by George Seferis
trans. A. E. Stallings
“Say it with a ukulele”
whines some gramophone.
Say what to her, Christ’s sake!
I’m used to being alone.
The shabby-genteel poor
give mouth organs a squeeze.
and cry yet again on the angels,
and the angels are the disease.
The angels unfurl their wings,
but below, a stale fog gushes.
Thank God, or else they’d snare
our wretched souls like thrushes!
It’s a cold-fish sort of life.
You live like this? Yes–so?
So many are the drowned
on the sea floor, down below.
The trees seem like coral
from which all colors drain,
and the carts like sunken ships
whose hulls alone remain.
“Say it with a ukulele”
Words, words, words . . . again?
Where is your chapel, Love?
I’m tired of this demesne.
If only life were straight,
then we could live it right.
but fate has got us cornered,
and the corner is too tight.
And just what corner? Who knows.
Lamp lights lamp, a wreath
of mists, and speechless frosts.
We clench our souls in our teeth.
Shall we find consolation?
Day has donned night. We find
all is night. All is night.
We go by feeling, blind.
“Say it with a ukulele”
How the firelight would glance off
the gleam of her red nails.
I remember her, and her cough.
Fog
Say it with a ukulele
«Πες της το μ’ ένα γιουκαλίλι…»
γρινιάζει κάποιος φωνογράφος·
πες μου τί να της πω, Χριστέ μου,
τώρα συνήθισα μονάχος.
Με φυσαρμόνικες που σφίγγουν
φτωχοί μη βρέξει και μη στάξει
όλο και κράζουν τους αγγέλους
κι είναι οι αγγέλοι τους μαράζι.
Κι οι αγγέλοι ανοίξαν τα φτερά τους
μα χάμω χνότισαν ομίχλες
δόξα σοι ο θεός, αλλιώς θα πιάναν
τις φτωχιές μας ψυχές σαν τσίχλες.
Κι είναι η ζωή ψυχρή ψαρίσια
— Έτσι ζεις; — Ναι! Τί θες να κάνω·
τόσοι και τόσοι είναι οι πνιμένοι
κάτω στης θάλασσας τον πάτο.
Τα δέντρα μοιάζουν με κοράλλια
που κάπου ξέχασαν το χρώμα
τα κάρα μοιάζουν με καράβια
που βούλιαξαν και μείναν μόνα…
«Πες της το μ’ ένα γιουκαλίλι…»
Λόγια για λόγια, κι άλλα λόγια;
Αγάπη, πού ’ναι η εκκλησιά σου
βαρέθηκα πια στα μετόχια.
Α! να ’ταν η ζωή μας ίσια
πώς θα την παίρναμε κατόπι
μ’ αλλιώς η μοίρα το βουλήθη
πρέπει να στρίψεις σε μια κόχη.
Και ποιά είν’ η κόχη; Ποιός την ξέρει;
Τα φώτα φέγγουνε τα φώτα
άχνα! δε μας μιλούν οι πάχνες
κι έχουμε την ψυχή στα δόντια.
Τάχα παρηγοριά θα βρούμε;
Η μέρα φόρεσε τη νύχτα
όλα ειναι νύχτα, όλα ειναι νύχτα
κάτι θα βρούμε ζήτα ζήτα…
«Πες της το μ’ ένα γιουκαλίλι…»
Βλέπω τα κόκκινά της νύχια
μπρος στη φωτιά πώς θα γυαλίζουν
και τη θυμάμαι με το βήχα.
Note:
George Seferis (1900-1971) wrote “Fog” in 1927, during his first visit to London as a young man. The title and the epigraph are in English in the original, as if Greek does not even have a word sufficiently gloomy to describe English fog, which shocked him with its thickness and toxicity. “Say it with a ukelele” was a popular song at the time, playing on every gramophone, and contains, beside the eponymous imperative, such lyrics as “Modern girls are tired of dreary love songs/ you must give them something that is new.” Eliot readers will notice familiar imagery here: the fog, the gramophone, the lighting of the lamps. Some of that is a shared sense of London in time and place. But the Eliotic qualities (Seferis is the most important translator of Eliot in Greek) are probably partly to do with both poets sharing a passion for and influence from French poetry. (See Baudelaire’s yellow fog in “The Seven Old Men,” for instance.)
Editor’s note:
Stallings discusses this poem and Eliot’s influence on Seferis further in her recent lecture as Oxford Professor of Poetry, “Mr Eugenides after the Burning of Smyrna: George Seferis and the Waste Land.”