SO FORTH by Joseph Brodsky

The khairein takes place in the name of truth: that is, in the name of knowledge of truth and, more precisely, of truth in the knowledge of the self. This is what Socrates explains (230a). But this imperative of self-knowledge is not first felt or dictated by any transparent immediacy of self-presence. It is not perceived. Only interpreted, read, deciphered. (Dissemination > Pharmakon by Jack Derrida)

自己を知るために、主語である支配者の秘密を知るために、今日も言葉の聖杯探究の旅に出よう。

さて、今日も、Joseph Brodskyの詩集SO FORTHから。So Forthを。これはベルリンの壁の崩壊した１９８９年の作品です。やはり、どう考えても、政治の壁は、儚いものだとぼくは思う。すべて、このような無駄なことは、銭金のためになされたことなのだということが、今よくわかる。そのようなもの達に災いあれ。さあ、今日も垂直の旅に出る事にしよう。

またSix Years LaterやA Songのように、少しづつ、1連づつ解釈してみよう。


移動書斎にてここ数日この詩篇を眺めているが、様々なことが解った。このようなことがあるのだろうかとぼくは思う。


今日は、原文をみな載せます。そうして明日の種としたい。


【原文】


So Forth

Joseph Brodsky

Summer will end. September will come. Once more itﾕs okay to shoot
duck, woodcock, partridge, quail. ﾒYouﾕve grown long in the tooth,ﾓ
a belle may sigh, and youﾕll cock up your double-barrel,
but to inhale more oxygen rather than to imperil
grouse. And the keen lung will twitch at a sudden whiff
of apricots. On the whole, the world changes so fast, as if
indeed at a certain point it began to mainline
some muck obtained from a swarthy alien.

The point, of course, is not autumn. And not oneﾕs own features, which
alter like those of an animal approaching the one whoﾕll catch
it. But this feeling of a puny paintbrush left idle
by the painting that lacks a frame, a beginning, an end, a middle.
Not to mention a gallery, not to mention a nail.
And a train in the distance runs whistling along the rail,
though you will spot no smoke inspecting its inventory.
But in a landscapeﾕs view, motion is mandatory.

That goes for autumn; that goes for time per se,
like when you quit smoking, or else when the trees you see
ape fanning-out tracks at last freed of their wheelsﾕ malfunction
and the edge of the forest echoes a rustling junction.
And itﾕs not a lump but a hedgehog that fills your throat,
for you canﾕt enjoy any longer the silhouette
of a steamship at sea, and an airplaneﾕs callous
profile looks odd on high, having lost its halos.

Thatﾕs what speedﾕs all about. The belle was right. What would
an ancient Roman, had he risen now, recognize? A wood-
pile, the blue yonder, a cloudﾕs texture,
flat water, something in architecture.
but no one by face. Thatﾕs how some folk still do
Travel abroad at times, but, not entitled to
afterlife, scurry back home hiding their eyes in terror.
And not yet settled after the farewell tremor

a hanky still flits in the air. The others who had the luck
of loving something much more than life, knowing all along
that decrepitude is, after all, that after-
life, loom marble-white in the sun getting no tan and often,
partial in their way to historyﾕs pleasures, gaze
fixedly at some point in the distance. And the greater the latterﾕs haze,
the more here are points like this defying oneﾕs aim and cartridge,
the more speckled turn the eggs of quail, woodcock, grouse, partridge.

1989