a turkey

  & in the foreground

  at the bottom edge

  two spectacled

  monkeys one of which

  is gingerly plucking

  strawberries from a little

  shrub while on the right

  roses climb

  an apple or pomegranate

  tree & tulips

  in full blossom

  & spring stars &

  lilies & hyacinths

  & somewhat in the background

  in a choice act

  of man-manly

  procreation our Lord

  & Creator a tiny

  & obscure figure

  barely visible

  to the naked eye

  bends over

  Adam sleeping

  on a grassy bank

  & cuts from his side

  his bride to be.

  Appendix

  Two poems written in English by W. G. Sebald.

  I remember

  the day in

  the year after

  the fall of the

  Soviet Empire

  I shared a cabin

  on the ferry

  to the Hoek

  of Holland with

  a lorry driver

  from Wolverhampton.

  He & twenty

  others were

  taking super-

  annuated trucks

  to Russia but

  other than that

  he had no idea

  where they were

  heading. The gaffer

  was in control &

  anyway it was

  an adventure

  good money & all

  the driver said

  smoking a Golden

  Holborn in the upper

  bunk before

  going to sleep.

  I can still hear

  him softly snoring

  through the night,

  see him at dawn

  climb down the

  ladder: big gut

  black underpants,

  put on his sweat-

  shirt, baseball

  hat, get into

  jeans & trainers,

  zip up his

  plastic holdall,

  rub his stubbled

  face with both his

  hands ready

  for the journey.

  I’ll have a

  wash in Russia

  he said. I

  wished him the

  best of British. He

  replied been good

  to meet you Max.

  October Heat Wave

  From the flyover

  that leads down

  to the Holland

  Tunnel I saw

  the red disk

  of the sun

  rising over the

  promised city.

  By the early

  afternoon the

  thermometer

  reached eighty-

  five & a steel

  blue haze

  hung about the

  shimmering towers

  whilst at the White

  House Conference

  on Climate the

  President listened

  to experts talking

  about converting

  green algae into

  clean fuel & I lay

  in my darkened

  hotel room near

  Gramercy Park

  dreaming through

  the roar of Manhattan

  of a great river

  rushing into

  a cataract.

  In the evening

  at a reception

  I stood by an open

  French window

  & pitied the

  crippled tree

  that grew in a

  tub in the yard.

  Practically defoliated

  it was

  of an uncertain

  species, its trunk

  & its branches

  wound round with

  strings of tiny

  electric bulbs.

  A young woman

  came up to me

  & said that although

  on vacation

  she had spent

  all day at

  the office

  which unlike

  her apartment was

  air-conditioned &

  as cold as the

  morgue. There,

  she said, I am

  happy like an

  opened up oyster

  on a bed of ice.

  Notes

  The notes that follow cannot be comprehensive, nor do they propose to “explain” the poems or disclose their secrets. Their purpose is twofold: to show the textual sources on which the present volume draws and to throw light on some of Sebald’s allusions to landscapes, works of art or literature, and other matters of historical interest. Points of reference and connotation inevitably inform a translator’s decisions as he goes about the business of rebuilding a poem in a different language. Even after considerable research, however, many details have remained obscure. Readers better acquainted than I am with the life and work of W. G. Sebald will recognize echoes, overtones, and contexts that I have overlooked.

  In indicating the source of a poem, the following abbreviations will apply: FSZ (Freiburger Studentenzeitung); ZET (Das Zeichenheft für Literatur und Grafik); PT (Collection “Poemtrees. Lyrisches Lesebuch für Fortgeschrittene und Zurückgebliebene,” Folders 1 & 2, in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); H (Hanser Verlag volume Über das Land und das Wasser, ed. Sven Meyer: 2008); SL (Folder 1: “Schullatein,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); ÜLW (Folder 2: “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); VVJ (Folder 3: “Das vorvergange Jahr,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Pap
ers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); GG1 (File “Gedichte und Gedichtentwürfe,” Folder 1, in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); DK (Der Komet. Almanach der Anderen Bibliothek auf das Jahr 1991, Frankfurt am Main: 1991); WS (Weltwoche Supplement: Juni 1996); JPT (Jan Peter Tripp, Die Aufzählung der Schwierigkeiten: Arbeiten von 1985–92, Offenburg, 1993); FL (Franz Loquai, W. G. Sebald, Eggingen, 1997); NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Nr 256, 13 November 1999); AK48 (Akzente 48 J., 2001); AK50 (Akzente 50 J., 2003); K&C (Konterbande und Camouflage. Szenen aus der Vor- und Nachgeschichte von Heinrich Heines marranischer Schreibweise. Berlin, 2002); P (Pretext, vol. 2: Autumn 2000); FYN (Collection “For Years Now,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach).

  1 “For how hard it is” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.

  2 “A colony of allotments” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.

  3 “Smoke will stir” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.

  4 “The intention is sealed” FSZ 14 (1964), H.

  5 Nymphenburg PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H. Title: the gardens and interiors of the Baroque Nymphenburg Palace, formerly the summer residence of Bavaria’s ruling Wittelsbach dynasty, are among Munich’s most frequently visited attractions. mauves: French for “mallows.” Wishing Table: the poem invokes the Brothers Grimm’s tales “Dornröschen” (“Sleeping Beauty,” or “Briar Rose”) and “Tischchen deck dich, Goldesel und Knüppel aus dem Sack” (“The Wishing Table, the Gold Ass and the Cudgel in the Sack”), in which a table, on command, sets and spreads its own surface with food and drink.

  6 Epitaph FSZ 15 (1965), H.

  7 Schattwald in Tyrol PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Title: Tyrolean village to the east of Oberjoch, from which the narrator of the final section (“Il ritorno in patria”) of Sebald’s Schwindel. Gefühle (1990; Eng. trans. Vertigo, 1999) walks to Wertach, the author’s place of birth. Rosetta stone: an ancient Egyptian stele of black granodiorite, inscribed with the so-called Memphis decree, issued in three languages in 196 BCE. Its discovery contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In an earlier version of the poem, the second stanza reads: “Am Anfang der Legende / brachte die Botschaft / der Engel des Herrn / ins Haus aus Schatten” (At the beginning of the legend / the Angel of the Lord / brought the tidings / to the House of Shadows”).

  8 Remembered Triptych of a Journey from Brussels PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. near Meran in Ezra’s hanging garden: from 1958, after his release from St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., Ezra Pound stayed at Castle Brunnenburg near Meran in northern Italy, the home of his daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. battlefield at Waterloo: Sebald’s narrator describes visits to Waterloo in the passage entitled (in the contents) “The Panorama of Waterloo,” in the fifth chapter of The Rings of Saturn, including a visit in December 1964, when he stayed at a hotel near the Bois de la Cambre and visited a bar in Rhode St. Genèse. Marie-Louises: young soldiers of the Napoleonic army in 1814, many of them between fourteen and fifteen years old, who had been conscripted during the regency of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s wife, during her husband’s absence for the German campaign of 1813–14. ferme in Genappe: the farmhouse was Napoleon’s headquarters on the night of June 17, 1815, the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. Marquise of O.: the reference to the eponymous protagonist of Heinrich von Kleist’s story is obscure, but see note on Light in August below. A woman’s mouth … roses: in English in the German text. Départ … Milan via St. Gotthard: the train for Milan via St. Gotthard departs from platform 8 at 00.16 hours. industrie chimique: chemical industry. light above the heavenly vaults: in English in the German text. Bahnhof von Metz: Metz train station. bien éclairée: well illuminated. Gregorius, the guote sündaere (Gregorius, the good sinner): a medieval verse epic by Hartmann von der Aue (died ca. 1210). Au near Freiburg: one of the municipalities of that name which claim association with the poet. rechtsrheinisch: on the right (eastern) side of the Rhine. Froben & Company: the humanist Johann Froben (1460–1527), a friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam, set up a successful printing business in Basel in 1491. Light in August: title of a novel (1932) by William Faulkner (1897–1962). One of the characters is Lena Grove, who, like the pregnant Marquise of O. in Heinrich von Kleist’s story, mentioned earlier in the poem, is trying to find the father of her unborn child. To do so, she walks a long distance to Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha, the fictional setting of several of Faulkner’s novels.

  9 Life Is Beautiful PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H.

  10 Matins for G. PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Where no kitchen/There no cook: As Leon, in Act 1 of Franz Grillparzer’s drama Weh dem, der lügt! (Woe to Him Who Lies!), Vienna: 1840 (p. 6), exclaims, “Wo keine Küche, ist kein Koch.”

  11 Winter Poem PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Child Jesus in Flanders: the German translation of the Flemish writer Felix Timmermans’s novel (Het Kindeken Jezus in Vlaanderen, 1917), published in 1919 under the title Das Jesuskind in Flandern, was immensely popular in Germany between the wars and during the 1950s. Its plot sets the birth of Christ in rural Flanders. Another story, “Jésus-Christ en Flandre” (1831) by Honoré de Balzac, is apparently based on a medieval folktale. The Christ-child theme recalls the nativity scenes of Dutch Masters. Believe and be saved: see Mark 16: 16. A handwritten comment on the PT typescript claims there is too great a discrepancy in the poem between the ironic tone of the second stanza and the apparent naïveté of the first.

  12 Lines for an Album PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H.

  13 Bleston: A Mancunian Cantical PT, H. Title: in English in the original text. Bleston is the name given to Manchester in the 1957 novel L’Emploi du temps (translated into English as Passing Time) by the French writer Michel Butor (b. 1926). Like Sebald (1966–68), Butor had been an assistant teacher at Manchester University (1951–53). The final section (“Max Ferber”) of W. G. Sebald’s prose work The Emigrants is set in Manchester, as is the fourth part of “Dark Night Sallies Forth,” the final section of After Nature. Sebald finished writing the poem on or shortly before January 26, 1967 (according to a letter that he wrote to his friend Albrecht Rasche). The poem presents a labyrinth of allusions, and the reader who attempts to follow them risks becoming “Perdu dans ces filaments” (lost in these filaments), a fate of which the title of the fifth part of the poem appears to warn us. Fête nocturne: night party. Big Warehouse: in English in the German text. Lewis’s was a former Manchester department store, opened in 1877. “Warehouse” is probably a Germanicism, an Englishing of the German “Warenhaus” (department store). Consensus Omnium: agreement of all. Place of Breast-like hills: in English in the German text. Dis … curavi: “Dis Manibus” is found on Roman gravestones and means “for the spirits of the ancestors”; in this case, “for the spirits of the ancestors I have arranged for the building of this Mamucium [Manchester].” à travers les âges: through the ages. Sharon’s Full Gospel … before our eyes: in English in the German text. According to the website of the Sharon Full Gospel Church, the church “began with a gospel mission in a tent in Pontypool Park during 1936. Many local people were … miraculously healed.” There is an SFG church in South Manchester. Lingua Mortua: dead language. Kebad Kenya: a character in an episode in the first volume (Das Holzschiff) of Hans Henny Jahnn’s novel Fluß ohne Ufer (1949). The story has appeared in English in a translation by Gerda Jordan-Peterson in The Ship (1961) and Thirteen Uncanny Stories (1984). Briefly, Kebad decides to eat himself, fails to die, attempts to become one with his mare, lies down as if dead, is buried, witnesses the corruption of the flesh, is a revenant, takes possession of men’s bodies, and inflicts terror by stealing horses. Hipasos (sic) of Metapontum: Pythagorean philosopher who conducted experiments in musical theory. Hippasos claimed the discovery of concords with bronze disks of equal diameter and varying thickness. Et pulsae referunt ad sidera valles: and the valleys echoed the sounds to the stars (Virgil’s Eclogue 6.1.84). fil d’Ariane: Ariadne’s thread. The theme of Ariadne and Theseus, the labyrinth and the Minotaur, are ever present in Butor’s novel L’Emploi du temps: “that
rope of words is like Ariadne’s thread (ce cordon des phrases est un fil d’Ariane), because I am in a labyrinth, because I am writing in order to find my way about in it … the labyrinth of my days in Bleston, incomparably more bewildering than that of the Cretan palace, since it grows and alters even while I explore it” (Passing Time, trans. Jean Stewart, New York: 1969, p. 195). opgekilte schottns: both words occur in the Yiddish lexicon, the second one more frequently as shotns. If Sebald intended the words to be recognized as Yiddish, they would mean something like “frozen shadows.” Perhaps they should be read in the context of “return,” albeit a return antithetical to the desired echo: the revenant murderous shadows of Kebad, or Theseus, who after abandoning Ariadne on Naxos forgot to change the black sail to white, thereby causing the death of his father, Aegeus. Alma quies optata veni nam sic sine vita / Vivere quam suave est sic sine morte mori: “How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, / And, without dying, O how sweet to die” (translation by John Walcott [1738–1813]). Authorship of the epigram appears to be obscure, with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg attributing the lines to Heinrich Meibom (1555–1625), while British critics have tended to see the poet laureate Thomas Wharton (1728–90) as the author. Rapunzel: In the fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, Rapunzel, exiled to the wilderness by the witch to live on her own, one day hears the voice of the prince, whom the witch has blinded by throwing him from the tower. They reunite, his sight is restored, and they live happily ever after. Perdu dans ces filaments: lost in these filaments. A quotation from Michel Butor’s novel L’Emploi du temps (Paris: 1956, p. 54) (Passing Time, op. cit., p. 41): “Thus I, a mere virus lost amidst its filaments, was able like a scientist armed with his microscope to study this huge cancerous growth.” Eli Eli (Mark 15: 34): “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) Mr. Dewey’s International classification system: Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey (1851–1931) invented the Decimal Classification System, which revolutionized library cataloging in the 1870s and 1880s. On ne doit plus dormir: One must no longer sleep. The French dictum derives from Theodor W. Adorno’s essay “Commitment” (see New Left Review, First Series, no. 87–88, 1974, p. 85), first published in German in 1962: “The abundance of real suffering tolerates no forgetting; Pascal’s theological saying, On ne doit plus dormir, must be secularized.” Adorno, however, has adapted rather than cited Pascal, who wrote: “Jésus sera en agonie jusqu’à la fin du monde. Il ne faut pas dormir pendant ce temps-là” (“The agony of Jesus will last until the world ends. Until that time we must not sleep”), in Blaise Pascal, Pensées (919) (Texte établi par Louis Lafuma), Paris: 1963 (p. 378).