Egypt Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

The Nile makes rich fine fields — taken by the Moors.
Above it, the Egyptian sky opens to heat and brightness.
The reeds grow deep in the water, on its yellow flat banks.
Flowers, glitter secretly in the sun, like jewels.
A few are drained of colour, and are tall and frail like pale silver.
Others are blue with sad eye. A few are red like amber.

And birds in nests, preen their rare feathers—through sorghum bushes,
Which, grow deep into the Nile, and are thick and green —
Chirp with their beaks in the sun, and cuddle with joy.
The Nile flows from sacred springs, drowned in eternal dreams.
It moves with its legend and with its clear-bright mirror,
To the mild sea, which drowns its desire.

Green fields and lucky lands merge on its banks.
Memphis is in the distance, with its old buildings in the sand.
It is built rock on rock, and wall on wall, a stronghold of giants.
These are building plans of a great dimension.
They have built mountain on mountain, in their ancient pride,
So, it can shine in the sun one after the other.

And what it appears that was raised from the mirage of the desert,
From silver-coloured sands in the storm's huff—
Like a thought of the sacred sea, reflected by the warm sky
And thrown into the distance —it rises there in a finer way,
As eternal and huge pyramids and sarcophagi that look like death,
And only the epic of a skald can fully portray them.

It gets dark. The Nile sleeps. And the stars appear through the gap.
The Moon glow with its copy on the sea, and it chases the stars through the clouds.
Who opens the pyramid and goes in? The king does.
He enters dressed in his red gold attire, to see the whole past.
When he gazes at the passage of time,
It breaks his heart all the same.

To no avail, the kings rule the people with wisdom.
The bad signs multiply, and the good deeds lessen.
To no avail, he seeks out life's hidden secret.
He comes out into the night. And his long shadow is cast
Over the slow waves of the Nile: and so on the waves of the nations
The kings throw the gloom of their thoughts in menacing ways.

The dreams of the pyramids, the Nile's cold waves,
The reeds, which weep beneath the biting moon,
And look like long huge silver spears.
The water, the desert and the night's length,
All join in, and dress the old kingdom in a wonderful way
And revive in the deserts a line of dreams that lie.

The sacred river with its waves gap,
It is telling us about the secret of its source, about ancient times.
The spirit gets drunk in dreams that flow swiftly.
The palm trees, scattered in thickets, raise their willowy trunks.
Gilded by the moon's rays, the night is clear and still.
The waves delight in froth. The sky casts clouds at will.

And the gods walk at night in their white vestments,
Inside the great temples with white marble pillars,
And the hymns sung by the priests, sound in silver harps.
And the pyramids rumble and sound sad from the top,
In the cool of the brown night, in the desert's wind…
And the kings protest madly in giant tombs.

The seer looked closely through his golden telescope,
Inside the ancient building, upstairs at the front, in the Moorish tower;
There he brings in focus the skies' multitude of stars.
He looks in depth at their secret course.
And with his wand, he points their revealed orbit-path.
After that he learns the Universe's real meaning.
He learns everything that is right, fine and good.

And is possible that to the impairment of an effeminate people,
Alongside the lewd priesthood, alongside the kings stained by crimes,
The seer, who was a guarantee against revenge, had read the crooked symbol.
And then, the wind has lifted up all the sand from the desert.
And it piled it up into giant tombs. And it covered the cities
Which, belong to vigour less people. And it left the land of no use.

Now the storm takes wing, until its strength weakens.
And in the Nile, only the desert soaks its sands.
It drops it on the fields that once blossomed.
Memphis, Thebes, the whole land is ruined.
Through the desert, Bedouin people carry on with contentment.
In the sandy fields, they show to the sun their life of legend.

And at night, the red flamingo muddies the relentless waves.
Even now, it walks slowly into the waters.
And now the moon wraps in silver the whole of the old Egypt.
And now the heart sees the olden times one hundred percent.
Words from the past pass through, to today's ear.
From the clash of waves, prophecies occur.
And then with the storm's skilful strengthening-breath,
Come into existence Memphis — a silvery notion of the desert.

Bedouins stand with the moon in the background.
They look, and they marvel at it.
They tell tales and enhance them with niceties, and with talent,
About the city, that emerges from the desert-of-melancholy.
Sounds that grow are heard beneath the land, and in the sea.

The sea has bells at its bottom, which toll on any night.
The Nile has orchards with ripe red apples on its banks.
Those that are buried in its cities, they wake up suddenly
In the desert's sands, and they walk to the Memphis Court.
There, light shines in halls on any night.
With wine, with cheer and lust, they have fun to the first light.

(1872, October 1)
Translated by