LONGING FOR MEMPHIS 2 страница

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Is there not pain and suffering enough?

42.

That is the stuff of life,

43.

a troubled journey, a circuit of the sun;

even the trees decay and fall.

44.

‘‘O tread you down upon injustice,

and end my helplessness!

Judge me, O Thoth, you who can soothe the gods;

46.

defend me, O Khonsu, a teller of the truth;

47.

Hear, O Rê, my speaking,

you who command the skyship;

48.

Defend me, O Anubis, in the holy hall of judgment.

49.

Because my need is heavy in the scale,

and it has raised the pan of sweetness out of reach.

50.

Preserve, O gods, the quiet center of my being! ’’

Conversation between a Man Weary of Life and His Soul CHAPTER THREE

Divisions 51-85

CONVERSE OF A TIRED MAN AND HIS SOUL

51.

What my soul said to me,

52.

‘‘You are no man at all!

Are you even alive?

53.

How full you are of your complaints of life like a man of means preaching to passersby!

54.

Things sink down to ruin.

Well! save yourself by getting up!

55.

There are no bonds on you as of some prisoner whining,

‘I shall get even with you:

and you, your name shall die! ’

56.

Life!

That is the place of fluttering down,

and the renunciation of the heart’s own desire,

57.

the district of the West, [is the place of rest] after a troubled crossing. ’’

58.

I continued:

‘‘If my soul, my foolish brother, would only listen,

its wish would be like mine;

59.

And it would perch most blest at my right hand,

reaching the West like one who has a pyramid towering for after-generations over his grave.

60.

And I would wave the sacred fan above your listless form

that you attract another soul to join you, weary one;

61.

And I would wave the fan again, then say the spell,

so you might lure a different, fiery soul;

62.

I would find drink from in-shore eddies,

raise up food, beguile some other hungry soul to stay with you.

63.

Yet if you keep me back from death this way,

I promise you no peace in the West forever!

64.

Be still, my soul, my brother,

until a successor comes with offerings

65.

To stand at the tomb on burial day and deck a bed in the city of God. ”

66.

Then my soul opened its mouth to me that it might answer what I had said:

67.

‘‘Your graveyard thoughts bring sadness to the heart, and tears,

feeding our misery;

68.

That is what shovels a man into his house dug in the rock on the high hill,

69.

There, there is no more coming forth for you to see the sunny days,

or workmen crafting their buildings in granite,

70.

putting last touches on pyramids, or the beauties of the monuments,

or where builders fashion altars for the gods.

71.

You are emptied and drear,

like those without motion dead on the riverbank, no one caring,

72.

Water laps at their backs, the sun does its work,

and, lips in the current, fish whisper to them.

73.

Now listen to me—pay some attention to what people say,

74.

Spend your days happily!

Forget your troubles!

75.

‘‘There was a man, and he farmed his plot of land;

and he was loading his harvest into a ship for the voyage to his accounting, which drew near.

76.

And he saw coming a night of wind and weather

so that he was watchful of the ship, waiting for day,

77.

while he dreamed of life with his wife and children

who had perished on the Lake of Death on a dark night, with crocodiles.

78.

And after he was pondering there some time,

he shaped the silence into words, saying,

‘I have not wept for that mother yonder!

79.

And he went outdoors to fume awhile

and then go back inside behaving like a better person.

80.

His wife was wise to his ways,

Yet he never really listened to her,

so the death demons came and carried him off. ’’

Conversation between a Man Weary of Life and His Soul CHAPTER FOUR

Divisions 81-110

CONVERSE OF A TIRED MAN AND HIS SOUL

81.

I opened my mouth to my soul that I might answer what it had said,

‘‘How my name stinks because of you

more than the stink of bird dung on a summer’s day under a burning sky.

82.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the catch of fish on a good angling day under a burning sky.

83.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the stench of marsh-birds on the hummocks filthy with waterfowl.

84.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the fishermen’s smell at runnels of swamps after they have been fishing.

85.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the reek of crocodiles sunning on sandbanks alive with their crocodile kind.

86.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the wife about whom lies are told to her wedded husband.

87.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the able youth of whom they falsely say

that he is prisoner of everything he should despise.

88.

How my name stinks because of you

more than the crocodile’s cove, where the fool taunts him careful his back is turned.

89.

‘‘Who is there to talk to today?

90.

Brothers are evil;

the friends of today, they do not love us.

91.