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Oktay Rifat

AGAMEMNON I

  • 1 VAZİFE | Translations: en
  • 2 GÜNDÜZE GECEYE ÖZLEM | Translations: ende
  • 3 BAYRAKLARIMI ÇEKTIM | Translations: ende
  • 4 EMİNE | Translations: en
  • 5 FATİH'İN RESMİ | Translations: ende
  • 6 HOMEROS İÇİN | Translations: en
  • 7 AGAMEMNON I | Translations: en
  • 8 ELLERİ VAR ÖZGÜRLÜĞÜN | Translations: ende
Language: turkish
Translations: english (AGAMEMNON I)
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AGAMEMNON I


1

Gemileri sıyırtarak yürüdük, dere içine vardık; birer cıgara sardık eksik ve yamuk parmaklarımızla; tütünle seyrelen zamana çömeldik, taşlara verdik belimizi.
En çabuk eksilme bu! Ya ufalmak azar azar, ya bitmek temelli! Ve sonra yeniden,
Yeniden büyümek, toprağa ve poyraz yeline aykırı! Sincap gibi solumak kuşkuda, en sürekli kuşkuda!
Nemiz varsa dağın ardında. Onlarsa ansızın kalkışında kekliğin, kaçarken durup bakışında kertenkelenin, her delikte, her taşın altında.
Kesici, delici ve yakıcı silahlarını çevirmişler üstümüze, uzun gölgeli kargılarıyla korkak, topları, havanları, obüsleri, bazukaları gibi öldürücü.
Büyümez desek de büyürler! Bize benzer yüzleri. Tanrıları var zırhlar içinde... Işıltılı gözleri en korkuncu!
"Suçumuz ne ki! diye sorduk. Ne ki suçumuz, deyin de bilelim!" Biliriz suçlu olmanın yükünü. Belimiz bu taşla iki büklüm, dişlerimiz bu suyla karardı.
Hasta koğuşlarına düşmekse düşelim, hapis damlarında yatmaksa yatalım, ırgat pazarlarında satılalım, sudan ucuz!
Bakalım tel örgüler ardından, akken yoğurt bakracının bezi, ışıkken en büyük Dam, şipşakçı resim alırken şuna buna!
Kimi gün taşta, kimi gün beton üstünde, bütün kuşlarımız çeker gider, suyumuz tükenir testide akşamüstü;
Bir lokum durur güllü tabakta – Bilinmez ne gibi durur! –, daldaki yemiş emer geceyi bizler için,
Bizler için öyle ya! Agamemnon güler bu işe, Diomedes kılıçlarını kuşanır, ölümsüz destanların konusu olmak için.

Sazları ezerek yürüdük, dere içine vardık; bir cıgara içimiyle belli çağların taşlarına dayadık belimizi.
Biz toprağa çömeliriz – Canım toprak! –, onlarsa ayakta dikilir. Beş parmak bir olmaz! Tanrılardan türemiş onlar, onların konakları şadırvanlı;
Çift anlamlı masalarda oynarlar kanlı pokerlerini, kâğıt düzerler durmadan, kemik fişlerini atarlar sonralara,
Gümüş tastan içerler suyu – Canım su! –, bizlerse avucumuzla. Onların parmakları tırnaksız, bizimkiler kemikli ve işlek,
Kanar ve düşer çürük üvezler gibi, sancır da bütün gece. Kağnılara bineriz uzaklara göçmek için. Gece vakti dağların yolu düz!
Ötse diye bekleriz, seyrek tüylü o evcil kuş; susar amansız, susar uzaktan uzağa dalımızda!

Kesici, delici ve yakıcı silahlarını çevirmişler üstümüze, uzun gölgeli kargılarıyla mutsuz, topları, havanları, obüsleri, bazukaları gibi öldürücü!

Kütükleri budadık, tütünleri tekledik, pamukları çapaladık bakmadan. Bakmamak da olmaz temelli!
Yavrulu geyik gibi karılarımız, burunsuz ve terli; kimi çapada, kimi orakta, ve bir gelincik kanaması ovada içten içe.
Akşam olur, Yıldız doğar hışırtılı, bir titreme alır dağı taşı, davarın yönü gibi ak, anca ona benzer. O "Gel!" dedi mi bırakıp gideceksin, gitmemek olmaz!
Gökkuşakları iki zaman arasında, büyük hortumlar emici, karanlıkla devinen, taşla, toprakla fışkıran gökyüzüne,
Ve donsuz bebeler, kene gibi köy damları, camsız, kiremitsiz, üremez bir dağın yamacında, çaresiz ve kerpiç kendiliğinden.

Categories: mythology

Translations:

Language: english

AGAMEMNON I

Leaving the ships to be scraped we trudged on, and reached a valley; each of us rolled a cigarette with fingers gnarled or missing.
A smoke killed time as we crouched and leant against the rocks.
The quickest way to kill time! It gets less and less or ends for good. Or then again, it expands against the pull of earth and the north-caster! Panting like squirrels, suspicious, always suspicious!
Whatever is ours is behind the mountain. But they are there, running away in the sudden flight of a partridge, or in a lizard's glance, in every hole and under every stone.
They turned their fiery sharp savage weapons of destruction against us, cowardly with their long-shadowed spears, murderous as their guns or mortars, shells and bazookas.
Just when we say they can't increase, they do! Their faces are like ours but inside their armour are gods, their luminous eyes terrifying!
`What have we done wrong?' we asked, ‘can someone tell us our crime?’ We know the weight of guilt. Our backs bent double under this rock, our teeth blackened with tbis water.
If we must land up in hospital wards or in prison cells, or be sold dirt-cheap in the labour-market, so be it!
From behind the barbed wire let's look at someone taking random instant photographs of the white muslin over the copper yoghurt vessel, or of the huge Prison full of light!

In the evening the water in our jug is finished and perched on stone, or sometimes concrete, our birds all fly away.
One piece of lokum remains on the rose-patterned plate - God knows how! The fruit on the branch consumes night for us.
Yes, for us! Agamemnon laughs at this. Diomedes belts on his swords to become the icon of deathless epics.

We walked on, crushing the reeds and arrived at the valley; smoking, we leant against the ancient rocks.
We crouch on tbe earth - dear carth!- but they stand upright - chacun a son gout! They say tbey are descended from gods and their mansions have courtyards and fountains;
They play poker to the death on their rigged tables, they stack the cards and throw their bone chips for results,
They drink water from silver cups - blessed water! - we from the hollow of our hands. 'They have the fingers of cheats, ours are bony and workworn,
They fall and bleed like rotten rowan trees and ache all night long. And we mount the oxcarts to move away. The mountain-path is easier at night.
We wait for the sparsely-feathered farm-bird to sing; but from a distance the little bastard is silent on our tree.

They turned their fiery, sharp, savage weapons against us, with their long-shadowed cruel spears, murderous as guns and mortars, shells and bazookas!
We pruned the tree-trunks, thinned the tobacco-seedlings, hoed the cotton automatically, how can we stop caring for them?
Our wives like deer with young, humbled, sweaty, some with a hoe or a sickle, poppies on the plain bleeding inwardly.
It's evening, white as sheep's wool the Pole Star is born, a rustling tremor moves mountain and rock. When it says, 'Come!' you must up and leave, impossible not to leave!
Rainbows between two ages, great absorbent waterspouts moving in darkness, gushing skywards with rocks and earth,
And naked babies, village huts like leeches clinging to a barren mountainside, no windows, no tiles, made of poverty-stricken, sundried mudbricks.


Translated by. Richard McKane and Ruth Christie
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Oktay Rifat

* 10.06.1914, Trabzon, Turkey
† 18.04.1988, Istanbul, Turkey

Oktay Rifat, is one of the most distinguished of 20th century Turkish poets. He was the son of the poet and linguist Samih Rıfat, who was also the governor of Trabzon. He attended Ankara High School for Boys (1932) and graduated from Ankara University, Faculty of Law (1936).

He was appointed to Paris, France by the State Ministry to do his PhD, however came back after three years without completing his degree due to outbreak of World War II.

Back in Istanbul he started to work at the General Directorate of Press and Publishing (1943) and as a legal practitioner in Ankara and İstanbul. He retired when he was still a legal adviser at Turkish State Railways, İstanbul Directorate Head Office (1961-73).

His first poems were published in the review Varlık (1936-44), and he came to be known for his poems published in the reviews Aile (1947), Yaprak (1949-50) and Yeditepe (1951-57).

He became one of the pioneers of the movement called “New Poetry”, or “Strange” (Garip), with his poems published in the book Garip (Strange), which he published in collaboration with Orhan Veli Kanık and Melih Cevdet Anday in 1941.

He focused on social issues in his poems, in which he employed the features of folk poetry and thus reinvented himself. He followed the vogue of the surrealistic understanding of poetry like the other poets of the Second New movement.

Besides poetry, he wrote plays and translated works from French. He collected the Yeditepe Poetry Prize in 1955 with Karga ile Tilki (The Crow and the Fox) and the Turkish Language Association Poetry Award in 1970 with his book Şiirler (Poems).

His play Yağmur Sıkıntısı (Oppressive Air) was selected as the Best Play of the Year by the Ankara Art Fans Association and won the achievement award at the Turkish Radio and Television Art Awards Contest in 1970.

He also won the Sedat Simavi Foundation Award in 1980 with his book Bir Cigara İçimi (Smoking a Cigarette), the Madarali Novel Award in 1981 with Danaburnu (Calf Nose) and the Necatigil Poetry Award in 1984 with Dilsiz ve Çıplak (Mute and Naked). All his works were published by Adam Publications with the title Bütün Şiirleri (All Poems).

Prizes
  • 1955 Yeditepe Poetry Prize

  • 1970 Turkish Language Association Poetry Award

  • 1970 Achievement award at the Turkish Radio and Television Art Awards Contest

  • 1980 Sedat Simavi Foundation Award

  • 1981 Madarali Novel Award

  • 1984 Necatigil Poetry Award

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