Scatterbrain
A Drowning
-fragments in German are from the poem Die Lorelei by Heinrich Heine (1824)-
My Scatterbrain,
Your reign seems unending;
All is silent,
Save for the echo of the Siren’s call.
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet [The loveliest maiden is sitting
Dort oben wunderbar, Up there, so wondrously fair;
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar. She combs her golden hair]
Depriver of Reason,
Your claws entered so deep;
Muse of the depths,
Insensible ravager of worlds.
The song must not cease,
For your silence would ensure
Forever being in thrall:
Captive paralysis of desire.
Die schönste Jungfrau sitzet [The loveliest maiden is sitting
Dort oben wunderbar, Up there, so wondrously fair;
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar, She combs her golden hair,
Und singt ein Lied dabei; And sings a song, passing time]
Constrained, gaping,
The Rendered-Helpless are frozen;
Mesmerised for eternity,
By terrible enchantment.
Graceful indifference,
Impassive torturer; a timeless ascendancy
Exercised from the river’s high bank,
Through exquisite carelessness.
Sie kämmt ihr goldenes Haar, [She combs her golden hair,
Und singt ein Lied dabei; And sings a song, passing time;
Das hat eine wundersame, It has a most wondrous, appealing
Gewalt'ge Melodei. And powerful melodic rhyme]
The delicious song attracts,
Love wounds, and all is lost;
Silence then holds
The wreckage still.
I am pierced and pinned, but
Your gaze is dumbly elsewhere;
Repeating stupidly your calling,
Luring indiscriminately to oblivion.
Den Schiffer im kleinen Schiffe, [The boatman aboard his small skiff,
Ergreift es mit wildem Weh; Enraptured with a wild ache,
Er schaut nicht die Felsenriffe, Has no eye for the jagged cliff]
My Scatterbrain,
Your reign seems unending;
All is silent,
Save for the echo of the Siren’s call.
Ich glaube, die Wellen verschlingen [I think that the waves will devour
Am Ende Schiffer und Kahn, Both boat and man, by and by,
Und das hat mit ihrem Singen, And that, with her dulcet-voiced power
Die Loreley getan. Was done by the Loreley]
Peter Jennings : London : February 2015
Peter Jennings : London : February 2015
