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De Tsjechische schrijver Milan Kundera werd geboren in Brno op 1 april 1929. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 april 2008.
Uit: The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Vertaald door Michael Henry Heim)
If every second of our lives recurs an infinite number of times, we are nailed to eternity as Jesus Christ was nailed to the cross. It is a terrifying prospect. In the world of eternal return the weight of unbearable responsibility lies heavy on every move we make. That is why Nietzsche called the idea of eternal return the heaviest of burdens (das schwerste Gewicht).
If eternal return is the heaviest of burdens, then our lives can stand out against it in all their splendid lightness.
But is heaviness truly deplorable and lightness splendid?
The heaviest of burdens crushes us, we sink beneath it, it pins us to the ground. But in the love poetry of every age, the woman longs to be weighed down by the man's body. The heaviest of burdens is therefore simultaneously an image of life's most intense fulfillment. The heavier the burden, the closer our lives come to the earth, the more real and truthful they become.
Conversely, the absolute absence of a burden causes man to be lighter than air, to soar into the heights, take leave of the earth and his earthly being, and become only half real, his movements as free as they are insignificant.
What then shall we choose? Weight or lightness?
Parmenides posed this very question in the sixth century before Christ. He saw the world divided into pairs of opposites: light/darkness, fineness/coarseness, warmth/cold, being/nonbeing. One half of the opposition he called positive (light, fineness, warmth, being), the other negative. We might find this division into positive and negative poles childishly simple except for one difficulty: which one is positive, weight or lightness?
Parmenides responded: lightness is positive, weight negative.
Was he correct or not? That is the question. The only certainty is: the lightness/weight opposition is the most mysterious, most ambiguous of all.
Milan Kundera (Brno, 1 april 1929)
De Russische schrijver Nikolaj Vasiljevitsj Gogol werd geboren in Poltawa, Oekraïne, op 1 april 1809. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 april 2008.
Uit: Dead Souls (Vertaald door Bernard Guildert Guerney)
Eh, thou troika, thou that art a bird! Who conceived thee? Methinks only among a spirited folk that thou could have come into being. In the land that is not fond of doing things by halves, but has evenly and smoothly spread itself out over half the world. Therefore try and count its milestones until they turn to spots before the eyes! Far from cunningly contrived is the vehicle the troika draws; held together with no screws of iron art thou, but hastily, with a slam and a bang, wert thou put together and fitted by some handy Muzhik of Yaroslav, with nothing but an ax and a chisel. No fancy Hessian jack boots does the driver wear. He spots a beard, great gauntlets, and only the devil knows what he sits on for a cushion. Let him rise in his seat, swing his whip back, and strike up a long-drawn song while his steeds are off like a whirlwind. The spokes of each wheel has blended into one unbroken disk; the road merely quivers, and a pedestrian, stopping short, cries out in fright, and the troika is soaring, soaring away! ...Now all one can see, already far in the distance, is something raising the dust and swirling through the air.
Thou art not my Russia, soaring along even like a spirited never to be outdistanced troika? The road actually smokes under thee, the bridges thunder, everything falls back and is left behind thee! The witness of thy passing comes to a deep stop, dumbfounded by this God's wonder! Is it not a streak of lightning cast down from heaven? What signifies this onrush that inspires terror? And what unknown power is contained in these steeds, whose like is not known in this world? Ah, these steeds, these steeds, what steeds they are! Are there whirlwinds perched upon your manes? Is there a sensitive ear, alert as a flame, in your every fiber? You have caught the familiar song coming down to you from above. All as one and all at the same instant, you have strained your brazen chests and almost without touching earth with your hoofs, you have become transformed into straight lines cleaving the air. The troika tears along, inspired by God!
Nikolaj Gogol (1 april 1809 4 maart 1852)
Stenen gedenkplaat in Sint Petersburg
De Zwitserse schrijver en dichter Urs Allemann werd geboren op 1 april 1948 in Schlieren. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 april 2008.
Sapphisch die siebte
Ob vom eignen Herzschlag erschlagen du zu
singen wes und zuckts übern Boden ob du
hinschlugst es vor Augen herauf noch schwarz und
sie es dir abschlug
von der Zunge als du sie harrten Steine
aber wes Gebrüll noch im Knochen leise
es davontrug und überm Fleisch der Geier
als es zu schneien
noch sich totstellt dass du es zu verschweigen
wär wes Aas vorm Zerrspiegel bräch das Maul wund
Blut zu sagen dass es dich zu zerreissen
rot übers Wort fuhr
Urs Allemann (Schlieren, 1 april 1948)
De Griekse dichteres Maria Polydouri werd geboren op 1 april 1902 in Kalamata. Zie ook mijn blog van 1 april 2007 en ook mijn blog van 1 april 2008.
Come With Me
Come with me, for you wished to tread
this distant, otherworldly peak.
Still, nurture no will to steadily descend,
since there is no return for you to seek.
And you shall pay for the prevailing dread,
but not in havocs discontent, like in times gone.
Now you even set yourself to send
away your ultimate thought forlorn.
Our hands shall touch only the hair,
suspending amid blankness vacant
that sweeps away the words we dare
as if it were a barrier blatant.
But then the spells shall break n clear
and wilderness be our sole haunt.
With this and that wed look like young n dear,
Appearances would not miss out.
Vertaald door Evangelos Christopher Typoglou
Maria Polydouri (1 april 1902 30 april 1930)
De Duitse dichter en schrijver Rolf Hochhuth werd geboren op 1 april 1931 in Eschwege. Zie bovendien mijn blog van 2 april 2006. en ook mijn blog van 1 april 2007.
Nesthäkchen
vor dem Hitler-Fluch das Lieblingsbuch,
zwei Generationen lang, aller Schulmädchen.
Else Ury hieß seine Berliner Dichterin ;
wir schickten sie nach Auschwitz ins Gas.
Neulich fuhr, wie man Troja bereist, eine Schulklasse hin,
die im « Koffer-Lager » Elses Namensschild las.
Länger als Troja bleibt Auschwitz den Menschen im Sinn !
Uit: Der Stellvertreter
Fontana! ... Sehen Sie nicht, dass für das christliche Europa die Katastrophe naht, wenn Gott nicht Uns, den Heiligen Stuhl, zum Vermittler macht. Die Stunde ist düster: zwar wissen Wir, den Vatikan rührt man nicht an. Doch Unsere Schiffe draußen, die Wir steuern sollen. Polen, der ganze Balkan, ja Österreich und Bayern noch. In wessen Häfen werden sie geraten. Sie könnten leicht im Sturm zerschellen. Oder sie treiben hilflos an Stalins Küsten.
Rolf Hochhuth (Eschwege, 1 april 1931)
Voor nog meer schrijvers van de 1e april zie ook mijn vorige twee blogs van vandaag.
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