Translation: Manuel Bandeira

Earlier this summer I completed a revised translation of Brazilian writer Jean Wyllys's collection of short stories, Aflitos (The Afflicted) (Editora Globo, 2009), and one of the last parts of the book that I translated was a poem that Wyllys uses as one of his epigrams to the book, "Desencanto," or "Disenchantment," by Manuel Bandeira (1886-1968), one of Brazil's most important 20th century poets.

DESENCANTO

Eu faço versos como quem chora
de desalento... de desencanto
Fecha o meu livro, se por agora
Não tens motivo nenhum de pranto.

Meu verso é sangue. Volúpia ardente...
Tristeza esparsa... remorso vão...
Dói-me nas veias. Amargo e quente
Cai, gota e gota, do coração.

E nestas versos de angústia rouca
Assim dos lábios a vida corre,
Deixando um acre sabor na boca.

--Eu faço versos como quem morre.

Copyright © Manuel Bandeira. All rights reserved.

Here's my translation:

I write these lines like one who cries,
In discouragement...in disenchantment...
Shut my book if, for the moment,
You have no cause for tear-filled eyes.

My poetry is blood. Burning ecstasy...
Scattered sadness... vain regret...
My veins ache from it, bitter, hot,
Drop by drop it falls from my heart.

And in these verses, anguished, raw
So runs life from between my lips.
Leaving a bitter taste in my jaws.

--I write these lines as one who dies.
Manuel Bandeira, Disenchantment

Copyright © John Keene, 2009. All rights reserved.