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- Herausgeber: Carcanet Classics
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
'Halfway tree. The journey of our life found me / there at midnight in a ramshackle state.' So begins Lorna Goodison's astonishing new translation of The Inferno by Dante, a poet she once described as 'uncompromising as an Old Testament prophet, stern as a Rastafarian elder'. This Jamaican Dante, a quarter-century in the making, is as much transformation as it is translation: the poet's narrator, its Dante figure, is now guided through an underworld by Goodison's great Jamaican predecessor Louise Bennett, 'Miss Lou' in the book. Goodison draws on the entire continuum of Jamaican speech yet securely grounds the action in Dante's formal architecture, bringing an entire world to life: we encounter other poets, including Goodison's friend Derek Walcott, as well as Caribbean politicians, reggae innovators and other public figures. Here, she recreates the journey through the 'unpaved and rocky road' of Dante's Hell for a contemporary audience and attempts to do for Caribbean vernacular what Dante did for his Italian language in the fourteenth century – endow it with an entirely new vocal music and power.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2025
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3
Lorna Goodison
A new translation
CARCANET CLASSICS4
5
To Nick Havely, Ted Chamberlin & Michela Calderaro, for getting me started and keeping me going
Contents
6
Canto I
Halfway tree. The journey of our life found me
there at midnight in a ramshackle state,
for to tell you the truth my feet had strayed.
Tongue cannot tell how this place was tough,
to talk of it make me frighten all over again.
Bitter! Barren! Only death itself could be worse.
But the price that I pay for my survival is this:
I am now must and bound to tell of the good
I found down there; well ma’am, well sir.
How to tell how I reach down there so is hard
but my mind was mixed up, contrary, divided
and I slip and slide way from the straight path.
I walk and walk till I get to the foot of a mountain
at the end of Stony Valley where what I saw
all but caused my heart to attack me in my chest.
I look up and see the shoulders of the mountain
decorated with sun beams sent by the guide
planet to cheer the pure-in-heart along their way.
And when I see this my fear was dampened a bit
so that the panic that did pitch
and toss me all night to my heart’s core, abated.
Like a swimmer who out of her depth in big sea,
who battle the waves till she reach shore,
and as she blow for breath she marvels how she 8
manage to escape from that grave watery death.
Just like that, I turned back to study with awe
the dark pass none before me did ever leave alive.
And as I catch up my weary self, I start to climb
up the rocky mountain, making sure to put
my foot where I’d have no cause to slip and fall.
When lo and behold, there on the mountain slope
a leopardess! Pardner, her foot light, it swift!
Her skin spotted like black ink on ivory dominoes.
She was shuffling there staring dead into my face.
Block, she try block my every step, all I could do
was shape and shift sideways. By now it was near
break of day, the morning sun was rising up to take
the place of the lingering stars surrounding
Love Divine whose hands connected the Great Lights
and turn them on, on high to shine; ah, the soft early
hours, the tender doctor breeze, cause me to feel I
could conquer the ferocious, fanged, spotted beast.
But that hope proved to be weak; not strong enough
to overcome my fear when I see tearing down
upon me, a lion! Massive dread! Hungry driving him
like a big engine, so that even the breeze blow like
it fraid. Then a she-wolf she lurking beside him.
Craven, scrawny, maugre, you could see white squall
at her mouth corner and you know she had caused
many to suffer and feel it. The sight of her broke
my spirit, and I give up right there so any hope of being 9
able to climb up that mountain; and like someone
who is a worldlian, who one day loses all their
earthly possessions, just sinks down into despond
that makes them cry cri as give-up spirit overtakes,
it’s so I became in the presence of the wild beasts
bearing down the mountain on me step by step.
And as I was beating my retreat to a lower level
before my frightened eyes a big woman appeared,
her voice calm like for a long time she’d been quiet.
And when I see her in that wretched place, I plead
‘Help me do! Pity me, whoever you may be,
living somebody or May Pen Duppy, do help me!’
She: ‘I did alive one time, but now mi not living.
Me come from good parents. My father was a baker
mi mother was a dressmaker and I born when King
George siddown pon him throne. Me was a little gal
pickney when I wish upon a star fi the gift fi write
poetry that praise mi people inna wi own Jama tongue.
That wish mek me the target of plenty fling stone.
But I never stop defend wi language.
I train at RADA; fi mi stage was the whole world.
But why you going back down to crosses and woe?
why yu don’t go on climb up the higher heights
to Mount Boonoonoonoos, up to the peak of Joy?’
‘Are you, Miss Lou, the fountainhead of Inspiration
from whom the Hope River of creativity flows?’
So I ask her – my head in respect-due bowed down. 10
‘O Lady, you are the queen of our people’s hearts,
in the name of my faithful study of your books
my regard for your wit and eloquence, help me please!
You were my model and mentor, and it is from your
example I have crafted this hybrid style for which
people worldwide give me speak; you see that beast
I am running from? Please do protect me from her,
O mother of our yard, for my blood is trembling
in my veins with fear, I shiver as I stand up here.’
‘You going have fi go by a different way,’ she said,
‘if yu going mek your way out a this bitter place
for that wild beast there that mekking you so fraid
she don’t allow nobody fi prosper, flourish nor thrive.
She standup block the road, she kill who pass by,
her nature so gravalicious, run-gainst and bad-mind
her appetite can’t satisfy; even if she get a belly full
that mek her want more, and she join up with
some other blood-sucker who is her combolo.
And she going gwaan same way till such time when
the great one, who nuh come fi nyam off
the fat a the land, but fi feed wi wid wisdom, come.
That good one going be the Caribbean saviour.
The one who Grandy Nanny, Marcus Garvey,
and all a wi freedom fighter been preparing for
cross our arc of islands in every village and town.
That one going drive the beast till she drop back
to hell from where satan send her fi tear wi down. 11
Right now, I think it best you follow behind me so
I can guide yu through this Godforsaken den
where yu going witness worries, crosses, and woe
and see some ancestral spirits who tormented,
a lament how dem dead, not one time, but two.
And you going see dem one who submit themselves
to cleansing flames, hoping sey one day dem will
rise up clean, and get let into the holy company.
But if you want fi reach up to heaven seventh level,
dem have a soul more qualify than me fi escort you.
I going put you in her care when I leave, for some
who in charge up there, don’t so approve of Miss Lou
because I don’t defend no hierarchy, division, race
nor class, dem hesitate fi elevate me.
The straw boss on dem high seat who rule this place
say: ‘We alone decide, who wi fall and who will rise.’
Hear me: ‘O great poet I beg you by the Most High
who you serve, do help me, so that I might be able to fly
from all this wickedness and worse; wheresoever
you say we should go, I will go, so one day I can stand
in the presence of Brother Peter, Heaven’s gatekeeper
and those souls who you say are bowed down so low
under tribulations and so sorely in need of comfort
and hope, whose most pitiful state you warn me about.’
And it’s so she move on; and I follow. 12
Canto II
The sun had gone down and the dusk was setting
free living things on earth from daily round
and common tasks; and me and me one alone
was getting ready to tackle the perilous journey
before me; calling on good spirits to have pity,
all this my clear memory will now recall.
O high intelligence beg you help me now, do.
O presence of mind that show me to write down
what I saw, now everyone will know your value.
And is so I start: ‘High Poet, come to guide me,
do assure me I am worthy, before you and me
start the trod down this unpaved and rocky road.
You are the one who wrote how Marcus Garvey
travelled till he reached the land of the ancestors
and walked as a living man amongst duppy.
But even if the Conqueror of all evil blessed him,
remember who he was, and the mighty works
he did bring forth, so this to anyone cannot seem,
when giving things thought, as anything but just
and right. For in the highest heights he was
chosen as the guardian of our archipelago of islands,
of our sea, air and land up to our Blue Mountains,
those elevated sites of holiness,
followers of Saints Peter and Paul Bogle walk upon. 14
And from this same journey you write of in poems
Nanny learned strategy that brought
victory; and later on the Anointed one went there
and forward back with inspiration by chanting
Redemption Song, But why is me must go?
Who says so? I am not Garvey, Nanny nor Marley.
Nobody, not even me, would consider me of worth.
If I take on this journey, it might prove pure folly.
You are smart; you can penetrate what is in my heart.’
Like one who wish a wish then take it back, decide
her mind, then say no, as a brand-new-second-hand
idea pass through, so she abandons her first choice.
That was me; standing there on that darkling slope
pondering how to end the beginning of that
venture I was so eager to take upon myself at first.
The spirit of the waymaker poet replied: ‘If I hear you
right, is like yu soul downpress by cowardice.
You are a one who panic when she see her own shadow.
You must get release from fear, so mek me tell you
why I come here, the words that I hear when
I start to feel compassion fi your immortal soul.
I was in limbo, barred from going above or below,
when a lady call me to her; she did God-bless,
she full a Grace; I say I would do anything she want.
Her two eye shine like the evening star, and in a soft
level voice she start to speak to me in her owna
unique, inspired, sweet-mouth way that angel talk: 15
“O noble soul, O most honoured and exalted one
whose reputation in this world continues to grow
and will endure as long as this globe revolves,
my good friend (not fate’s though) has gone off track
on a hard barren way where so many impediment
springes are set, her own fright has turned her back.
I fear that she may perhaps have gone too wide
from what dem report back to me in Heaven,
that I might well be too late in coming to her aid.
You go right now, and with your ability to speak
take whatsoever you need to set her free; do assist,
help her out, and by so doing set my mind at peace.
Is me Miss Bea who is pressing you to go:
where I come from, is where I want to go home to.
Love send me here; through me, love is talking to you.
When I go back and stand up before our Lord
I will put in many a good word about you to Him.”
After that she said nothing. Then I started to profess:
“O gracious Lady; only through you the human being
can pass through and go beyond the core of the world
that can hold inside the smallest dimple of the moon.
Your request full up my heart with pure happiness.
If I already do what you ask me to do, it would
still seem that I do it too late; just state your wish.
But tell me how you manage to make that journey
all the way from that place beyond outer space,
your home of divine security you must go back to?” 16
“Aye yi yi! is one deep question you asking me there.
Mek me try make it plain, explain it simple,
tell you,” said she, “why I never fraid fi come here.
A person must only stand in fear of the things dem
that have real power fi harm them; not one
thing mi say, not one else ting, must mek yu fraid!
God give a lionheart spirit to me as a gift of Grace.
The torment dem you going through don’t touch me.
In my case, even hellfire itself is not no real threat.
One kind-hearted loving woman is up there in heaven
grieving over what happen to the one I send you to.
She feel it so hard, she shatter heaven’s strict code,
she call down to Lucea and request a favour. She said:
‘Your loyal passera is truly in need of you; so it is
to you that I am commending the care of her soul.’
Now Lucy, who don’t defend no form of wickedness,
mek haste and come to where I was sitting down
side a one of the ancients name of Aunty Rachie.
She say: ‘Miss Bea like how God always a praise you,
you can’t just go help that one who have such
a tender heart, she walk off leave everything fi poetry?
You can’t see the long eyewater that she a weep?
You don’t see how living death a threaten her?
by that ole river that so deep it can swallow sea?’
And there’s nobody alive who get more anxious
fi help out and promote this just cause here
than me, when I hear what it was she say how I must 17
leave the blessed assurance of my holy habitation
and come here to put trust in poetry’s silver tongue
speech, that brings honour to you and all who hear it.”
When she finish present her case of pure Wisdom
she turn to one side and her eyewater fall down!
And Lord how that mek me anxious now to come!
And see, I am here, just as how she asked me to be.
And look, see how I set you free from that beast
that did determine fi block your way to success.
So what wrong now? Is why you a linger, linger?
Is because you a coward deep down in yu heart?
Why you nuh courageous, big, bold and fearless?
When you have three of the strongest most righteous
woman a watch out fi you in heaven. Plus I don’t
talk with water in my mouth, everything I say go so.’
Just like the shame-mi-lady flowers that droop down
when night come, until the sun shine on it petals
and then it lift up it head and just spring fresh again,
it’s just so my waning strength started to rise in me.
I find courage building up in mi heart; so I start
talk big and bold like one who get hold then release.
‘O the tender-hearted Lady who send you to help me;
And you Miss Lou who so kind that you convey
her words of blessing that she send with you for me, 18
you and your caring words that you speak move me
to my heart with a strong desire to press onward,
so much so I now gone back to my original purpose.
Let us start, for the two of us are now of one heart;
you are my teacher, my guide, and mentor.’
That is what I said to her as me and she start off
down the road pocked with pit, pot and sinkhole. 19
20
Canto III
I am the way into the city of deep downpression,
I am the way to tribulation and woe with no end,
I am the way to the I and I and I forsaken.
It was Truth and Right that moved The Creator,
The Divine All Powerful created the I and I and I
when Blessed Love joined up with the Most High.
Before I nothing was but the Eternal Lifeforce
Creator of what is; behold I live for ivermore.
Let go off of all hope, all who come in here so.
I sight these words lettered in dun drab paint
daubed on the ledge above a rotten wood gate;
O dear, I said, but those words there well cruel!
She answered me, with the voice of experience,
‘Right here so is where you must leave all distrust;
right ya so, dig a hole and bury all cowardice.
This is the said place I tell you bout a while back
where you see the kayliss one dem who suffer now
for when dem alive, dem did dash wey good conduct.
Covering over my hand with her own, she smiled
a smile that made my fretful heart feel calm,
and it is just so that I was led into these mysteries.
Aie sah! Lawd O! Whoah! Sigh and bawling echo
throughout this place where no star shine,
and at first these sounds made me want to cry too. 22
Tongue-twist language so anguish, mashup, mixup
with rage and hollering, screaming and banbelly-
bottom-bawl-out that join with hand that flashup
like witch-wand and fling up storm, that careen
and spin in the hell-of-a darkness vortex, like
hurricane winds that shriek, spit and spray debris.
And me now in the middle of all this horribleness
asking, ‘My teacher what are these sounds I hear,
what kind of souls these, so overwhelmed by crosses?’
Hear her, ‘This wretched state that dem in now.
is what ordain fi all who live out this life and just
live gwaan, and give praise nor blame to no one.
Dem confederate with that wutliss angel band
who neither faithful nor unfaithful to God.
Who tek no side nor stand fi nobody but dem one.
Fi keep the place beautiful; heaven had to run them,
but not even hell want them now, seeing as how
laas soul like them woulda stain and spoil up heaven.’
I say, ‘Miss Lou is what manner of torment is that?
Is what kind of suffering make them bawl so bitter?’
She: ‘I am not no long metre poet. Long story short:
the wretch dem that you see here can’t know death.
Them live a life of the living dead that turn them
so coldblooded, it mek them badmind everybody else.
Them not going have no record that dem did exist.
Merciful heaven tun way it face from dem.
Don’t bother talk bout this, look and walk pass it.’ 23
And as I look I see one old-cloth banner blowing
in the wind, it flutter flutter with no real aim
as though it wasn’t made to settle in any one place.
And behind it a come-follow-me train of dead ones,
shuffling so. So many of them! I wonder how
death could fasten on to so much woman and man.
And then I look hard and recognized a few of them,
I saw that duppy that must be the first man
who refused to sign the Emancipation proclamation.
And I sight up then that this was the gathering
of selfish woman and man who earned the wrath
of the Most High. Ol’ wicked. Jah enemies dem.
Those nowherians who defend only themself
was stark naked and so them get bite and sting
by attacking swarms of galliwasps and wasps,
pricking them so till blood run down; red blood,
comingling with salt tears, drip all the way down
to them foot, where maggot and pus collect up.
And when I look beyond this crowd I see a posse
bump and boring on the bank of a broad river,
and so I say, ‘I can ask you something Miss Lou?
Is who are these people, and what law could it be
that cause them to be so in a haste to cross over
to that place that even in this gloaming I still see?’
Her: ‘Bambye, yu going find out all, whenever
we reach to that spot where we wi kotch
a while on the bruk-spirit shores of Ugly River.’ 24
Then me, looking down in shame, and worried say
that I was too force-up and gone pass my place,
keep my mouth shut tight till we reach the water
and all of a sudden, in a boat coming this way
we see a white-hair old man. Old! Him old so till,
bawling out, ‘Whoa! Woe to you two strayaway!
You don’t bother hope say you going see heaven!
I only come here to take you to next-never shore
that is darkness without end, ice, and fire everlasting.
You! It’s you I’m talking to! You a living soul
tek way yourself from them done-dead-already!’
But when him see that I did not make one move
he said: ‘A next way then, by another else port,
is not here so you pass to reach the other bankside,
is a vessel lighter than this must be your transport.’
My guide: ‘Choman, this a nuh time fi facety chat.
This done decree by a higher power than what you
answer to, and you don’t need know more than dat.’
These words made the beardy-face of the ancient
boatman who steers deads through the bruiseblood
marsh, his eyeballs like two balls a fire, get silent.
But these desolate souls, bodies naked and exposed,
changed colour, and their teeth start to chatter when
they hear the sense of his doomy announcement.
Curse. They curse God self, cuss their own parents,
the human race, the date, time and place, the very
day them born. The seed that seed their beginnings. 25
Them pack up together and it’s so them bawling loud.
Them line up themselves along the desolate shore
that is there waiting for all who feareth not God.
Satan and Choman, with him eye like coal fire
summon them all together by pointing him finger
then with a flat board oar, him clap lag-behind sinner.
Like autumn in foreign when the leaves fall down
one after another until the branch itself can look
on the ground and see its leaf yield spread all round.
It is just so that the bad seed of Adam plummet
from the shore, one by one by one, into that boat
at the signal, like a chicken hawk homes to a pullet.
They head out across those deep and dark waters
and before they reach the other shore and land
over there so a new gang of duppy start to gather.
‘Mi chile,’ the kind and most caring guide said,
‘all dem who perish under the wrath of God
come gather up hereso from all corners of the earth,
the ribba ben come down and dem waan cross over.
Dem on fire, for Divine Justice driving them,
like a righteous preacher who convert fear into desire.
No good soul ever come hereso fi make this crossing.
So if Choman was giving out sounds when
him see yu, you can see why him was going on so.’ 26
She finished speaking and the dutty that was tough
under us, commenced to quake, and it made me so
frightened that as I remember it, sweat still wet me up.
Out of this land washed with weeping a wind whip
and it blast out into rays of crimson red tinted light
that knock me out of my senses all to complete.
And I fall into that deep sleep that the exhausted sleep.
Canto IV
Heavy thunder roll and lightning flash; I awakened
out of a sleep like death itself, that had my mind
like it was drug; I jump up for I was frighten.
My rested eyes look to the right and to the left,
I stand up on my two foot and stare well hard,
and try my level best to identify just where I was.
And this is what I see: I find myself standing up
on the edge of a hollow and dismal valley
where sounds of weeping dropped and collected up.
It was so dig-out and desolate and so bottomless
that no matter how I try I couldn’t make out
clear the shape of anything that was in that place.
‘Come wi go down once more into this blackout
world,’ the poet said (her face shine and aglow
with cold sweat), ‘I wi go before and you follow.’
And me, who see now how her countenance changed,
said, ‘but how I must go on, if even you frighten?
You, who I can rock back on when I want to faint.’
Miss Lou: The tribulations of dem laas souls here
in this underworld, is what is washing
my face with pity that you see and tek to be fear.
Mek wi go on, for the long road say wi must come.’
She entered in first then opened up the way for me;
into the first circle of the abyss; it’s so we go down, 28
down here, judging by what it was I was hearing,
there were no Wailers, no Marley, just sounds
of sighing that rise up and shiver through the air.
O the cries and sighs and ban-belly moaning
weighing down these diverse and different groups
of man, woman and children, even the newborn.
My good guide said: ‘You nuh bother inquire
what kind a souls dem you see round here.
Now, you must know before we go no further,
that these not no sinners; but that wasn’t enough
fi save them. Why? Them never get baptize!
And that is the way into the religion wey you follow.
And if them born before Lord Jesus Christ come
then them never worship God – according to the laws
that the church lay down – I know some mongst them
fi this one deggey fault alone, and no other flaw
Some laas down here wey dem suffering so. Hope?
That dead to them, yet still, them live up in desire.’
The words that I hear really make my heart heavy
to see how good, kind-hearted souls like these
get left back to hang in limbo, forever and ever.
‘Tell me my good teacher, my wise, kind friend,’
I start to say – (for I wanted her to confirm things
about the right and proper Christian doctrine) –
anybody ever manage to leave this place through
their own attempts, or with another one’s help,
ever go to heaven?’ Seeing what I wanted to know, 29
she answered: ‘I was only a prentice in this dead
realm, when I look see a mighty lord come down
with a V sign stamp on the high crown on him head.
Him recall those deads who was our foreparents.
All upright sons and daughters, and Harriet Moses,
who did go down go lead her people to freedom.
Father, Brotherman, and the Psalmist King David,
our father and our mother, them plentiful children,
and our ginnerations who toil under enslavement
plus a portion of Bright Souls that was God own.
Know sey that before any one a dem ever
get tek up, not one other soul ever get salvation.’
We were journeying as she was telling this to me,
as we continued along the woodland, I say
woodland, for duppy there was as plentiful as tree.
