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Attila József

Ο Attila József είναι ενδεχομένως ο σημαντικότερος Ούγγρος ποιητής του 20^ου αιώνα, ή τουλάχιστον ο πιο αναγνωρισμένος διεθνώς. Γεννήθηκε το 1905 μέσα στη φτώχεια στο προάστιο Ferencváros της Βουδαπέστης. Ο πατέρας του Áron εγκατέλειψε την οικογένεια τρία χρόνια αργότερα δυσχεραίνοντας ακόμη περισσότερο την οικονομική κατάσταση της οικογένειας. Ο Attila τελικά το 1914, στα εννιά του μόλις χρόνια, αποπειράθηκε να αυτοκτονήσει με δηλητήριο. Αλλά οι κακοτυχίες του δεν πρόκειται να σταματήσουν: στα 18 διώκεται ποινικά για βλασφημία, τον επόμενο χρόνο αποβάλλεται για τον ίδιο λόγο από το πανεπιστήμιο ενώ σιγά σιγά εμφανίζονται τα πρώτα συμπτώματα σχιζοφρένειας. Εντούτοις, παρόλη την διαγνωσμένη του σχιζοφρένια συνεχίζει να γράφει πυρετωδώς ποιήματα, μήνα με το μήνα ολοένα πιο σκοτεινά. Στις 3 Δεκεμβρίου 1937, φρενήρη χτυπήματα θα διακόψουν το γεύμα στο σπίτι της αδερφής του. Κι όταν εκείνη ανοίξει, θ’ αντικρίσει τον τρελό του χωριού να προσπαθεί απελπισμένα να της εξηγήσει, χειρονομώντας σπασμωδικά, ότι ο Attila ξάπλωσε στις ράγες του τρένου, ότι το τρένο διαμέλισε το κορμί του...

You gave me childhood

You gave me childhood. Thirty winters’ ageing

cannot withstand you, freeze gives away to thaw

I can nor move nor sit. All unassuaging,

my own limbs hurl me, drag me to your door.

I hold you in my mouth, a dog her puppy,

and, lest I choke, I struggle to escape.

Each moment heaps upon me those unhappy

years that destroyed my destiny, my hope.

Feed me – I hunger. Cover me – I shiver.

Attend me – I am a clumsy fool.

Your absence blows through me, a draught’s cold river.

Command – and fear shall leave me, as you rule.

You listened, and my words gave up their ranting.

You looked at me: I let everything fall.

Make of me one not quite so unrelenting:

To live and die at my own beck and call!

My mother beat me out of doors – I lay there –

would crawl into myself, it was too late –

stone step down here and emptiness away there.

If I could sleep! I rattle on your gate.

Many men live as I do, dull, unfeeling,

out of whose eyes tears nonetheless can fall.

I love you, for without your power of healing

I’d not have learned to love myself at all.

(May 1936)

Desolation

May insects walk upon your eye. May greenish

velvety mould befuzz your breasts. You flung

me into desolation and I vanish.

Grind up your teeth; devour your human tongue.

May your fair face like sandgrains drift and trickle.

You, who for her lap has empty void,

whose busy fingers can but pet and trickle:

may they be caught in dreary webs of weed.

This hideous desire is all your being.

You wouldn’t flinch if people came to see,

and, dumbly gathered in a ring, were seeing

just who made such an evil out of me.

Whom do you squeeze now? If you have a baby,

may his sole pleasure be to turn, and turn,

you blinking at him, while about you, maybe,

full-gutted alligators flop and churn.

Supine upon this bed I lie quite numbly,

I see my eye: you look at me with it.

Die! This I wish so brutishly, so dumbly,

that I believe that I could die of it.

(November – December 1936)

My eyes jump in and out

My eyes jump in and out, I’m mad again.

When I’m like this, don’t hurt me. Hold me tight.

When all I am goes cross-eyed in my brain,

don’t show your fist to me: my broken sight

would never recognize it anyway.

Don’t jerk me, sweet, off the void edge of the night.

Think: I have nothing left to give away,

no one to have and hold. What I called “me”

is nothing too. I gnaw its crumbs today,

and when this poem is done it will not be…

As space is by searchlight, I am pierced through

by naked sight: what sin is this they see

who answer not, no matter what I do,

they who by law should love, be claimed by me.

Do not believe this sin you can’t construe,

till my grave-mould acquits and sets me free.

(November – December 1936)

Μετάφραση Zsuzsanna Ozsváth & Frederick Turner, Newcastle 1999.