Poetic-Verses from ATHANASE
The Funeral Chapel (English)
The Funerary Chapel of the Portuguese Cardinal Jacopo Di Lusitania
(lamentatio)
'The herald of day already sings, watchman of the deep night,
nocturnal light guiding travellers, separating night from night...'
Saint Ambrose of Milan (330/340-397)
First Hymn
Death, my young sister Death, you, friend, who
with your bride's hand, can touch the motionless eternity
at the heart of all that's fleeting,
you who know all the intimacies of the Hour of final pallor,
now that we are alone, sitting face to face,
in this funerary chapel, dazzling in its beauty,
pulsating in its silence,
will you soothe my cloven heart with words that are whole?
Why young Jacopo? Why the finest flower
of Lusitania's sea coast? Did you love him as I loved him?
Did you share with these nostrils now set in stone
the mauve scents of Toscana like living mother-of-pearl?
Invisible Death, amorous Death, did you place
your mouth, thirsty for kisses,
on the hot well of his throat,
on this body from an ancient royal line?
Speak, soothe me, Death, catch my trembling
soul as it falls, hold it before the moon
reaches its zenith! Did you make an icy pact of silence
with your smile?
Were you utterly sated by his melancholy fingers?
As usual, as ever,
did you put the seal of your lips on his?
Just say one word, make the immemorial order of Beauty
and the convulsive shudder of Life
tremble in my flesh again!
But you're silent!
You won't stop the hard waves of grief
from covering the fragile book
of my fate with their illegible scrawl!
You're silent! And time, constantly furious,
eternally consumed by tenderness,
time, the recanting breaker of life,
flows away absent-mindedly over the paving slabs
and begins to unpick the veils of knowledge!
And my memory, split in two,
can still hear the soft rustling of the men of genius
who poured all the grace of their dreams
into this place:
Antonio Manetti, the faithful disciple,
dazzled by the blazing rigour
of his master, Filippo Brunelleschi,
who could make eternity live
in a single moment!
The sculptures of that magical prodigy Antonio Rossellino
quivering with emotion!
This fascinating canvas by the brothers Pollaiolo!
And these frescoes, by Alesso Baldovinetti
like a monologue as immense
as the entire universe,
how they make emotion die on ones breath!
Death? What have you done with the chosen soul,
the astounding hands of Luca della Robbia,
the sublime master, the master of masters
whose soul ornamented this ceiling with its splendour?
The dizzying geometry of this vault
which, with a magnificent precision, incorporates
mystical motifs in yellow, green and purple
and the unthinkable grammar of the five medallions?
Luca della Robbia! His invigorating strength
transforming the shadowy earth
into gleaming white enamel,
into a Madonna and Child, into emblems
intertwining angels, flowers and fruit
in salutary profusion!
But my mind is wandering!
What can I know of the conversations
of these figures with the air?
Yet perhaps my thoughts,
pressed to the lips of sadness,
free of all burdens now,
might have the power
to call forth a Saviour?
translated from the French of Athanase Vantchev de Thracy by Norton Hodges
01.02.07.
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The Funeral Chapel (English)
The Funeral Chapel (English)
