Искусствоед
Ingeborg Bachmann
Gedichte 1962-1963
Ingeborg Bachmann
The Collected Poems
Poems 1962-1963
How difficult it is to forgive,
such a long and tiresome business
with which I have been preoccupied
for so many years.
Hatred has made me sick.
I've been disfigured, these abscesses
check me, show that
I still live among humans.
I only know that I must
not hate so much anymore,
not hope for your death,
which I really don't hope for,
nor by my hand.
I have learned that I must
love my enemies, and
this is so easy, for how
can my enemies do anything
worse than evil to me.
If a bullet misses,
if someone spits in my face,
like yesterday, I have no objection
to the love that is prescribed for me.
I am afraid of the love
that you have instilled in me
with the most horrible of intents.
Completely riven by burning acids,
from so much arsenic, opium,
completely numbed by my destruction.
Thus I no longer live in you
and am already dead, where I am.
I count the bars, hang on,
eat twice a day, then
grant myself reprieve,
beg for the means
which will sink me into sleep for a year.
transl. by Peter Filkins
Gedichte 1962-1963
Ingeborg Bachmann
The Collected Poems
Poems 1962-1963
How difficult it is to forgive,
such a long and tiresome business
with which I have been preoccupied
for so many years.
Hatred has made me sick.
I've been disfigured, these abscesses
check me, show that
I still live among humans.
I only know that I must
not hate so much anymore,
not hope for your death,
which I really don't hope for,
nor by my hand.
I have learned that I must
love my enemies, and
this is so easy, for how
can my enemies do anything
worse than evil to me.
If a bullet misses,
if someone spits in my face,
like yesterday, I have no objection
to the love that is prescribed for me.
I am afraid of the love
that you have instilled in me
with the most horrible of intents.
Completely riven by burning acids,
from so much arsenic, opium,
completely numbed by my destruction.
Thus I no longer live in you
and am already dead, where I am.
I count the bars, hang on,
eat twice a day, then
grant myself reprieve,
beg for the means
which will sink me into sleep for a year.
transl. by Peter Filkins