Hide and Seek
My dears, once I will play
With you, of something strange at sight.
Your Father doesn’t know when is that day
But definitely, once we will play,
Once, maybe, after the twilight.
It’s of elders’ a cunning game
With children, like you, with girls with frocks
Game of servants and of masters, the same,
Game of birds, of flowers, of dogs
Which everyone plays to aim.
We will always love each other, agreed
Happy around the table skimp,
Under God’s roof kneed.
One day the leg will be limp,
The hand uncertain, tired the eye, the tongue grimp.
The game starts slowly, like a wind,
I will laugh and silent I’ll be
On the ground I will lie with descend
I will stay saying no thing,
For example, near a tree.
It is of Holy Scriptures game discrete.
This is how our Lord Jesus Christ played
And others, caught in the cold and heat,
With a few of holy tremors beat
They finished the game, beautifully obeyed.
Do not grieve too much overall
When they will take me far away
And will make me a kind of funeral
In the loose or hard clay.
That’s the game, starts with death, of all.
Knowing that also Lazarus rose at call
You do not worry but wait,
As if nothing happened at all
Nothing too new and too big or small.
There, I’ll think of our game, with my fate.
Father knew in his care how to keep
He left you cattle, barns, all
Pastures, huts and sheep,
For all kind of needs in deep
And food, for the long haul.
Everyone will rise, everyone will return
Home, to the kids, one blessed day
To the wife, who cries, spins yarn
To the cows, to the sheep, to discern
Like all people thrifty, alive, gay.
You grow up healthy, my dear ones,
Strong, joyful, always with smile,
How it was meant by my elders once.
For now, my beloved sons
Father will be missing for a while.
Then there will be a delay,
Another one, and then another.
Father will no longer find the way
To walk back, as you would pray
From one world to the other.
And you grew up, went far
You did something with your life track
Some of you have become scholar,
Mother knits stockings and coat ajar
And Father did not come back…
My babies, my darlings, my plea!
This is the game.
You play it in two, in three,
You play it in as many could be.
May it burn in flame!
.
De-a v-ati ascuns…
Dragii mei, o sa ma joc odata
Cu voi, de-a ceva ciudat.
Nu stiu cand o sa fie asta, tata,
Dar, hotarat, o sa ne jucam odata,
Odata, poate, dupa scapatat.
E un joc viclean de batrani
Cu copii, ca voi, cu fetite ca tine,
Joc de slugi si joc de stapani,
Joc de pasari, de flori, de cani,
Si fiecare il joaca bine.
Ne vom iubi, negresit, mereu
Stransi bucurosi la masa,
Subt coviltirele lui Dumnezeu.
Intr-o zi piciorul va ramane greu,
Mana stangace, ochiul sleit, limba scamoasa.
Jocul incepe incet, ca un vant,
Eu o sa rad si o sa tac,
O sa ma culc la pamant.
O sa stau fara cuvant,
De pilda, langa copac.
E jocul sfintelor Scripturi.
Asa s-a jucat si Domnul nostru Isus Hristos
Si altii, prinsi de friguri si de calduri,
Care din cateva sfinte tremuraturi
Au ispravit jocul, frumos.
Voi sa nu va mahniti tare
Cand ma vor lua si duce departe
Si-mi vor face un fel de inmormantare
In lutul afanat sau tare.
Asa e jocul, incepe cu moarte.
Stiind ca si Lazar a-nviat
Voi sa nu va mahniti, s-asteptati,
Ca si cum nu s-a intamplat
Nimic prea nou si prea ciudat.
Acolo, voi gandi la jocul nostru, printre frati.
Tata s-a ingrijit de voi,
V-a lasat vite, hambare,
Pasune, bordeie si oi,
Pentru tot soiul de nevoi
Si pentru mancare.
Toti vor invia, toti se vor intoarce
Intr-o zi acasa, la copii,
La nevasta, care plange si toarce,
La vacute, la mioare,
Ca oamenii gospodari si vii.
Voi cresteti, dragii mei, sanatosi,
Voinici, zglobii, cu voie buna,
Cum am apucat din mosi-stramosi.
Deocamdata, fetii mei frumosi,
O sa lipseasca tata vreo luna.
Apoi, o sa fie o intarziere,
Si alta, si pe urma alta.
Tata nu o sa mai aiba putere
Sa vie pe jos, in timpul cat se cere,
Din lumea ceealalta.
Si, voi ati crescut mari,
V-ati capatuit,
V-ati facut carturari,
Mama-mpleteste ciorapi si pieptari,
Si tata nu a mai venit…
Puii mei, bobocii mei, copiii mei!
Asa este jocul.
.
Poet’s Bio and Translator’s Note
Tudor Arghezi, poet, novelist, journalist, member of the Romanian Academy, is one of the most important writers of Romanian modernism. The “National Poetry Prize” and the “Gottfried von Herder” of the University of Vienna, as well as a nomination for the Nobel Prize for Literature confirm the value of a rich and original work written by the skillful pen of a personality strongly marked by the oscillation between faith and denial, respectively between faith in God and specifically human doubt, which is the issue of his religious poetry.
Arghezian poetry, as it can be seen even from the volume of his late debut, at the age of 47 (Fitting words), configures through “Testament” his poetic belief, according to which the birth of poetry involves the transformation of reality into words through grace, but also through the poet’s craft. Whether it addresses directly to the reader in a testamentary tone:
“After my death upon you I’ll bestow
Only a name on a book, echo,”
(Testament)
or it describes metaphorically the combustion of the creative act, with visible Baudelairean influences on the “aesthetics of foul”:
