by W. G. Sebald
in their luggage not
one of them uttering
a spoken word. With
the witching hour
past they lie
stretched out under
blue blankets
asleep while outside
the fog gradually
shifts revealing
once again
through the darkness
the runways & lit
steps the enormous
bodies & tail
fins of the vessels
lying at anchor
at their quays. Not
a single movement
around me now
only the sparrows
who have survived
for years in this
part of the terminal
whirr back &
forth across the hall
& up & down
the arcade settling
in the green palms
& ficus trees
jerking their little
heads this way &
that looking out
between the artificial
leaves with their shiny
black eyes &
chattering raucously among
themselves as if something
were not quite right.
In the Paradise Landscape
of the younger Brueghel
on a surface roughly
thirty by forty
centimeters in size
before which I stood
for a time at the Städel
Museum all manner
of beasts & birds
have come together
in peace an eagle
owl with horned
ears an ostrich
with button eyes &
a strangely flat
beak a billy
goat & a few sheep
two polecats or martens
a wolf a horse
a peacock a turkey
& in the foreground
at the bottom edge
two spectacled
monkeys one of which
is gingerly plucking
strawberries from a little
shrub while on the right
roses climb
an apple or pomegranate
tree & tulips
in full blossom
& spring stars &
lilies & hyacinths
& somewhat in the background
in a choice act
of man-manly
procreation our Lord
& Creator a tiny
& obscure figure
barely visible
to the naked eye
bends over
Adam sleeping
on a grassy bank
& cuts from his side
his bride to be.
Appendix
Two poems written in English by W. G. Sebald.
I remember
the day in
the year after
the fall of the
Soviet Empire
I shared a cabin
on the ferry
to the Hoek
of Holland with
a lorry driver
from Wolverhampton.
He & twenty
others were
taking super-
annuated trucks
to Russia but
other than that
he had no idea
where they were
heading. The gaffer
was in control &
anyway it was
an adventure
good money & all
the driver said
smoking a Golden
Holborn in the upper
bunk before
going to sleep.
I can still hear
him softly snoring
through the night,
see him at dawn
climb down the
ladder: big gut
black underpants,
put on his sweat-
shirt, baseball
hat, get into
jeans & trainers,
zip up his
plastic holdall,
rub his stubbled
face with both his
hands ready
for the journey.
I’ll have a
wash in Russia
he said. I
wished him the
best of British. He
replied been good
to meet you Max.
October Heat Wave
From the flyover
that leads down
to the Holland
Tunnel I saw
the red disk
of the sun
rising over the
promised city.
By the early
afternoon the
thermometer
reached eighty-
five & a steel
blue haze
hung about the
shimmering towers
whilst at the White
House Conference
on Climate the
President listened
to experts talking
about converting
green algae into
clean fuel & I lay
in my darkened
hotel room near
Gramercy Park
dreaming through
the roar of Manhattan
of a great river
rushing into
a cataract.
In the evening
at a reception
I stood by an open
French window
& pitied the
crippled tree
that grew in a
tub in the yard.
Practically defoliated
it was
of an uncertain
species, its trunk
& its branches
wound round with
strings of tiny
electric bulbs.
A young woman
came up to me
& said that although
on vacation
she had spent
all day at
the office
which unlike
her apartment was
air-conditioned &
as cold as the
morgue. There,
she said, I am
happy like an
opened up oyster
on a bed of ice.
Notes
The notes that follow cannot be comprehensive, nor do they propose to “explain” the poems or disclose their secrets. Their purpose is twofold: to show the textual sources on which the present volume draws and to throw light on some of Sebald’s allusions to landscapes, works of art or literature, and other matters of historical interest. Points of reference and connotation inevitably inform a translator’s decisions as he goes about the business of rebuilding a poem in a different language. Even after considerable research, however, many details have remained obscure. Readers better acquainted than I am with the life and work of W. G. Sebald will recognize echoes, overtones, and contexts that I have overlooked.
In indicating the source of a poem, the following abbreviations will apply: FSZ (Freiburger Studentenzeitung); ZET (Das Zeichenheft für Literatur und Grafik); PT (Collection “Poemtrees. Lyrisches Lesebuch für Fortgeschrittene und Zurückgebliebene,” Folders 1 & 2, in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); H (Hanser Verlag volume Über das Land und das Wasser, ed. Sven Meyer: 2008); SL (Folder 1: “Schullatein,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); ÜLW (Folder 2: “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); VVJ (Folder 3: “Das vorvergange Jahr,” in collection “Über das Land und das Wasser,” in The Pap
ers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); GG1 (File “Gedichte und Gedichtentwürfe,” Folder 1, in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach); DK (Der Komet. Almanach der Anderen Bibliothek auf das Jahr 1991, Frankfurt am Main: 1991); WS (Weltwoche Supplement: Juni 1996); JPT (Jan Peter Tripp, Die Aufzählung der Schwierigkeiten: Arbeiten von 1985–92, Offenburg, 1993); FL (Franz Loquai, W. G. Sebald, Eggingen, 1997); NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Nr 256, 13 November 1999); AK48 (Akzente 48 J., 2001); AK50 (Akzente 50 J., 2003); K&C (Konterbande und Camouflage. Szenen aus der Vor- und Nachgeschichte von Heinrich Heines marranischer Schreibweise. Berlin, 2002); P (Pretext, vol. 2: Autumn 2000); FYN (Collection “For Years Now,” in The Papers of W. G. Sebald, Deutsches Literaturarchiv, Marbach).
1 “For how hard it is” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.
2 “A colony of allotments” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.
3 “Smoke will stir” PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H.
4 “The intention is sealed” FSZ 14 (1964), H.
5 Nymphenburg PT, FSZ 14 (1964), H. Title: the gardens and interiors of the Baroque Nymphenburg Palace, formerly the summer residence of Bavaria’s ruling Wittelsbach dynasty, are among Munich’s most frequently visited attractions. mauves: French for “mallows.” Wishing Table: the poem invokes the Brothers Grimm’s tales “Dornröschen” (“Sleeping Beauty,” or “Briar Rose”) and “Tischchen deck dich, Goldesel und Knüppel aus dem Sack” (“The Wishing Table, the Gold Ass and the Cudgel in the Sack”), in which a table, on command, sets and spreads its own surface with food and drink.
6 Epitaph FSZ 15 (1965), H.
7 Schattwald in Tyrol PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Title: Tyrolean village to the east of Oberjoch, from which the narrator of the final section (“Il ritorno in patria”) of Sebald’s Schwindel. Gefühle (1990; Eng. trans. Vertigo, 1999) walks to Wertach, the author’s place of birth. Rosetta stone: an ancient Egyptian stele of black granodiorite, inscribed with the so-called Memphis decree, issued in three languages in 196 BCE. Its discovery contributed to the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphics. In an earlier version of the poem, the second stanza reads: “Am Anfang der Legende / brachte die Botschaft / der Engel des Herrn / ins Haus aus Schatten” (At the beginning of the legend / the Angel of the Lord / brought the tidings / to the House of Shadows”).
8 Remembered Triptych of a Journey from Brussels PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. near Meran in Ezra’s hanging garden: from 1958, after his release from St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington, D.C., Ezra Pound stayed at Castle Brunnenburg near Meran in northern Italy, the home of his daughter Mary de Rachewiltz. battlefield at Waterloo: Sebald’s narrator describes visits to Waterloo in the passage entitled (in the contents) “The Panorama of Waterloo,” in the fifth chapter of The Rings of Saturn, including a visit in December 1964, when he stayed at a hotel near the Bois de la Cambre and visited a bar in Rhode St. Genèse. Marie-Louises: young soldiers of the Napoleonic army in 1814, many of them between fourteen and fifteen years old, who had been conscripted during the regency of Empress Marie-Louise, Napoleon’s wife, during her husband’s absence for the German campaign of 1813–14. ferme in Genappe: the farmhouse was Napoleon’s headquarters on the night of June 17, 1815, the eve of the Battle of Waterloo. Marquise of O.: the reference to the eponymous protagonist of Heinrich von Kleist’s story is obscure, but see note on Light in August below. A woman’s mouth … roses: in English in the German text. Départ … Milan via St. Gotthard: the train for Milan via St. Gotthard departs from platform 8 at 00.16 hours. industrie chimique: chemical industry. light above the heavenly vaults: in English in the German text. Bahnhof von Metz: Metz train station. bien éclairée: well illuminated. Gregorius, the guote sündaere (Gregorius, the good sinner): a medieval verse epic by Hartmann von der Aue (died ca. 1210). Au near Freiburg: one of the municipalities of that name which claim association with the poet. rechtsrheinisch: on the right (eastern) side of the Rhine. Froben & Company: the humanist Johann Froben (1460–1527), a friend of Erasmus of Rotterdam, set up a successful printing business in Basel in 1491. Light in August: title of a novel (1932) by William Faulkner (1897–1962). One of the characters is Lena Grove, who, like the pregnant Marquise of O. in Heinrich von Kleist’s story, mentioned earlier in the poem, is trying to find the father of her unborn child. To do so, she walks a long distance to Jefferson, in Yoknapatawpha, the fictional setting of several of Faulkner’s novels.
9 Life Is Beautiful PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H.
10 Matins for G. PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Where no kitchen/There no cook: As Leon, in Act 1 of Franz Grillparzer’s drama Weh dem, der lügt! (Woe to Him Who Lies!), Vienna: 1840 (p. 6), exclaims, “Wo keine Küche, ist kein Koch.”
11 Winter Poem PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H. Child Jesus in Flanders: the German translation of the Flemish writer Felix Timmermans’s novel (Het Kindeken Jezus in Vlaanderen, 1917), published in 1919 under the title Das Jesuskind in Flandern, was immensely popular in Germany between the wars and during the 1950s. Its plot sets the birth of Christ in rural Flanders. Another story, “Jésus-Christ en Flandre” (1831) by Honoré de Balzac, is apparently based on a medieval folktale. The Christ-child theme recalls the nativity scenes of Dutch Masters. Believe and be saved: see Mark 16: 16. A handwritten comment on the PT typescript claims there is too great a discrepancy in the poem between the ironic tone of the second stanza and the apparent naïveté of the first.
12 Lines for an Album PT, FSZ 15 (1965), H.
13 Bleston: A Mancunian Cantical PT, H. Title: in English in the original text. Bleston is the name given to Manchester in the 1957 novel L’Emploi du temps (translated into English as Passing Time) by the French writer Michel Butor (b. 1926). Like Sebald (1966–68), Butor had been an assistant teacher at Manchester University (1951–53). The final section (“Max Ferber”) of W. G. Sebald’s prose work The Emigrants is set in Manchester, as is the fourth part of “Dark Night Sallies Forth,” the final section of After Nature. Sebald finished writing the poem on or shortly before January 26, 1967 (according to a letter that he wrote to his friend Albrecht Rasche). The poem presents a labyrinth of allusions, and the reader who attempts to follow them risks becoming “Perdu dans ces filaments” (lost in these filaments), a fate of which the title of the fifth part of the poem appears to warn us. Fête nocturne: night party. Big Warehouse: in English in the German text. Lewis’s was a former Manchester department store, opened in 1877. “Warehouse” is probably a Germanicism, an Englishing of the German “Warenhaus” (department store). Consensus Omnium: agreement of all. Place of Breast-like hills: in English in the German text. Dis … curavi: “Dis Manibus” is found on Roman gravestones and means “for the spirits of the ancestors”; in this case, “for the spirits of the ancestors I have arranged for the building of this Mamucium [Manchester].” à travers les âges: through the ages. Sharon’s Full Gospel … before our eyes: in English in the German text. According to the website of the Sharon Full Gospel Church, the church “began with a gospel mission in a tent in Pontypool Park during 1936. Many local people were … miraculously healed.” There is an SFG church in South Manchester. Lingua Mortua: dead language. Kebad Kenya: a character in an episode in the first volume (Das Holzschiff) of Hans Henny Jahnn’s novel Fluß ohne Ufer (1949). The story has appeared in English in a translation by Gerda Jordan-Peterson in The Ship (1961) and Thirteen Uncanny Stories (1984). Briefly, Kebad decides to eat himself, fails to die, attempts to become one with his mare, lies down as if dead, is buried, witnesses the corruption of the flesh, is a revenant, takes possession of men’s bodies, and inflicts terror by stealing horses. Hipasos (sic) of Metapontum: Pythagorean philosopher who conducted experiments in musical theory. Hippasos claimed the discovery of concords with bronze disks of equal diameter and varying thickness. Et pulsae referunt ad sidera valles: and the valleys echoed the sounds to the stars (Virgil’s Eclogue 6.1.84). fil d’Ariane: Ariadne’s thread. The theme of Ariadne and Theseus, the labyrinth and the Minotaur, are ever present in Butor’s novel L’Emploi du temps: “that
rope of words is like Ariadne’s thread (ce cordon des phrases est un fil d’Ariane), because I am in a labyrinth, because I am writing in order to find my way about in it … the labyrinth of my days in Bleston, incomparably more bewildering than that of the Cretan palace, since it grows and alters even while I explore it” (Passing Time, trans. Jean Stewart, New York: 1969, p. 195). opgekilte schottns: both words occur in the Yiddish lexicon, the second one more frequently as shotns. If Sebald intended the words to be recognized as Yiddish, they would mean something like “frozen shadows.” Perhaps they should be read in the context of “return,” albeit a return antithetical to the desired echo: the revenant murderous shadows of Kebad, or Theseus, who after abandoning Ariadne on Naxos forgot to change the black sail to white, thereby causing the death of his father, Aegeus. Alma quies optata veni nam sic sine vita / Vivere quam suave est sic sine morte mori: “How sweet, though lifeless, yet with life to lie, / And, without dying, O how sweet to die” (translation by John Walcott [1738–1813]). Authorship of the epigram appears to be obscure, with Georg Christoph Lichtenberg attributing the lines to Heinrich Meibom (1555–1625), while British critics have tended to see the poet laureate Thomas Wharton (1728–90) as the author. Rapunzel: In the fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, Rapunzel, exiled to the wilderness by the witch to live on her own, one day hears the voice of the prince, whom the witch has blinded by throwing him from the tower. They reunite, his sight is restored, and they live happily ever after. Perdu dans ces filaments: lost in these filaments. A quotation from Michel Butor’s novel L’Emploi du temps (Paris: 1956, p. 54) (Passing Time, op. cit., p. 41): “Thus I, a mere virus lost amidst its filaments, was able like a scientist armed with his microscope to study this huge cancerous growth.” Eli Eli (Mark 15: 34): “Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani?” (“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”) Mr. Dewey’s International classification system: Melville Louis Kossuth Dewey (1851–1931) invented the Decimal Classification System, which revolutionized library cataloging in the 1870s and 1880s. On ne doit plus dormir: One must no longer sleep. The French dictum derives from Theodor W. Adorno’s essay “Commitment” (see New Left Review, First Series, no. 87–88, 1974, p. 85), first published in German in 1962: “The abundance of real suffering tolerates no forgetting; Pascal’s theological saying, On ne doit plus dormir, must be secularized.” Adorno, however, has adapted rather than cited Pascal, who wrote: “Jésus sera en agonie jusqu’à la fin du monde. Il ne faut pas dormir pendant ce temps-là” (“The agony of Jesus will last until the world ends. Until that time we must not sleep”), in Blaise Pascal, Pensées (919) (Texte établi par Louis Lafuma), Paris: 1963 (p. 378).