"Annelerin ninnilerinden
spikerin okuduğu habere kadar,
yürekte, kitapta ve sokakta yenebilmek yalanı,
anlamak, sevgilim, o, bir müthiş bahtiyarlık,
anlamak gideni ve gelmekte olanı.
1946
Through Five Lines
Choosing a lie from a truth
either in a book, a heart,
a newspaper, on the street or in a lullaby,
a priceless happiness, my dear, to understand
what is coming forth or what was gone by.
Thanks - this works very well in English, I think, although I'd like you to talk me through what you think Hikmet means exactly by 'choosing a lie from a truth'. It's a slightly opaque phrase, at least to me - is that there in the original?
ReplyDeleteactually it is more like purifying our lives from lies or like being able to tell if something is a lie or not in the original poem. Hikmet, wrote about awareness of what is going on in the country so it would not be absurd to think that he wanted us to understand if we are being told lies in any field of life; politics being the most prominent one in this poem. the phrase is there in the original and mine is just an interpretation of it.
ReplyDeletethank you, yours is the first comment on me blog :)