Waking Up
by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Alastair Reid)

Daylight leaks in, and sluggishly I surface
from my own dreams into the common dream
and things assume again their proper places
and their accustomed shapes.  Into this present
the Past intrudes, in all its dizzying range--
the centuries-old habits of migration
in birds and men, the armies in their legions
all fallen to the sword, and Rome and Carthage.

The trappings of my day also come back:
my voice, my face, my nervousness, my luck.
If only Death, that other waking-up,
would grant me a time free of all memory
of my own name and all that I have been!
If only morning meant oblivion!


El despertar
Jorge Luis Borges

Entra la luz y asciendo torpemente
de los sueños al sueño compartido
y las cosas recobran su debido
y esperado lugar y en el presente
converge abrumador y vasto el vago
ayer: las seculares migraciones
del pájaro y del hombre, las legiones
que el hierro destruyó: Roma y Cartago.
Vuelve también mi cotidiana historia:
mi voz, mi rostro, mi temor, mi suerte.
¡Ah, si aquel otro despertar la muerte
me deparara un tiempo sin memoria
de mi nombre y de todo lo que he sido!
¡Ah, si en esa mañana hubiera olvido!

Things
by Jorge Luis Borges

The fallen volume, hidden by others
from sight in the recesses of the bookshelves,
and which the days and nights muffle over
with slow and noiseless dust.  Also, the anchor
of Sidon, which the seas surrounding England
press down into its blind and soft abyss.
The mirror which shows nobody's reflection
after the house has long been left alone.
Fingernail filings which we leave behind
across the long expanse of time and space.
The indecipherable dust, once Shakespeare.
The changing figurations of a cloud.
The momentary but symmetric rose
which once, by chance, took substance in the shrouded
mirrors of a boy's kaleidoscope.
The oars of Argus, the original ship.
The sandy footprints which the fatal wave
as though asleep erases from the beach.
The colors of a Turner when the lights
are turned out in the narrow gallery
and not a footstep sounds in the deep night.
The other side of the dreary map of the world.
The tenuous spiderweb in the pyramid.
The sightless stone and the inquiring hand.
The dream I had in the approaching dawn
and later lost in the clearing of the day.
The ending and beginning of the epic
of Finsburh, today a few sparse verses
of iron, unwasted by the centuries.
The mirrored letter on the blotting paper.
The turtle in the bottom of the cistern.
And that which cannot be.  The other horn
of the unicorn.  The Being, Three in One.
The triangular disc.  The imperceptible moment
in which the Eleatic arrow,
motionless in the air, reaches the mark.
The violet pressed between the leaves of Becquer.
The pendulum which time has stayed in place.
The weapon Odin buried in the tree.
The volume with its pages still unslit.
The echo of the hoofbeats at the charge
of Junin, which in some enduring mode
never has ceased, is part of the webbed scheme.
The shadow of Sarmiento on the sidewalks.
The voice heard by the shepherd on the mountain.
The skeleton bleaching white in the desert.
the bullet which shot dead Francisco Borges.
The other side of the tapestry.  The things
which no one sees, except for Berkeley's God.

Browning Resolves To Be A Poet
by Jorge Luis Borges (translated by Alastair Reid)

In these red London labyrinths
I find that I have chosen
the most curious of human professions,
though given that all are curious, in their way.
Like alchemists
who looked for the philosopher's stone
in elusive quicksilver,
I shall make ordinary words --
the marked cards of the sharper, the people's coinage --
yield up the magic which was theirs
when Thor was inspiration and eruption,
thunder and worship.
In the wording of the day,
I in my turn will say eternal things;
I will try to be not unworthy
of the great echo of Byron.
This dust that is me will be invulnerable.
If a woman partakes of my love,
my poem will graze the tenth sphere of the concentric heavens;
if a woman shrugs off my love,
I will make music out of my misery,
a vast river reverberating on through time.
I will live by forgetting myself.
I will be the face I half-see and forget,
I will be Judas who accepts
the blessed destiny of being a traitor,
I will be Caliban in the swamp,
I will be a mercenary dying
without fear or faith,
I will be Polycrates, horrified to see
the ring returned by destiny,
I will be the friend who hates me.
Persia will grant me the nightingale, Rome the sword.
Agonies, masks and resurrections
will weave and unweave my fate
and at some point I will be Robert Browning.

the art of poetry - jorge luis borges

The Art of Poetry
by Jorge Luis Borges

To gaze at a river made of time and water
and remember Time is another river.
To know we stray like a river
and our faces vanish like water.

To feel that waking is another dream
that dreams of not dreaming and that the death
we fear in our bones is the death
that every night we call a dream.

To see in every day and year a symbol
of all the days of man and his years,
and convert the outrage of the years
into a music, a sound, and a symbol.

To see in death a dream, in the sunset
a golden sadness—such is poetry,
humble and immortal, poetry,
returning, like dawn and the sunset.

Sometimes at evening there’s a face
that sees us from the deeps of a mirror.
Art must be that sort of mirror,
disclosing to each of us his face.

They say Ulysses, wearied of wonders,
wept with love on seeing Ithaca,
humble and green. Art is that Ithaca,
a green eternity, not wonders.

Art is endless like a river flowing,
passing, yet remaining, a mirror to the same
inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
and yet another, like the river flowing.

things that might have been - jorge luis borges

Things That Might Have Been
by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. A. S. Kline)

I think of things that weren't, but might have been.
The treatise on Saxon myths Bede never wrote.
The inconceivable work Dante might have had a glimpse of,
As soon as he’d corrected the Comedy’s last verse.
History without the afternoons of the Cross and the hemlock.
History without the face of Helen.
Man without the eyes that gave us the moon.
On Gettysburg’s three days, victory for the South.
The love we never shared.
The wide empire the Vikings chose not to found.
The world without the wheel or the rose.
The view John Donne held of Shakespeare.
The other horn of the Unicorn.
The fabled Irish bird that lights on two trees at once.
The child I never had.



Pienso en las cosas que pudieron ser y no fueron.
El tratado de mitología sajona que Beda no escribió.
La obra inconcebible que a Dante le fue dada acaso entrever,
Ya corregido el último verso de la Comedia.
La historia sin la tarde de la Cruz y la tarde de la cicuta.
La historia sin el rostro de Helena.
El hombre sin los ojos, que nos han deparado la luna.
En las tres jornadas de Gettysburg la victoria del Sur.
El amor que no compartimos.
El dilatado imperio que los Vikings no quisieron fundar.
El orbe sin la rueda o sin la rosa.
El juicio de John Donne sobre Shakespeare.
El otro cuerno del Unicornio.
El ave fabulosa de Irlanda, que está en dos lugares a un tiempo.
El hijo que no tuve.

ars poetica - jorge luis borges

Ars Poetica
by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. W.S. Merwin)

To look at the river made of time and water
And remember that time is another river,
To know that we are lost like the river
And that faces dissolve like water.

To be aware that waking dreams it is not asleep
While it is another dream, and that the death
That our flesh goes in fear of is that death
Which comes every night and is called sleep.

To see in the day or in the year a symbol
Of the days of man and of his years,
To transmute the outrage of the years
Into a music, a murmur of voices, and a symbol,

To see in death sleep, and in the sunset
A sad gold—such is poetry,
Which is immortal and poor. Poetry
returns like the dawn and the sunset.

At times in the evenings a face
Looks at us out of the depths of a mirror;
Art should be like that mirror
Which reveals to us our own face.

They say that Ulysses, sated with marvels,
Wept tears of love at the sight of his Ithaca,
Green and humble. Art is that Ithaca
Of green eternity, not of marvels.

It is also like the river with no end
That flows and remains and is the mirror of one same
Inconstant Heraclitus, who is the same
And is another, like the river with no end.



Arte Poética

Mirar el río hecho de tiempo y agua
Y recordar que el tiempo es otro río,
Saber que nos perdemos como el río
Y que los rostros pasan como el agua.

Sentir que la vigilia es otro sueño
Que sueña no soñar y que la muerte
Que teme nuestra carne es esa muerte
De cada noche, que se llama sueño.

Ver en el día o en el año un símbolo
De los días del hombre y de sus años,
Convertir el ultraje de los años
En una música, un rumor y un símbolo,

Ver en la muerte el sueño, en el ocaso
Un triste oro, tal es la poesía
Que es inmortal y pobre. La poesía
Vuelve como la aurora y el ocaso.

A veces en las tardes una cara
Nos mira desde el fondo de un espejo;
El arte debe ser como ese espejo
Que nos revela nuestra propia cara.

Cuentan que Ulises, harto de prodigios,
Lloró de amor al divisar su Itaca
Verde y humilde. El arte es esa Itaca
De verde eternidad, no de prodigios.

También es como el río interminable
Que pasa y queda y es cristal de un mismo
Heráclito inconstante, que es el mismo
Y es otro, como el río interminable.

the suicide - jorge luis borges

The Suicide
by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. Alastair Reid)

Not a single star will be left in the night.

The night will not be left.

I will die and, with me,

the weight of the intolerable universe.

I shall erase the pyramids, the medallions,

the continents and faces.

I shall erase the accumulated past.

I shall make dust of history, dust of dust.

Now I am looking on the final sunset.

I am hearing the last bird.

I bequeath nothingness to no one.

the watcher - jorge luis borges

The Watcher
by Jorge Luis Borges (tr. Alastair Reid)


The light enters and I remember who I am; he is there.

He begins by telling me his name which (it should now be

      clear) is mine.

I revert to the servitude which has lasted more than seven

     times ten years.

He saddles me with his rememberings.

He saddles me with the miseries of every day, the human

     condition.

I am his old nurse; he requires me to wash his feet.

He spies on me in mirrors, in mahogany, in shop windows.

One or another woman has rejected him, and I must share

     his anguish.

He dictates to me now this poem, which I do not like.

He insists I apprentice myself tentatively to the stubborn

     Anglo-Saxon.

He has won me over to the hero worship of dead soldiers,

     people with whom I could scarcely exchange a single

     word.

On the last flight of stairs, I feel him at my side.

He is in my footsteps, in my voice.

Down to the last detail, I abhor him.

I am gratified to remark that he can hardly see.

I am in a circular cell and the infinite wall is closing in.

Neither of the two deceives the other, but we both lie.

We know each other too well, inseparable brother.

You drink the water from my cup and you wolf down my

     bread.

The door to suicide is open, but theologians assert that, in the

     subsequent shadows of the other kingdom, there will I

     be, waiting for myself.