Demonical Poem by Peter Mamara

By M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

The deep space is a large coffin.
The stars are nails driven in it.
And the sun is the window to life's incarceration.
And the sporadic light passes through it.
Blue fields unfold on the stretch of that golden opening,
From a world which is lukewarm, clear and sweet smelling,
And where instead of air, it is melted gold.
It soothes the sky's field, with a deadly pale appeal.
The old God, with His white beard, sits there at a white and long table.
He drinks aurora out of large cups — with froth of white clouds.
And sweet angels, in silver clothes and heads like snow,
With gentle and shiny blue eyes,
And with cute smooth chests, like those of statues,
They hold His long beard,
And on His old shoulders, they rest His head,
Which His hair plaits cover it.
And in the air, which is strong because of lightning,
His pointed red crown shines intensely,
While an angel, the most obedient,
Kneeled at His feet, he plays on a harp
And he stirs the air with the delight of his performance.
Don't believe that the Moon is a moon.
It is the window that at daytime we call Sun.
When angels sing on the top of the coffin —
On the sky's realm
The sun and the moon, turn out to be covered with clouds.
Golden rays don't shine any more through the old window-shutters
— Apart from silver rays.
And out of the wonderful songs,
Dim bits, land on earth, but only fragments.
We swarm en masse
Inside the coffin, under that blue lid,
Which is nailed and riveted with stars
Inside the dead and blackened by old age and withered
Old Earth, that gives birth to us.
We are disgusting in our vanity.
We are strange beings that fight against each other.
It is something proud in our nature.
But that bit is not from within us.
We inherit it from the expired Titan
—From where we nourish, from the Earth.
It is something sacred and great in its death.
It is a view, which is mysterious and candid.
Because the Titan was sentenced to death,
Our life is a satire,
At its basis is a lie.
The wish to live and to have all there is for oneself,
And to thrive at it, is the essence of life.
To no avail, sometimes the silent Earth inspires us,
From the sacred sap of its extinct existence,
Thoughts of a noble and lofty rebellion
— To go back to nature and to fairness.
We don't get it... We often try it,
But to do it, we can't.
We are born in the image of the Great One.
He is strong, and self-centred.
And is Himself wrapped-up in this solitary greatness.
He raises His grey head in heaven.
To no avail, we want to go back to nature.
In our desire for prominence and for power,
In vain, we want to shake off from our heart
— The desire to be unique, like Him, on this planet.
And this wish is at the basis of states and nations.
It is the cause of fiercely wars.
They are the steps of the times that have vanished.
This is the wickedness...
We shouldn't fool ourselves.
The first impulse to any thought, to any command,
To any deed, it is bad.
But when we are born, just barely raised,
From the flesh of the old Titan,
While we are children, we are good.
Precious in its kindness
The earth gives us sustenance.
It lets us to come back at its bosom
After a futile and noisy life
— At its bosom, and at peace's bosom.
Deep into our heart,
The old and kind Father, has inspired in us a friendly wish.
And if we ask this valuable mystery what it means
And if we want to know it tells us: peace.
Yes! We look for peace and not grasp it.
Why don't we start it from scratch?
Why do we look for it in war?
Since triumph is only on one side in a fight.
Defeat and injustice is on the other side.
And from our existence built on ruthless, on lie and on injustice,
And on the wisdom of death,
We return to ashes, where we came from.
So the endless sorrow is born.
Since we are in His image and in His likeness,
We are children forever unhappy, but it is of no use.
We are bad, without having His power.
In His likeness, we can be bad.
But our life's paradox,
It is born from this helplessness.
The dead Titan that produced us,
In vain wishes us well, through common sense,
A range of scented things, through flowers, through rivers,
Which, to say it is through nature's voice.
With little hope, it tries to get in touch with us.
Our life, our soul and our gift—the spark that we call divine—
It aims at us with guidance.
It causes us to deceive ourselves about surroundings
And we don't get it...
Oh, demon, demon!
Only now, I know
Why, hostile to the Heavenly Heights,
You rebelled using your cleverness.
HE was unjust. And because unfairness
Has the power to win, He has won.
That's why you fell, even if you were right.
You wanted to bring justice to the world.
He is the Monarch and doesn't want to know anything else,
But only His will, which is tough.
Oh demon, you've thought that there is strength in justice.
No! There is no justice without power.
You looked for allies among the Titans.
They crossed the sky with their rebellion.
You endowed the world with reason.
Against Hermes, you armed the world with ample judgment.
Like you, he turned into a rebel.
He moved to destroy the Heavens.
He violently stirred his wings against Him,
And against mountains,
But being stricken down, he fell again into the chasm.
— A living body. He wrapped Hermes in a blue coffin
— The old Titan with shaggy hair of forests.
He sheds tears forever on the wrinkles on his face
— Rivers of tears — and he looks like he's lifeless.
Dried, and pressed of pains deep down.
And from his pains, he turned into granite.
His cold feelings are unemotional as a stone.
In his head of rocks: he has changed sweet roses into rubies,
— Petals into emeralds and the lilies into diamonds.
His muscles were transformed into silver and iron.
And his blood has turned into gold.
From his flesh that has decomposed, from the ooze,
From the black dead body,
Were born the poor little people without-hope.
We were born under divine edict
To be wicked even in death.
We were born with our comic weakness
To keep the old God amused.
God wants to see the vanity of your pour miserable little beings.
God wants to laugh with thunder at those who are in His likeness.
God wants to be able to pronounce with awful derision:
Wild world! Look, these are your children!
(1872)
Translated by