[Dichtung]

Ingeborg Bachmann
Gedichte 1962-1963
Habet acht*

Ingeborg Bachmann
The Collected Poems
Poems 1962-1963
Watch Out*
Let me die.
Playing cards at night
is not for me,
nor is chatting,
sitting in houses
with friends. Don't you sense
it, my friends, don't you see?

Watch out, the day
will come again. Suffer
no more as just anyone
would suffer, yet still make sure
to watch out.

Gently and softly, ------
no one, gently and softly
it happens, my friends,
don't you see? So much time
has already passed, and yet
the time does not disappear.

Gently and softly, how that sounds,
how it still sounds and to everyone
I cannot say, yet say it again.
Black is the sail, tightly lashed,
no more world, only the one,
like the eye, how it lives,
how I live, only in fear,
only in closing it, an eye for an eye.

Who can set things right, no one.
One can die, yes, but it's so far off,
and there's no question, no answer,
don't you see, my friends, don't you
see?

At night it becomes brighter,
as it's drunken in it becomes more true. Drink
up, drink up again, seen eye
to eye it will turn true, and the
end is not percievable, painless,
where indeed there had been so much pain, for once
strangled, everything will turn true, be settled, be it possessions, cash.

No talk, no work,
no vengeance awakens me.
Only the eye awakens me,
the murmur awakens me,
plunging from a window, screaming,
falling down, expiring,
gently and softly, as I say again,
say no longer, wake
me.

transl. by Peter Filkins

*Habet acht, Watch Out стихотворение содержит цитаты и аллюзии на оперу "Тристан и Изольда": на предсмертную арию Изольды, Liebestod (Mild und Leise); а еще название является прямой цитатой из реплик Брангене, служанки Изольды, из второго акта оперы, в которых она предупреждает Тристана и Изольду о приближении рассвета, о том, что время на их встречу на исходе.
Laßt mich sterben (Let me die) - реплики Тристана и Изольды из второго акта, в котором они решают предпочесть смерть жизни.

Liebestod singed by Waltraud Meier

Liebestod singed by Waltraud Meier