Trinity Journal of Literary Translation
Online: Elis 3rd version 1 Utter is the stillness of this golden day. Amid ancient oaks
You appear, Elis, one leaning1 wide eyed. Their blueness reflects the sleep of lovers. On your mouth
Your rose-colored sighs grow silent. With evening the fisherman pulled in his black nets. A good shepherd
Drives his flock to the forest’s edge. O! how just, Elis, are all your days. Quietly falls
The blue stillness of the olive tree on bare walls, An old man’s dark song dies away. A golden boat
Heaves, Elis, your heart in a lonely sky.
1
one leaning, the original (ein Ruhender) evokes the German title for a pose often found in classical art (e.g., Praxiteles’s “Resting Faun”); line 7, the fisherman, and line 8, a good shepherd, appellations of Jesus Christ, here perhaps reconciled with the heathen.
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