Maurice Gilliams

BRONNEN DER SLAPELOOSHEID

Language: dutch

Translations: german (BRUNNEN DER SCHLAFLOSIGKEIT), english (SOURCES OF INSOMNIA), italian (SORGENTI DELL'INSOMNIA), slovenian (Izviri nespečnosti)

BRONNEN DER SLAPELOOSHEID

Zij droeg de lamp achter de waterlissen.
De dageraad van middernacht knaagt door
het hoog vertrek waarin Maria slaapt,
terwijl ik snak naar water en naar lissen.

Ik lig bij haar. Zij rust bij mij. En geen
van beiden zijn wij in de wereld samen,
want niets is hier want élders samen
waar geen verlangen de een van de ander scheidt.

De muur wordt spiegel van het sterrenheir.
De stilte zwelt van vissen. In de algen
knerpen de zoutkristallen van oud zeer.

Verblijf ik dan voortaan in 't zeemansgraf
terwijl het spookschip onverpoosd blijft zeilen?
- Maar als Maria zucht, vat ik haar hand.

II.

Wolvin en wolf in 't winters ledikant
als het gehuil des harten krimpt tot fluistren:
uit de angsten ranken namen op in 't duister
met in hun wijn de bloedsmaak van het lam.

Als in de tijd van de ouders zijn de nachten,
op 't huis gestapeld drukt het tempelpuin;
en waar een lichtstraal door een schaduw suist
bederft de waan tot schimmel op de wanden.

‘t Gedroomde kinderhandje slaapt in ons;
zijn polsje klopt gelijk in nood de borst
der vogels die men treurig vrij moet laten.

Samen, onder de vlag van 't beddenlaken,
als na een veldslag zijn wij opgebaard.
Maria's hand rust op mijn grauwend haar.

Translations:

Language: german

BRUNNEN DER SCHLAFLOSIGKEIT

I.
Die lampe trug sie zu den Wasserlilien.
Das Morgenrot der Mitternacht dringt durchs
geräumige Gemach, darin Maria schläft,
dieweil nach Wasser und nach Lilien ich lechze.

Ich lieg bei ihr. Sie ruht bei mir. Und nie
sind beide wir in dieser Welt beisammen,
denn nichts ist hier was anderswo beisammen,
wo kein Verlangen eins vom andern trennt.

Die Wand wird Spiegel uns des Sternenheers.
Die Stille schwillt von Fischen. In den Algen
klirren die Salzkristalle alten Leids.

Verbleib ich künftig in des Seemanns Grab,
indessen ruhelos das Spukschiff segelt ?
- Doch wenn Maria seufzt, fass stumm ich ihre Hand.

II.
wölfin und Wolf auf Winters hartem Lager,
wenn sich Geheul des Herzens dämpft zum Flüstern :
aus Ängsten ranken Namen hoch im Düstern,
in ihrem Wein der Blutgeschmack des Lammes.

Wie in der Zeit der Eltern sind die Nächte,
aufs Haus gestapelt lastet Tempelschutt ;
und wo ein Lichtstrahl durch den Schatten huscht,
verdirbt der Wahn zu Schimmel an den Wänden.

Erträumtes Kinderhändchen schläft in uns ;
sein kleiner Puls pocht wie in Not die Brust
des Vogels, den wir traurig flattern lassen.

Gemeinsam unterm Fahnentuch der Laken
sind wie nach einer Schlacht wir aufgebahrt.
Marias Hand auf meinem grauen Haar.

Language: english

SOURCES OF INSOMNIA

She carried the lamp behind the water flags.
The midnight dawn gnaws through
the high chamber where Maria sleeps,
as I long for water and for flags.

I lie beside her. She rests with me. And none
of us are in this world jointly,
for nothing is here for elsewhere joined
where no desire tears one and the other asunder.

The wall becomes mirror of the army of stars.
The silence swells with fish. In the algae
grate the saline crystals of old sores.

Will I remain then in the watery grave
while the phantom ship incessantly sails on?
- But when Maria sighs, I take her hand.

1954

She-wolf and wolf in the wintery bed
when the howling of hearts shrinks to whispers:
from their fears twine names in the dark,
their wine tastes of the lamb's blood.

The nights are like those in parental times,
piled up on the house weigh the ruins of the temple;
and where through a shadow a light beam flashes
the illusion wastes into mildewy walls.

The dreamed baby hand sleeps within us;
his little pulse beats as in distress the chests
of birds that one sadly must set free.

Together, under the flag of the bed sheet,
as after a battle we lie on the bier.
Maria's hand rests on my graying hair.

Language: italian

SORGENTI DELL'INSOMNIA

II.

La lupa e il lupo nel giaciglio d'inverno
quando il pianto del cuore s'assottiglia in sospiri:
dall'angoscioso buio i nomi affiorano,
nel loro vino c'è il sangue dell'agnello.

Come al tempo dei genitori sono ora le notti,
le macerie della chiesa si accumulano nella casa;
e se nell'ombra fruscia un palpito di luce
l'illusione si guasta come una muffa sui muri.

La mano di bimbo che sogniamo dorme in noi;
il polso batte come nell'ansia il petto
degli uccelletti che a malincuore liberiamo.

Uniti sotto la bandiera delle lenzuola,
siamo due morti dopo la battaglia.
La mano di Maria sui miei capelli grigi.

Language: slovenian

Izviri nespečnosti

Volk in volkulja gresta v zimsko posteljo,
ko skrčen jok srca le šepetá:
iz strahu se imeni pneta v temò,
v vinu je okus po krvi jagnjeta.

Kakor v času staršev so noči,
hišo pritiska razvalina templja;
kjer žarek skozi senco šelesti,
zabloda zgnije in splesní na stenah.

V nas otroška rokica še spi;
v stiski še enak utrip v prsih
ptic, ki jih z žalostjo spustimo na plan.

Skupaj leživa pod zastavo rjuh,
kakor po bitki, na mrtvaškem odru.
Na mojih sivečih laseh Marijina dlan.

Maurice Gilliams

* 20.06.1900, Antwerp, Belgium
† 18.10.1982, Antwerp, Belgium

When Maurice Gilliams (1900-1982) won the Grand Prize for Literature in 1980, many a newspaper journalist was at a loss: as far as the press was concerned Gilliams had always been ‘the Great Unknown’ of Dutch-language literature. But in the literary world itself Gilliams’s work was considered not only an inside tip but also a milestone in the development of the novelist’s art.

In 1936 Gilliams’s Elias of het gevecht met de nachtegalen (Elias or the Struggle with the Nightingales) had ushered in a new, strongly suggestive way of writing and a novelistic structure based on the sonata. The critics called the book a ‘melting pot of genres’: Gilliams’s prose is close to poetry and driven by what he himself called ‘an essayistic motivation’.

Gilliams has been a major influence for a number of Dutch and Flemish authors - amongst them Charlotte Mutsaers, Stefan Hertmans and Erwin Mortier, but his work remains unique in Dutch literature. His diaries, which were published in his lifetime, also reveal that Gilliams was one of the first writers in Flanders or the Netherlands to obsessively address the question ‘what is writing?’.

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