Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill
The Shan Van Vocht
The faded cornflower blue of that old woman's eye
Stares through me—it's as if I wasn't there—back to where
The bright days of her youth shine through,
Lamenting all the halcyon monotony of that
pluperfect time.
How come no common birds sang then,
Only nightingales?
How come her 'nice young men' would offer her,
Not just a bunch of flowers, but out-of-season orchids?
Or cold-weather, fragrant violets? And then, the eternal
Champagne on ice, the froth of lace at her wrists, diamonds
Dripping from her ears, pearls wound seven times
Around her neck, her fingers ponderous
With expensive rings, one with an emerald
As big as an Adam's apple.
That ice-blue pity stares through me, she
Whose eyes were radiant once with youth and blue fire—
How privileged they were, the poor unfortunates
Who caught a glimpse of her in all her majesty, gliding
On the promenade beneath a queenly parasol; the regiments
Of stricken youths who took to soldiering, who
Laboured in the White Man's Grave, anything
To flee the blue illicit lightning
She squandered from those eyes.
She's mumbling, babbling, murmuring
About that Long-Ago of a Year and a Day
When she held sway as Empress of the Zodiac;
And those who were born while she kicked and squealed
In a bath plonked down on the kitchen floor, well,
They were doomed to be drowned or smothered
And the ill-starred ones who came into the world
When the noose got tighter on her neck
Were doomed to be strung up
And those first smitten by the light of day
While she danced in the fire
Were doomed to be burned-out, dazzled and frazzled
With all-consuming love for her
So that it came to pass that they were mowed down
In their hundreds, left and right, not with love
That you or I know, no, not with ordinary love
But with a gnawing, migraine-bright black lust
And galloping consumption.
She's getting to be cranky, cantankerous
And cancered, slabbering of this and that, straight-
Jacketed to her wheelchair, locked
Into self-pity, whingeing on and on—damn
All to do all day, but stare at these four walls.
And servants, of course, aren't what they used to be.
Look how these two chits of girls
Have smeared their greasy paws on the antimacassar.
And that embroidered tablecloth—you know the ambassador?
Well, his wife gave that to her. And she wouldn't like
To see it ruined by those same two hussies.
And here they come now, tinkling in
With an overloaded tray—china tea-set, silver pot,
The dreaded cucumber sandwiches. Not a word from her,
I notice, about their prospects. Well. I'm on their side
And I mutter something, that they're young yet, that wisdom
Only comes with age, that you can't put an old head on young shoul- . . . .
Folly, I'm saying, gets worse with every generation:
Anything, every old cliche in the book, anything at all
To get this old bitch to shut the fuck up.
--Irish; trans. Ciaran Carson
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill, Irish, trans. Ciaran Carson, Pharaoh's Daughter, Wake Forest University Press, 1990.