Prøveoversættelse på engelsk- 2

Det er SÅ underligt at opleve sin tekst oversat til engelsk af en professionel oversætter! Det er som om det er mere seriøst, fornemmere … (der er ord, jeg slet ikke forstår!). Det er en dygtig oversætter, som Gyldendal har valgt til at lave denne prøveoversættelse, jeg er virkelig imponeret. Så her kommer et uddrag på engelsk fra Gudernes tusmørke:

(Jeg-fortælleren er guden Seth, der er genfødt ind i vores moderne tid. Og som en dag inviterer den berømte dirigent Martin Seeber til at bo hos sig, mens har er ved at forberede en opsætning af Wagners opera Parsifal).

Sekvensen er fra finalen, med titlen Taktstokken: 

I lay naked on the bank of the river Rhine, lay beneath a warm sun, and my body became dry. I closed my eyes and thought of the most beautiful garments I could image, in the brightest fiery reds and yellows. And with thoughts about the desert in all its might and splendour beneath a huge, blood-red sunset, I summoned up its powers and wrapped my dying body in these garments.
                      Martin returned to his rostrum after the interval. It was time for the last act. He raised his baton; it was still shimmering palely with light, and he sought the feeling, with such concentration and such depth, this heavy progress through pain to the place where hope and light lay.
                      Then came the down beat, and with melancholy simplicity and sombre undertones strings sought the way to redemption. An element of violence crept in; something crucial was happening, and the brass let us sense that the moment that we had all been longing for in such torment might soon arrive, that we would all be able to kneel with the burden of insight.
                      Trees were coming into leaf around me, and fruit trees were beginning to blossom, while Kundry found her way to peace. The suffering was past for her.
                      Groaning with pain, I rose and looked around. Up from the church near the village, the congregation was leaving the quiet Good Friday service without the sound of bells, as was prescribed on this day of sorrow and suffering.
                      But Martin’s bells sounded, so perfectly, they rang out in his dark opera house, they rang out in my heart, rang out through the landscapes so the churchgoers asked themselves in confusion whether they were in their right minds. And the magnolia burst into flower, and the cherry trees, indeed even the almond trees began to flower in the late afternoon sun, and the entire Rhine Valley was filled with the most glorious colours of spring.
                      I staggered towards the church. My red clothes hid my blood. I knew I needed to lie down somewhere beyond the reach of inquisitive eyes, and the church would be empty now after the service. So despite my loathing for this building, I fought my way inside. I had to stay alive for a little longer, just for a while; the last thing was still to be done. And in the darkness of the church I collapsed, weak and in pain, on the hard stone floor.
                      Martin, I groaned, and I saw my red blood seep out on to the stone floor beneath me. Your Parsifal did this!
                      But the greatest suffering was still to come. Martin’s gleaming baton moved silently in the darkness; it was Amfortas with his wound that refused to heal, and he was breaking now, and Martin with him. I could see the sweat on Martin’s forehead, and I felt how his agony, too, was becoming unbearable.  How could this urge, this desire and this compulsion ever exist in him without pain? Was his own life not condemned to be eternal torment and confusion and did death not offer the only possibility for gaining peace? And all the unbearableness of Martin’s suffering rose from the orchestra pit, and I groaned beneath the weight of the pain, from my own bleeding wound, from Amfortas’s wound, from Martin’s torments.
                      Then Parsifal entered. He was carrying in his hand the spear that had given Amfortas that agonising wound that could not be healed. And now the ponderous, radiant notes of understanding poured out through Martin. Nur eine Waffe taugt: Die Wunde schliesst der Speer nur, der sie schlug, sang Parsifal and touched Amfortas’s wound with the healing spear. And the miracle was so obvious and of such magnitude, and Martin’s bleeding soul wept in all its vulnerability, wept as it understood, wept over the grandeur and the grace that had lain hidden in his healing, and which finally became his. And when the last swelling notes of the music died down under his baton’s final beat, and he put his baton down, he sank to his knees behind the rostrum.

                      Grace, I heard his mind whisper. Forgive me. I understand now.                      Then he slowly arose and left the orchestra pit during the silence that his Parsifal had left behind. No one was in a state to clap.

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