Retrato do poeta Mario de Andrade,
pintura a óleo de Cândido Portinari, 1935
MÁRIO DE ANDRADE
(1893-1945)
MARIO Raúl DE MorAis ANDRADE (1893-1945) was possibly the most influential poet of his generation. He wrote a great number of essays on literature, art, music, and Brazilian folk-
lore. His book of poems Paulicéia Desvairada {Hallucinated City), published in 1922, marks a break with the Parnassian School, and he was one of the organizers of the Modern Art Week. His núvel Macunaima was recently made into a film by a leading
young Brazilian film-director.
Translated , with the help of Yolanda Leite,
by JOHN NIST
MODERN BRAZILIAN POETRY, AN ANTHOLOGY
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1962
IMPROMPTU OF THE DEAD BOY
Dead, the rests sweetly among the flowers in his coffin.
There are such moments when we living
This life of interests and struggles
Grow tired of plucking desires and worries.
Then we stop a moment, leave the murmur of the body,
The lost head ceases to imagine,
And oblivion comes sweetly.
Who then can enjoy the roses around him?
The beautiful sight that the car cuts through?
The thought that makes him a hero?...
The body is a veil upon the furniture<
A gesture that stopped in the middle of the road,
A gesture we have forgotten.
Dead, he sweetly forgets among the flowers in his coffin.
He doesn´t seem to sleep, nor do I say the dreams happily;
he is dead.
In a moment of life the spirit forgot and stopped.
Suddenly he was frightened by the noise of tears,
Perhaps he felt a great frustration
For having left life while so strong and so young.
He felt spite and did not move any more.
And how he will not move any more.
Go away! go away, dead boy!
Oh, go away: I do not know you any more.
Do not return at night to flash on my destiny
The light of your presence and your desire to think!
Do not offer me again your courageous hope,
Nor ask of me the shape of the Earth for your dreams!
The universe bellows with grief at the flaming of fires,
The terrified alarms cross in the air,
And my peace is enormous and unbearable!
My tears fall upon you and you are like a broken Sun.
What freedom in your obilivion!
What firm independence in your death!
Oh, go away: I do not know you any more!
ASPIRATION
The sweetness of poverty like this…
To lose everything your, even the egoism of being,
So poor that you can only belong to the crowd…
I gave away everything mine, I spent all my being,
And I possess only what in me is common to all..
The sweetness of poverty like this…
I am not lonely any more, I am dissolved among equal men!
I have walked. Long my way
The emphatic mark of my steps
Remained on ground wet with morning dew.
Then the Sun ascended, heat vibrated in the air
In golden particles of light and warm breath.
The ground burned and hardened.
The mark of my feet is now invisible…
But the Earth remains, the tenderly dumb Earth,
And growing, grieving, dying in Earth,
The always equal men remain…
And I feel larger, equalizing myself to the equal men!...
VARIATION ON THE BAD FRIEND
At least, we are no longer friends.
You walk easily, lightly,
In the labyrinth of complications.
What subtlety! what dancing grace!...
It is true that there always remains
Some dust from your wings
On the branches, on the thorns,
Even on the blossoms of that wood…
And I also noticed several times
That your wings are ragged at the edges…
But the essential thing, the important thing,
Is that despite the raggedness you can still fly.
I am not like that.
I am heavy, I am rather clumsy,
I have no wings and not much breeding.
I need a broad and straight road.
If I lack space, I break everything,
I get hurt, I get tired… I finally fall.
In the middle of the wood I stop, unable to go on.
I cannot stand it any longer.
You… you may still call me a friend…
Although you lose a bit of your wing,
You sit on my thorn bush and can still fly.
Yet I, I suffer it is true,
But I am no longer your friend.
You are friend of the sea, you are friend of the river…
THE MOUNTAINS FO ROLLING-GIRL
The Mountains of Rolling-Girl
Had not that name before…
They were from the other side,
They rode to town to marry.
And they crossed the mountains,
The bridegroom with the bride,
Each one on a horse.
Both of them were happy,
In the heavens all was peace.
Along the narrow trails
He rode ahead and she behind.
And they laughed. O how they laughed!
They laughed for no reason at all.
The Mountains of Rolling-Girl
Had not that name before.
The red tribes of evening
Rapidly rode away
And hurriedly hid themselves
Down down in the caves,
Afraid of the coming night.
But both of them continued,
Each one on a horse,
And they laughed. O wow hey laughed!
And their laughter married
With laughter of the pebbles
Which leaped so lightly
From the narrow path
Towards the precipice.
Ah, Fortune inviolate!
One hoof has stepped in error.
The bride and her horse vaulted
Headlong down the chasm.
Not even the thud was heard.
There is only the silence of death.
In the heavens all was peace…
Spurring and whipping his horse,
The bridegroom vaulted headlong
Into the void of the chasm.
And the mountains of Rolling-Girl
Rolling-Girl were named.
MOMENT
The wind cuts everything in two.
Only a wish for neatness binds the world…
There is sun. There was rain. And the wind
Scatters trombones of cloud in the blue.
Nobody can be whole in the city.
The doves cling to skyscrapers, it rains.
It is cold. It is heartache… It is this violent wind
That bursts from the caves of human earth
Demanding sky, peace, and a touch of spring.
STREETS OF MY SÃO PAULO
Streets of my São Paulo:
Where is the living love,
Where is it?
Roads of my city:
I run after my friend,
Where is he?
Streets of my São Paulo:
Love greater than food,
Where is it?
Roads of my city:
An answer to my request,
Where is it?
Streets of my São Paulo:
The fault of the restless one,
Where is it?
It must be in the past:
In the damned centuries,
There it is.
THE MAN WHO WALKS ALL ALONE
That man who walks all alone
Along those squares, those streets,
Ha in himself an enormous secret.
He is a man.
That woman like all the others
Along those squares, those streets<
Has in herself a cruel surprise.
She is a woman.
The woman meets the man,
They smile and hold hands,
The surprise and the secret expand
Violently.
But the shadow of the restless one
Guards that mystery in the dark.
Death watches with her scythe.
Verily, it is night.
SONG OF THE CORNER
A little before noon
I felt she was coming. I waited.
She came. She passed. I was as though
The Moon had passed
Along this strange path
I have walked since birth.
The all-green belljar
Of my breast darkened.
Night of kindhearted May.
There goes the Moon passing by.
There is indeed a refraction
That winds round my neck
The scarf of the Milky Way
And the Moon over my hand.
Bur when I seek to enjoy
The beautiful touch of moonlight,
And stroke with my hand my fingers…
I have to admit my delusion.
It was the lie of the senses,
It was the dew. Nothing more.
It came. I passed. It was as though
The Moon…
I sigh and am a child again.
— What do you want, Mario? — Mother,
I want the Moon! — Impossible today,
She has already gone. Be patient,
I will give you the Moon tomorrow.
And I wait. You wait… He waits…\
Oh, beans!
MOMENT
Somewhere near, a rose-tree must be blooming,
I don´t know… I feel in myself a harmony,
Some of the disinterest that fatigue brings.
I look at my hands. And a dangerous tenderness
Makes me touch them with my lips, lightly,
(It must be some rose…)
Tenderness that is no longer dangerous, no, patient pity.
The roses… The millions of roses from São Paulo…
I have so often seen my hands work,
And strike in fun the back of a friend,
Give themselves to enemies, and pick up money
from the ground…
Once my fingers rested on two lips,
And I wished I were blind at that moment!
She did not kiss my finger tips,
She kissed my hands, with passion, in submission…
She kissed the dust of my hands…
The same dust that drifts on the rose as it opens.
Somewhere near, a rose-tree must be blooming…
What harmony in me… How like a garden…
My body is healthy… My soul went away..
And left me.
RONDEAU FOR YOU
To Couto de Barros (1924)
From you, Rose, I do not like
To accept only this slow hug
That you this moist kiss
That you give me…
I do not for a single reason:
From everything you tell me
I see that in your breast
Sobs the well-made heart
of you.
And then I imagine
That together with the slender body
The dark little body
That you give me
Together with your loveliness
The maddening charm and laughter
That you give me
It would be something if I too owned
What hides behind your face, Rose:
The thought, the soul, the grief
of you.
From POEMAS OF THE WOMAN FRIEND
I
The sun was setting in my eyes
And the flight of the hour surrendered me April,
A familiar taste of goodbye nourished
An air and, I don´t know why, I saw you.
I turned me into a flower. But it was scarcely
your memory.
You were away, sweet friend; and I saw only
in the profile of the city
The strong archangel of a pink skyscraper
Beating his blue wings against the twilight.
II
Maybe if we had kissed one time only…
Yesterday you were so beautiful
That my body drew near.
I know it was a brook and two hours of thirst,
I bent down, |I did not drink.
But I have remained the same until now,
Watching four or five yellow butterflies,
Ordinary ones, floricking in air.
I hear a sound…
III
Now it is April, oh my sweet friend,
You leaned over me, like the truth,
I tried to turn and I fixed my face to your body.
We mastered ourselves and put everything in its place.
The sky resumed its position over the earth,
The orange trees all stood up
And in them we made the first sabiá sing.
But the landscape soon went away
Slamming the door, terribly scandalized.
THE GIRL AND THE GOAT
The girl fights to pull the goat,
Totally terrified, sliding on the pavement
Among the bells of the streetcars
And the speed of the dusty automobiles.
…A whole herd of goats…
The goats graze on the mid-day grass…
And in the dead solitude of the mountain
Not a single sound of a car horn.
Ugly dog with big eyes hidden in his hair,
Near he stones moved by the little lizards,
Where the hot sun flounders in the troubled water,
Fixes his teeth in the golden cheese
Licias, the herdsman.
 |
AN INTRODUCTION TO MODERN BRAZILIAN POETRY. Verse translations by Leonard S. Downes. [São Paulo]: Clube de Poesia do Brasil, 1954. 84 p. 14x20 cm. “ Leonard S. Downes “ Ex. Biblioteca Nacional de Brasília.
MOTHER
Mothers have existed,
And this is quite a problem.
For, so they say, one´s mother
Upsets all sorts of things;
´Tis true she takes on her
Our sins and our mistakes
And it would be much better
If there weren´t any mothers.
However that may be,
When one is finding life
Most difficult, most live,
There´s no one like a mother.
For putting up with us,
Letting us hide our face
In her familiar lap.
“What is the matter, son?”
Of course she knows all right
And yet she asks her question
Pretending she doesn´t know.
Who tell her all sorts of lies,
Which she affects to believe,
And so your sorrow becomes
A mystery between you two.
Do you not see that no lover
Nor other woman alive
Ever sill understand
The truth that we confess
Behind the screen of lies!
Really only a mother…
Really only that lady
Who even while she is holding
Her son´s hot, angry face
Lovingly to her breast,
Pressing against her body,
While smelling his personal odour
Yet still remains a virgin
As does her son as well…
O virgins, give yourselves,
That you may have the right
To that virginity
Which only mothers have!
MOTHER
My life is one to-day, ´tis clear to see,
Of happiness unrelieved: I cannot say
If I enjoy it, since enjoyment may
Only be judged by pain and misery.
I know that all´s illusion, vanity,
But still I choose Illusion… Still dare say
Life is the precious boon which everyday
I have adored. This was my sin. ´Twould be
Unthinkable, with age alone to spend,
With self complete and able to take breath,
To cling to this umprofitable strife.
I pin my every hope upon my end.
Come, sleep! I hope that I may welcome death
As gullibly as I have welcome life.
THE OXFORD BOOK OF LATIN AMERICAN POETRY: a bilingual anthology edited by Cecilia Vicuña and Ernesto Livon-Grosman. Agawam. MA, USA: Oxford University Press, 2009. 561 p. 16x24,5 cm. Contracapa, capa dura. ISBN 978-0-19-512454-5
Inclui os poetas brasileiros: Gregório de Matos, Antonio Gonçalves Dias, Manuel Antonio Alvares de Azevedo, Sousândrade, Antonio de Castro Alves, João da Cruz e Sousa, Olavo Bilac, Augusto dos Anjos, Pedro Kilkerry, Manuel Bandeira, Oswald de Andrade, Mário de Andrade, Raul Bopp, Cecilia Meireles, Carlos Drummond de
Andrade, Apolônio Alves dos Santos, Décio Pignatari, Haroldo de Campos, Augusto de Campos, Paulo Leminski. Ex. bibl. Antonio Miranda.
Mario de Andrade (1893-1945, Brazil)
De Andrade was the leader of the avant-garde movement that was pivotal in shap¬ing Brazil's position on modernism. While serving as the director of the Institute of Arts at the University of the Federal District and working with the Ministry of Educa¬tion and Culture in Rio de Janeiro, he continued to publish the poetry, short stories, novels, and essays that brought him fame as a modernist. He died in Sao Paulo. PRINCIPAL WORKS: Paulicela desvariada (1922), Primeiro andar (1926), Cla do jabuti (1927), Macunafma (1928)
Inspiration / Inspiração
Jack E. Tomlins, trans
São Paulo! tumult of my life . . .
My loves are flowers made from the original. . .
Harlequinate! . . . Diamond tights . . . Gray and gold . . .
Light and mist. . . . Over and warm winter . . .
Subtle refinements without scandals; without jealousy . . .
Perfumes from Paris . . . Arys!
Lyrical slaps in the Trianon . . . Cotton field! . . .
São Paulo! tumult of my life . . .
Gallicism crying in the wilderness of America!
São Paulo! comoção de minha vida . . . / Os meus amores são flores feitas de original! . . . / Arlequinal! . . . Trajes de losangos . . . Cinza e ouro . . . / Luz e bruma . . . Forno e inverno morno . . . / Elegâncias sutis sem escândalos, sem ciúmes . . . / Perfumes de Paris . . . Arys!/ Bofetadas líricas no Trianon . . Algodoal! . . . // São Paulo! comoção de minha vida . . . / Galicismo a berrar nos desertos da América
Nocturne / Nocturno
Jack E. Tomlins, trans
Lights from the Cambuci district on nights of crime . . .
Hot weather! . . . And the lowering thick clouds,
made from the bodies of moths,
rustling on the epidermis of the trees. . .
The trolleys swish like a skyrocket,
clicking their heels on the tracks,
spitting out an orifice into the whitewashed gloom . . .
In a perfume of heliotropes and puddles
whirls a flower-of-evil. . . She came from Turkestan;
and she has circles under her eyes that obscure souls . . .
She has smelted English pounds between her purple fingernails
in the bordellos of Ribeirão Preto ...
Get-a you roast-a yams! . . .
Lights from Cambuci on nights of crime . . .
Hot weather! . . . And the lowering thick clouds,
made from the bodies of moths,
rustling on the epidermis of the trees . . .
A golden mulatto
with hair like lustrous wedding rings . . .
Guitar! "When I die ..." A heady scent of vanilla
pivots, falls, and rolls on the ground . . .
In the air undulates the nostalgia of the Bahias.
And the trolleys pass like a skyrocket,
clicking their heels on the tracks,
wounding an orifice in the whitewashed gloom ...
Get-a you roast-a yams! . . .
Hot weather! . . . Devils in the air
bodies of naked girls carrying . . .
The lassitude of the unforeseen forevers!
and souls awakening to the hands of embracing lovers!
Idyls under the plantain trees! . . .
And the universal jealousy with magnificent fanfares
in pink skirts and pink neckties! . . .
Balconies in the pulsating caution, where Iracemas blossom
for rendezvous with white warriors . . . White?
So let the dogs bark in the gardens!
No one, no one, no one cares!
They all embark on the Promenade of the Kisses of Adventure!
But I . . . Behind these garden fences of mine with pinwheels of
jasmine,
remain while the alley ways of Cambuci in the free
of the freedom of parted lips! . . .
Harlequinate! Harlequinate!
The lowering thick clouds,
made from the bodies of moths,
rustling on the epidermis of the trees . . .
But on these my garden fences with pinwheels of jasmine,
the stars grow delirious in carnages of light,
and my sky is all a skyrocket of tears! . . .
And the trolleys trace like fireworks,
clicking their heels on the tracks,
jetting an orifice into the whitewashed gloom . . .
Get-a you roast-a yams! . . .
Luzes do Cambuci pelas noites de crime . . . / Calor! ... E as nuvens baixas muito grossas,/ Feitas de corpos de mariposas,/ Rumorejando na epiderme das árvores . . . // Gingam os bondes como um fogo de artifício./ Sapateando nos trilhos,/ Cuspindo um orifício na treva cor de cal. . . / Num perfume de heliotrópios e de poças/ Gira uma flor-do-mal . . . Veio do Turquestã;/ E traz olheiras que escurecem almas . . . / Fundiu esterlinas entre as unhas roxas/ Nos oscilantes de Ribeirão Preto . . . // —Batafassa`ô furnn! . . . // Luzes do Cambuci pelas noites de crime! . . . / Calor . . . E as nuvens baixas muito grossas,/ Feitas de corpos de mariposas,/ Rumorejando na epiderme das árvores . . . // Um mulato cor de ouro,/ Com uma cabeleira feita de alianças polidas . . . / Violão! "Quando eu morrer ..." Um cheiro pesado de/ baunilhas/ Oscila, tomba e rola no chão . . . / Ondula no ar a nostalgia das Baías. . . // E os bondes passam como um fogo de artifício,/ Sapateando nos trilhos,/ Ferindo um orifício na treva cor de cal . . . // —Batat'assat'ô furnn! . . . // Calor! ... Os diabos andam no ar/ Corpos de nuas carregando . . . / As lassitudes dos sempres imprevistos!/ E as almas acordando às mãos dos enlaçados!/ Idílios sob os plátanos! . . . / E o ciúme universal às fanfarras gloriosas/ De saias cor-de-rosa e gravatas cor-de-rosa! . . . // Balcões na cautela latejante, onde florem Iracemas/ Para os encontros dos guerreiros brancos . . . Brancos?/ E que os cães latam nos jardins!/ Ninguém, ninguém, ninguém se importa!/ Todos embarcam na Alameda dos Beijos da Aventura!/ Mas eu . . . Estas minhas grades em girândolas de jasmins,/ Enquanto as travessas do Cambuci nos livres/ Da liberdade dos lábios entreabertos! . . . // Arlequinal! Arleguinal!/ As nuvens baixas muito grossas,/ Feitas de corpos de mariposas,/ Rumorejando na epiderme das árvores . . . / Mas sobre estas minhas grades em girândolas de jasmins,/ O estelário delira em carnagens de luz,/ E meu céu é todo um rojão de lágrimas! . . . // E os bondes riscam como um fogo de artifício,/ Sapateando nos trilhos,/ Jorrando um orifício na treva cor de cal . . . // —Batat'assat'ô furnn! . . .
Extraído de
POESIA SEMPRE. Ano 1 – Número 2 – Julho 1993. Rio de Janeiro: Fundação Biblioteca Nacional / Ministério da Cultura – Departamento Nacional do Livro. ISSN 0104-0626m Ex. bibl. Antonio Miranda
Improvisation of the dead boy
Dead, gently he lies on the flowers of the coffin.
There are times like this when people living
This life of self-interest and fierce struggles
Tire of the ingathering of desires and worries.
They stop for a moment, cast aside the commotion of the body,
The confused mind ceases to imagine
As oblivion slowly comes.
Who then enjoys the roses surrounding him?
The good view cut off by the automobile?
The thought that makes a hero of him?
The body is like a veil thrown over a piece of furniture,
A gesture that stopped in the middle of the road,
A gesture people forgot.
Dead, gently he forgets himself on the flowers of the coffin.
It seems not that he sleeps, nor dreams happily, he is dead.
In a moment of life spirit forgot itself, and stopped.
Suddenly he was afraid of the fanfare of crying,
Felt some immemorial cheat
At casting life aside while strong and young,
A deep resentment, and he did not move again.
And now he will never move again.
"Depart! Depart, dead boy!
Depart, for I no longer know you!
Do not return nightly to beget upon my destiny
The flare of your being and your desire to think!
Do not come again to offer me your courageous hope,
Nor ask me for your dreams, the confirmation of earth!
The universe bellows with pain in the lightnings of fires,
Anxieties, alarmed, meet and pass in the air,
Enormous, unbearable, my peace!
My tears fall on you and you are like a broken sun!
What liberty in your oblivion!
What firmness of independence in your death!
Oh, depart, for I no longer know you!"
Translated by Richard Eberhart
Página publicada em janeiro de 2008; ampliada e republicada em agosto de 2015.
Ampliada em agosto de 2018.Ampliada em novembro de 2018
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