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e n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n s
e n g l i s h t r a n s l a t i o n s
all the lives we live,
they are never quite right,
they are hardly close to right,
these lives we live
one after the other,
piled there as history,
the waste of the species,
the crushing of the light and the way,
it’s not quite right,
it’s hardly right at all
he said.
‘Don’t I know it?’, I answered.
I walked away from the mirror.
It was morning, it was afternoon,
it was night.
Nothing changed.
It was locked in place.
Something flashed,
something broke,
something remained.
I walked down the stairway and into it.
scene: trapped p.42
Need English translation still!
The Illusion of Self p.44
Suppose you believed that you didn’t really exist.
Holding on to yourself as your body starts to
shake, you imagine the following:
You walk down the sunny boulevard in your new
polka dot dress, with the skirt that flares out,
holding a small leather pocket book, which
you clutch to the side of your body even though
you are smiling a faint smile.And among the
crowd, which occupies the sidewalk outside a
café along that wide boulevard, you catch the
eye of an appealing someone – and you think
to yourself as you stop, smiling with your back
to the sun – this is the one who will certify my
existence. And you stand there, smiling faintly,
with the sun behind you, making your hair
frizz like a golden halo and the crowd on the
boulevard is moving past in all directions at once
but, you are not moving, and the eyes of that
man are upon you, and slowly, very slowly, like
honey dripping from a spoon into a cup of frozen
tea, your physical self dissolves and disappears
like a slow fade. And then you actual physical
body starts to disappear. It could happen! As if it
were melting into the world of sunlight behind
you. It could happen! And then – would you exist,
finally? Or, would it be necessary to keep telling
the stories of your life inside your lifetime – even
if you didn’t exist, would those stories exist? And
then – who would it be that was existing?
the book of god p.46
This text has no direct translation into English!
scene: the stake p.48
» I am loosing them.
» What?
» My senses.
»
You were asleep; the day’s work had been
completed, at the arranged time, as always.
» And you continued.
» And I continued. Someone said that books
change positions at night. We don’t know it,
we can’t know it, because as they move, we
move too, and the book we open is always
unique. And I thought that if one of these were
the Guide, I would never find it again. And so
I said: one more. Last one. I started reading.
It was a travel book – it was indeed a guide of
sorts. You see? Anything I was reading I would
sense. I was feeling everything – the wetness,
the light, the quality of the violin’s chords.
Each of my pores expanded.
I felt as if I were blind.
» And when the guide was over you didn’t feel
any more. So this is how it happens.We search
and do not find. And we lose our senses one
after the other.
Book of Believers p.50
Seven men inhabit the raft. The pessimist, for
whom the good things of life are nothing more
than lures to prolong suffering; the egocentric,
whose motto is Carpe Diem – seize the day
– who does his best to get the most comfortable
part of the raft for himself; the optimist, always
scanning the horizon for the promised land; the
observer, who finds it sufficient enough to write
the logbook of the voyage and to note down the
behaviour of the sea, the raft and his fellowvictims;
the altruist, who finds his reason for
being is the need to deny himself and to help
others; the stoic, who believes in nothing but his
own refusal to jump overboard and end it all;
and finally, the child, the one born as some are
born with a perfect ear – with perfect ignorance
– the pitifully ubiquitous child, who believes that
all will be explained in the end. The nightmare
fades and the green shore rises.
Book of Responsibilities p.52
The story is a simple one. My father was
Poseidon. My mother, the Earth. I can hear the
world beginning. Time plays itself back for me.
I can hear the pools bubbling with life. I realize I
am carrying not only this world, but all possible
worlds. I am carrying the world in time as well
as in space. I am carrying the world’s mistakes
and it’s glories. I am carrying its potential as
well as what has so far been realized. I find I
become a part of what I must bear. There is no
longer Atlas and the world, there is only the
World Atlas.
Listen, there’s a man telling a story about the
man who holds the world on his shoulders.
Everybody laughs. Only drunks and children will
believe that.
No man believes what he does not feel true. I
should like to un-believe myself. I sleep at night
and wake in the morning hoping to be gone. It
never happens.
scene: crimson hexegon p.54
» So.
» It was as they say. But not as they say. The
external description was correct; it was red
from top to bottom. All the books where
covered in blood. I took one, opened it and it
had flesh inside. It smelled. I turned a page
and it did not smell anymore, and that was
strange. On the next page there was music
– heard through the walls though – and on the
next one, sand, that spilled out onto my hands.
I turned the page and the sand disappeared
from the floor. It was very strange. I felt numb.
You were all here, but asleep. I wanted to
wake you up, but did not know how. I pulled
another book. It was a transcript of a court
trial. I looked at the beginning and you could
not see the crime. I went to the end, and it was
Christ that was on trial. His crime was: lie. On
the last page my hands were stuck – I couldn’t
close it. Wind blew, the floor squeaked,
something moved and I closed it. I was not
afraid. I opened another book. Lie. I was afraid.
I took another book. When I picked it up, 400
keys spilled from inside it. The book did not
open – it had a lock. I fell on the floor and tried
them out. I tried them all. None would work.
No key would open the book! I took another. I
was breathing οn my hands like an animal. I
tried to open it and it tore. Some juices spilled
onto my hands and it couldn’t be stretched
further, it couldn’t open, and it had already
stopped breathing. I left it. I took another one,
and another one, and another one. All the
books were traps.
History of Night p.56
Throughout the course of generations, men
constructed the night.
At first, it meant blindness, sleep, thorns raking
bare feet, fear of wolves.
We shall never know who forged the word for
this interval of shadow, which divides the two
twilights.
We shall never know in what age it came to
mean the starry hours.
Others created the myth.
They made her the mother of the unruffled Fates
that spin our destiny.
They sacrificed black sheep to her, and the cock,
who crows his own death.
The Chaldeans assigned to it twelve houses;
Zeno, infinite worlds.
It took shape from Latin hexameters and the
terror of Pascal.
Luis de Leon saw in her the homeland of his
stricken soul.
Now, we feel her to be inexhaustible like an
ancient wine and no one can gaze on her without
vertigo and time has charged her with eternity.
Consider that it didn’t exist.
If it hadn’t been for those fragile instruments,
the eyes.
Anatomy 101 p.58
There was once a man named Frederick, he
had a small son and the son had a pet tortoise.
One day, the father decided to roast the tortoise,
so, he put a burning stick against the tortoise’s
belly. The tortoise kicked and jerked his head
and urinated, and the heat of the stick caused
the shell on the tortoise’s belly to split. So, the
father put his hand up inside the shell, and,
while the tortoise struggled, the father slit its
belly with his knife and pulled out its intestines.
By this time, the tortoise had pulled herself into
its shell and tried to hide in there, with its head
between its knees, looking out. And meanwhile,
the little boy had come to see what his father
was doing. And when the boy saw the tortoise,
he put his arms up beside his head; he put his
head between his bent arms and looked out
– just the way the tortoise looked out of its shell.
And now, the father reached in and took hold of
the tortoise’s heart, which was still beating, and
flipped the tortoise over onto the ground, and
while the man pulled out its heart, the tortoise
jerked violently. And the father said to the son,
you see, the tortoise – like the earth itself, or
like a man – is a slow, tough creature that can
live on a while even after its heart is gone.
Collected History of the World p.60
Bahamut’s fame reached the wastes of Arabia,
where men altered and magnified its image.
From a hippopotamus or elephant they turned
it into a fish afloat in a fathomless sea; on the
fish they placed a bull, and on a bull a ruby
mountain, and on the mountain an angel, and
over the angel six hells, and over six hells the
earth, and over the earth seven heavens.
A Moslem tradition runs:
God made the earth, but the earth had no base
so under the earth he made an angel. But the
angel had no base and so under the angel’s
feet he made a crag of ruby. But the crag had
no base and so under the crag he made a bull
endowed with four thousand eyes, ears, nostrils,
mouths, tongues and feet. But the bull had
no base and so under the bull he made a fish
named Bahamut, and under the fish he put
water, and under the water he put darkness, and
beyond this men’s knowledge does not reach.
Others have it that the earth has its foundation
on the water; the water, on the crag; the crag,
on the bull’s forehead; the bull, on a bed of sand;
the sand, on Bahamut; Bahamut, on a stifling
wind; the stifling wind, on a mist. What lies
under the mist is unknown.
So immense and dazzling is Bahamut that the
eyes of man cannot bear its sight. All the seas
of the world, placed in one of the fish’s nostrils,
would be like a mustard seed laid in the desert.
The tale goes on that beneath the measureless
fish is a sea; and beneath the sea, a chasm of
air; and beneath the air, fire; and beneath the
fire, a serpent named Falak in whose mouth are
the six hells.
The idea of the crag resting on the bull, and the
bull on Bahamut, and Bahamut on anything else,
seems to be an illustration of the cosmological
proof of the existence of God.
scene: me me me p.62
» Not one day passes when I do not think of the
same thing. What I think, that is, becomes
one with what I feel and I don’t know which
is which, which came first, or if there is a
difference.
I know I am different in something. Not sure
in what. I know I want to learn. Not sure how.
I know I can’t understand on my own. I don’t
know how to not be alone. I know I want to
break the glass and be touched by someone
else, but I have no idea what material it is
made of, if it is broken from the inside or the
outside, if it’s the dark voice that tells me to
stop keeping guard, or if I am so late that it
doesn’t matter any more.
It’s complicated. I’ll say it differently.
I want to listen to the sound of a skin going
frrrr, softly under my fingers. I want this skin
to belong to a meat that warms me. And all
this seems to me so simple that I burst into
tears from this injustice. So simple.
It’s complicated. I’ll say it differently.
The thoughts come and go, the theories, the
days and the nights, and all life’s things.
I am terribly cold.
I prefer being poked by something hard that
touches me, than being cold.
I am terribly cold.
THE BOOK OF THE OTHER p.64
A man sets out to draw the world. As the years
go by, he fills up a surface with images of
provinces, kingdoms, mountains, trees, valleys,
bays, ships, islands, fishes, animals, birds,
children, angels, rooms, beds, paper, shoes,
glasses, windows, flowers, musical instruments,
tools, umbrellas, radios, carpets, sheets, shells,
rocks, stars, horses, and individuals. A short
time before he dies, he discovers that that
patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments
of his lover’s face.
The Book of Natural Selection p.66
There was a time long ago, in prehistoric times
when cicadas were human beings, back before
the Muses were born.
And then, when the Muses were born
and song came into being,
some of these human creatures
were so taken by the pleasure of it
that they sang and sang and sang.
And they forgot to eat or drink,
they just sang and sang and so,
before they knew it, they died.
And from those human creatures
a new species came into being,
the cicadas
and they were given this special gift
from the Muses:
that from the time they are born
they need no nourishment
they just sing continuously,
caught forever in the pleasure of the moment,
without eating or drinking
until they die.
the book of death p.68
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