Nabegando para Bizáncio

I
Esto nun ye tierra para bielhos. Ls moços
De braço dado, páixaros nas arbles -
Essas giraçones marimundas – cun sou cantar.
Cachoneiras de salmones, mares de cabalas,
Peixe, chicha, ou abe, recomendado to l berano
Todo l que ye girado, nace, i se muorre.
Presos nesta sensual música todos çprézian
Menumientos dua anteligença sien tiempo.

II
Un bielho ye ua cousa çprezible,
Un benairo agarrado a un caiato, a nun ser que
L’alma bata palmas i cante, i cun mais rugido cante
Por cada farrapo an sue mortal bestimienta.
Nien ye ende scuola de canto mas de studar
Menumientos de l sou própio splendor;
I por esso atrabessei ls mares i cheguei
A la sagrada cidade de Bizáncio.

III
Á sabidos que bos manteneis ne l sagrado fuogo de Dius
Cumo ne l dourado mosaico dua parede,
Beni de l fuogo sagrado, carrico de lhinha a rodar,
I séiades ls mestres de canto de mie alma,
Gastai este miu coraçon loinge; malo de deseio
I preso a un animal marimundo
Nun sabe l que ye por drento; i ajuntai-me
Al artefício de l’eiternidade.

IV
Çque fuora de la natureza nun tornarei a agarrar
Mie forma corporal zde ua cousa natural,
Mas ua forma assi cumo l ouribeiro griego faç
De ouro martelhado i ouro esmaltado
Para mantener spierto un ansonhado Amperador;
Ou pousado an galho dourado a cantar
Para senhores i damas de Bizáncio
De l que passou, ou que passa, ou que há de benir.

W.B. Yeats[1865-1939], The Tower, 1928.
Traduçon de Fracisco Niebro

[an anglés:
Sailing to Byzantium

I.
That is no country for old men. The young
In one another’s arms, birds in the trees –
Those dying generations – at their song.
The salmon-falls, the mackerel-crowded seas,
Fish, flesh, or fowl, commend all summer long
Whatever in begotten, born, and dies.
Caught in that sensual music all neglect
Monuments of unageing intellect.

II

And aged man is but a paltry thing,
A tattered coat upon a stick, unless
Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing
For every tatter in its mortal dress.
Nor is there singing school but studying
Monuments of its own magnificence;
And therefore I have sailed the seas and come
To the holy city of Byzantium.

III
O sages standing in God’s holy fire
As in the gold mosaic of a wall,
Come from the holy fire, perne in a gyre,
And be the singing-masters of my soul.
Consume my heart away; sick with desire
And fastened to a dying animal
It knows not what it is; and gather me
Into the artifice of eternity.

IV
Once out of nature I shall never take
My bodily form from any natural thing,
But such a form as Grecian goldsmiths make
Of hammered gold and gold enamelling
To keep a drowsy Emperor awake;
Or set upon a golden bough to sing
To lords and ladies of Byzantium
Of what is past, or passing, or to come.]