RAUL BOPP
1898-1984
Raised in the south of Brazil, trained as a lawyer in Recife and Rio, and seasoned as a diplomat in Japan and the United States, Raul Bopp found his true subject in Manaus, where he discovered what he insisted was the authentic Brazil. Bopp brought to the early Modernist movement in Brazil a fascination with the folklore, Indian languages, and culture of the vast hinterland of the Amazon basin. As a contributor to the magazine Revista de Antropofagia (Anthropophagical Review) in the 1920s and 1930s, Bopp defined the concerns of what he called the "Cannibalist school" of poetry.
"Anthropophagical" in their appropriative and assimilative relation to European experimental writing, the theories of Bopp and Oswald de Andrade further associated them with the tenets of the cosmopolitan/indigenist "Verde e Amarelo" writers, who took their name ("The Green and Yellow") from the colors of the Brazilian flag.
His long poem Cobra Norato (The Snake Norato or, as translated by Renato Rezende, Black Snake) was written in 1928 and published in its first version in 1931. In it Bopp embodies his primitivist, mystical sense of the life of Brazil's interior, whose energy he and the other "Cannibalists" proposed as an alternative to the compromising forces of modern urban life. Skeptical, impressionistic, rhythmically complex, and erotically playful, the poem moves at times like a dream or a fairy tale. Its politics, however, are humanitarian and ecologically alert to the dangers o fexploiting the rain forest and its indigenous cultures. In later editions, Bopp softened the bluntness and difficulty of the poem's diction, making the tone less austerely visionary and more tender. In his later poems, in his criticism, and in his several volumes of memoirs, Bopp continued his Modernist advocacy of Amazonian and Afro-Brazilian folklore as sources of energy and psychic survival.
TEXT IN PORTUGUESE & ENGLISH
Cobra Norato / Black Snake
II
Começa agora a floresta cifrada.
A sombra escondeu as árvores.
Sapos beiçudos espiam no escuro.
Aqui um pedaço de mato está de castigo.
Arvorezinhas acocoram-se no charco.
Um fio de água atrasada lambe a lama.
—Eu quero é ver a filha da rainha Luzia.
Agora são os rios afogados
bebendo o caminho.
A água vai chorando afundando afundando.
Lá adiante
a areia guardou os rastos da filha da rainha Luzia!
—Agora sim
vou ver a filha da rainha Luzia.
Mas antes tem que passar por sete portas
Ver sete mulheres brancas de ventres despovoados
guardadas por um jacaré.
—Eu só quero a filha da rainha Luzia.
Tem que entregar a sombra para o Bicho do Fundo.
Tem que fazer mironga na lua nova.
Tem que beber três gotas de sangue.
—Ah só se for da filha da rainha Luzia!
A selva imensa está com insônia.
Bocejam árvores sonolentas.
Ai que a noite secou. A água do rio se quebrou
Tenho que ir-me embora.
Me sumo sem rumo no fundo do mato
onde as velhas árvores grávidas cochilam.
De todos os lados me chamam:
—Onde vais, Cobra Norato?
Tenho aqui três arvorezinhas jovens à tua espera.
—Não posso.
Eu hoje vou dormir com a filha da rainha Luzia.
II
Begins here, the ciphered forest.
The shade is hiding the trees.
Blubber-lipped frogs spy in the dark.
Here a piece of the forest is being punished.
Little trees squat in the pond.
A hurried stream licks the mud.
—I want to see Queen Luzía's daughter!
Now drowned rivers
drink the road.
The water goes crying, sinking and sinking.
Far ahead
the sand held the tracks of Queen Luzia's daughter.
—Yes, now
I will see Queen Luzia's daughter!
But first you must pass through seven doors.
See seven white women with empty wombs, watched
over by a crocodile.
—I just want to see Queen Luzía's daughter.
First you must give your shadow to the Bottomless Being.
Accomplish extraordinary deeds under the rising moon.
Drink three drops of blood.
—Only if it's the blood
of Queen Luzia's daughter!
The immense forest suffers insomnia.
Sleepy trees are now yawning.
The night is all dried up. The river waters are broken.
I have to go.
I vanish into the ancient forest
where pregnant trees are napping.
From everywhere they call me:
—Where are you going, Cobra Norato?
Here we have three young saplings, awaiting you.
—I can't.
Tonight I will sleep with Queen Luzia's daughter.
IV
Esta é a floresta de hálito podre,
parindo cobras.
Rios magros obrigados a trabalhar.
A correnteza se arrepia nos remoinhos
descascando as margens gosmentas.
Raízes desdentadas mastigam lodo
Num estirão alagado
o charco engole a água do igarapé.
Fede.
O vento mudou de lugar
Um assobio assusta as árvores.
Silêncio se machucou
Cai lá adiante um pedaço de pau seco:
pum.
Um berro avulso atravessa a floresta
Chegam vozes.
O rio se engasgou num barranco
Espia-me um sapo sapo sapo
Por aqui há cheiro de gente
—Quem é você?
—Sou a Cobra Norato
Vou me amaziar a filha da rainha Luzia.
IV
This is the rotten-breathed forest
giving birth to cobras.
Meager rivers are forced to work.
The running water shivers in the sworls
husking the slimy banks.
Toothless roots masticate mud.
In a swampy stretch of road
the pond swallows the igarapé's water.
Srinks.
The wind has moved out.
A hiss frightens the trees.
The silence was hurt.
Far ahead a dry branch falis:
poom.
A detached howl cresses the forest
Voices arrive.
The river choked itself in a ditch
Frogs spy on me
There is a human scent around here.
—Who are you?
I'm Cobra Norato
Today I will enjoy Queen Luzia's daughter.
VI
Passo nas beiras de um encharcadiço
lambido pelas enxurradas.
Um plasma visguento se descostura
e alaga as margens rasas debruadas de lama.
Vou furando paredões moles.
Caio num fundo escuro de floresta
inchada alarmada mal-assombrada.
Ouvem-se apitos, um bate-que-bate
Estão soldando serrando serrando
Parece que fabricam terra...
Ué! Estão mesmo fabricando terra.
Chiam longos tanques de lôdo-pacoema
Os velhos andaimes podres se derretem
Lameiros se emendam
Mato amontoado derrama-se no chão.
Correm vozes em desordem.
Berram: Não pode!
—Será comigo?
Passo por baixo de arcadas folhadas
que respiram um ar úmido.
A floresta trabalha
Espalha planta pêlos estirões de terra fresca
Arbustos incógnitos perguntam:
—Já será dia?
Manchas de luz abrem buracos nas copas altas
Árvores-comadres
passaram a noite tecendo folhas em segredo.
VI
I pass the swamp borders
being licked by the torrents.
A viscous plasma rips open,
overflowing the shallow waters with mud.
I thread my way through soft walls.
I fall into a dark bottom of the forest—
it's swollen it's alarmed it's haunted.
Whistles sound, a beat sounds
Something drills and saws and saws
Sounds like a mud factory.
Oh! It really is a mud factory.
Long wide pacoema-slime ponds squeak
The old rotten scaffold melts.
Marshes meet and melt together
Branches and leaves scatter on the ground.
Voices in confusion running
ïHowling:"It can't be!"
—Are they talking to me?
I pass under a tufted arch
that exhales a wet breath.
The forest is working
spreading vegetation over new earth.
Unknown bushes are asking:
—Is it day already?
The light opens holes in the high tree-tops.
Comrade-trees
spent the night secretly weaving leaves.
A wind a little wind — blew, tickiing the branches
Undid undephered writings.
XI
Acordo.
A lua nasceu com olheiras.
O silêncio dói dentro do mato.
Abriram-se as estrelas.
As águas grandes encolheram-se com sono.
A noite cansada parou
Ai compadre!
Tenho vontade de ouvir uma música mole
que se estire por dentro do sangue:
música com gosto de lua
e do corpo da filha da rainha Luzia;
que me faça ouvir de novo
a conversa dos rios
que trazem as queixas do caminho
e vozes que vem de longe
surradas de ai ai ai
Atravessei o Treme-treme
Passei na casa do Minhocão.
Deixei minha sombra para o Bicho-do-Fundo
só por causa da filha da rainha Luzia
Levei puçanga de cheiro
e casca de tinhorão
fanfan com folhas de trevo
e raiz de mucura-cáa.
Mas nada deu certo...
Ando com uma jurumenha
que faz um doizinho na gente
e morde o sangue devagarinho.
Ai compadre.
Não faça barulho
que a filha da
rainha Luzia
talvez ainda esteja dormindo.
Ai onde andará
que eu quero somente
ver os seus olhos molhados de verde
seu corpo alongado de canarana.
Talvez ande longe...
E eu virei vira-mundo
para ter um querzinho
de apertar o corpo de pele de flor
da filha da
rainha Luzia
Ai não faça barulho...
XI
I wake up.
The moon rose with bags under its eyes,
The silence hurts within the forest.
The stars are clean.
The great waters shrank while sleeping.
The tired night has stopped.
Oh, my friend!
I feel like listening to soft music—
that stretches itself within my blood:
a music that tastes like the moon
and like Queen Luzia's daughter's body;
and that makes me hear again
the conversations of the rivers—
which bring the lamentations of the journey
and voices that carne from far away
swollen with sobbings
I crossed the Shaken-lands
I stopped at the Big Worm's house.
I left my shadow with the Bottomless Being
only for Queen Luzia's daughter
I brought scented potions
and tinhorâo-tree bark
a bunch of clover-leaves
and mucura-cá roots.
But nothing worked out...
I go with such a sadness—
that slowly hurts a little
and bites the blood tenderly.
Oh, my friend.
Do not make noise
because maybe
the daughter of Queen Luzia
is still sleeping.
Oh, where would she be
for I only want to see
her eyes wet with green
her body—slim—like sugar-cane.
Maybe she is far away...
And I became a vagabond,
a world-traveller, wishing
to squeeze the body made of skin of flower
of the daughter
of Queen Luzia.
Oh, do not make noise...
XV
Céu muito azul.
Garcinha branca voou voou...
Pensou que o lago era lá em cima.
Pesa um mormaço. Dói a luz nos olhos.
Sol parece um espelhinho.
Vozes se dissolvem:
Passarão sozinho risca a paisagem bojuda.
XV
Sky very blue.
White little heron flew and flew...
It thought the lake was way above.
Heavy dampness. Light hurting the eyes.
The sun seems like a little mirror.
Dissolving voices:
A lone enormous bird crosses the pregnant horizon.
trans. Renato Rezende
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.
DAUGHTER OF THE JUNGLE
The forests raise hairy arms to hide you,
Jealous of the sun,
And your sad flesh burgeoned in breasts.
New-come from the warm depths of the jungle.
In your eyes is the darkness of Amazonian nights.
And in the tropical languor of your body
Sleeps the shadow of the Southern Cross!
At night the jungle wakes in your blood
Dreams of long-lost tribes,
— Daughter of nameless races crossed in wholesale adultery.
And you wander thus, with nuptial step, to the banks of the river,
The heritage bequeathed to you by your ancestors.
And in the solitude you give yourself, sinuous and
languid, to the plastic water,
Naked as a forest flower,
Beneath the curious gaze of the stars.
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