Pygmalion
for Tünde
1
Rise from the stone! My days are nearly gone;
I cannot wait much longer and in vain.
Be ecstasy itself or else be pain, -
Be Galatea, something, anyone!
The snail-moist sunrise-smells of earthiness,
The wilting summer roses' drowsy scents,
The juices of mad vintage incidents,
The snow flakes: they are perfumes you possess.
It makes no odds if I have sculpted you
Or you have shaped me with your hand so white,
We shall become flesh: you from marble-stone
And I from clay. Our worldly days are few,
No matter if I dreamt you up one night
Or you dreamt me and fashioned me your own,
2
To take me, and inside you help me see
How can the infinite possess the space
To wallow in this tight and steamy place
Where life is never maybe but to be,
And though the real one may fall in the mud
Your twin-Olympus bust will never wane...
Oh Galatea, carve me new again!
And marble-vein my body with your blood,
And love me like his nymphs made love to Pan,
Or suck me as you'd suck some marzipan,
Absorb me in your passion through and through,
You grumpy, loving, sweet and lonely you;
I'll make you sit on top of me, abased -
But once or twice descend with me, to taste
3
The fever that was your creator too!
I'd tumble like a broken piece of clay,
Like rubbish on the heaps of yesterday,
Oh, flesh and marble, dearest love, for you.
I'd be a bone that Cronos chewed away,
The jilted phallus of a satyr boy
Who never found a naiad's well of joy
But sometimes you'd console him, anyway.
So who created whom? It's all the same.
I'd say: you did, to end the argument.
Who came first? Altar or communicant?
Who cares? But I want you to catch my flame!
Trust me, I need so little. My concern
Is nothing but to burn, to burn, to burn.
Translated by Peter Zollman
From 'Selected Poems' by István Baka