kuraki yori
kuraki michi ni zo
irinu beki
harukani terase
yama no ha no tsuki
- The Lady Izumi Shikibu

from this darkness
upon a path in darkness
I set forth
shining there above the mountain peaks
give light to me, O distant moon

暗中入暗道
山端月仍照

Though we pass from darkness into darkness,
the mountain’s edge moon still shines.

Doch ist glaub’ euch zu erfassen:
Hinter dieser Augen Klarheit
Ruht ein Herz in Lieb’ und Wahrheit
Jetzt sich selber überlassen,

Dem es wohl behagen müßte,
Unter so viel stumpfen, blinden,
Endlich einen Blick zu finden,
Der es auch zu schätzen wüßte.

Und indem ich diese Chiffern
Mich versenke zu studiren,
Laßt euch ebenfalls verführen,
Meine Blicke zu entziffern!

qui caput et digitos et lumina nigra puellae
et canat ut soleant molliter ire pedes?

who’ll sing her face, and her fingers, and her shining black eyes,
and the familiar, soft fall of her footsteps?

+

Goethe, ‘Holde Lili’ :

Holde Lili, warst so lang
All mein Lust und all mein Sang!
Bist, ach, nun all mein Schmerz, und doch
All mein Sang bist du noch.

Sweetest Lili, for so long
All my joy and all my song!
Alas, now all my sorrow too
Though all my song is still of you.

*

Goethe, Nähe des Geliebten:

Ich bin bei dir; du seist auch noch so ferne,
Du bist mir nah!
Die Sonne sinkt, bald leuchten mir die Sterne,
O wärst du da!

I am with you, however far
away, to me you’re always near.
The sun sinks; now above me rise the stars–
O would that you were here!

+

Propertius 2.21, 19-20:

nos quocumque loco, nos omni tempore tecum
sive aegra pariter sive valente sumus.

in whatever place, at whatever time,
in sickness or in health, I am with you.

*

Propertius 2.26C, 57-58:

quod mihi si ponenda tuo sit corpore vita,
exitus hic nobis non inhonestus erit.

because, for me, if I should lay my life down by your side,
such a death would hardly be dishonourable.

+

Goethe, Anakreons Grab:

Frühling, Sommer und Herbst genoss der glückliche Dichter;
Vor dem Winter hat ihn endlich der Hügel geschützt.

Earth’s spring, summer, autumn once were joy to him;
From winter, now, earth gladly shelters him.

*

Propertius 2.13A, 11-12:

me iuvet in gremio doctae legisse puellae,
auribus et puris scripta probasse mea.

to have recited in the lap of a learned girl,
to have tested my poems on her pure ears —
for me, may these things be enough…

All night I waited for a sign: one borne on the wings of morning
but even the sun, it seems, is exiled from the sky this morning.

Sunbeams stab the sleeping clouds; scarlet from deep wounds streaming,
twisted into coral strands to adorn the wrist of morning.

The crickets are asleep or silent; perhaps they too are weary of their song:
“At evening there is weeping, but joy comes with the morning.”

Eyes stare, transfixed, and stiffen, as daybreak lets fall her robe;
dark waters surge in deep climax, and die, lost to the plunge of morning.

In the garden of memory I linger on, unwilling to depart;
I gather there night’s secrets, tears, to set alight each morning.

Earth wakes in conflagration; the horizon is ablaze;
nothing escapes the ravaging kiss, the ruthless bliss of morning.

Light follows dark; so too the seasons, in this world that keeps on turning.
O Rain, even the birds know this. And soon it will be morning.

And I, poor fool, what shall I do, in the face of the onrushing day?
That which you’ve known all along, Len. Surrender to the morning.