Искусствоед
Michael Longley (1995)
A bed of leaves
He climbed to the copse, a conspicuous place near water,
And crawled under two bushes sprouting from one stem (olive
And wild olive), a thatch so close neither gale-force winds
Nor sunlight nor cloudbursts could penetrate: it was here
Odysseus snuggled and heaped on his mattress of leaves
An eiderdown of leaves, enough to make a double-bed
In winter, whatever the weather, and smiled to himself
When he saw his bed and stretched out in the middle of it
And let even more of the fallen leaves fall over him:
As when a lonely man on a lonely farm smoors the fire
And hides a turf-sod in the ashes to save an ember,
So was his body in the bed of leaves its own kindling
And sleep settled on him like ashes and closed his eyelids.
(imitation from the Odyssey, Book 5, lines 474-93)
A bed of leaves
He climbed to the copse, a conspicuous place near water,
And crawled under two bushes sprouting from one stem (olive
And wild olive), a thatch so close neither gale-force winds
Nor sunlight nor cloudbursts could penetrate: it was here
Odysseus snuggled and heaped on his mattress of leaves
An eiderdown of leaves, enough to make a double-bed
In winter, whatever the weather, and smiled to himself
When he saw his bed and stretched out in the middle of it
And let even more of the fallen leaves fall over him:
As when a lonely man on a lonely farm smoors the fire
And hides a turf-sod in the ashes to save an ember,
So was his body in the bed of leaves its own kindling
And sleep settled on him like ashes and closed his eyelids.
(imitation from the Odyssey, Book 5, lines 474-93)