| Adapted from the Hungarian of György Faludy
(1910-2006) & the Medieval French of Francois Villon (b. 1431) |
| I've proudly wrapped my dazzling sky around
me yet I have found one faithful friend: the fog. In banquet halls I've heard my hunger howling. By fires, I have endured the test of frost. I am a prince of human kind: I've reached out and to my thirsty lips, the mud has swelled – My paths are marked by dead wildflowers: even the festive seasons wither from our breath. I am surprised... I stare in disbelief when sunshine holds my frame in still caress. And thus across three continents I've travelled and been despised and welcomed everywhere. I've wrestled with the winds on freezing wastelands. My dress: a leaf that graced a bygone tree. And nothing's clearer for me than night's fragrance and nothing darker than high noontide's bleach. My sobs have burst their dams in wary taverns but in the graveyards I have laughed my fill, and all I own are things I've long discarded and thus I've come to value everything. Upon my stubborn curls, the mist of autumn collects its silver while, a child forever, I cross this changing landscape never pausing, and live despised and welcomed everywhere. Triumphant stars erect their vast cathedral above me, and dew calms my feet below as I pursue my fleeing god in grief and sense my world through every pore in joy. I've rested on the peaks of many mountains and wondered at the sweating quarry-slaves but whistling bypassed all the stately towers: I’ve seen and cursed our rulers' power games. My share of life has been the worst and best, and thus I've learned to find an equal ease in squalor and beneath the whitest pillars, a guest despised and welcomed everywhere. |
 Francois Villon |
