Bruno Tolentino

(1940-2007)

The Machine of the World

(Carlos Drummond de Andrade)

(A Personal Reading)
Versão por Bruno Tolentino
(TOLENTINO, 2002, p.167-171)

As I went on one day trudging alone

down a street of Minas, a stony one,
at close of eve a hoarse-timbered bell

joined its tolling to the measured sound

of my leaden soles; as birds fell
and soared through barren skies, upon the ground

their silhouettes blended with the dark;

a darkness greater still was coming down
from mountainside as from myself now,

my disillusioned self; out of a stark,

utter silence – I cannot fathom how –
the machine of the world suddenly started

to open up unto my very eyes –

eyes shrunk from all dreams of such a prize,
pained at the very thought of having asked.

Circumspect, majestic all the way,

it opened with no sound impure, or glare
to human eyes impossible to bear;

nothing would force itself nor dismay

my pupils long wasted in the task
of surveilling a desert, nothing asked

of my exhausted mind to work out

an entire reality transcending
all image of itself sketched out

on the face of the mysteries, on the abyss.

It opened quietly, in perfect calm inviting
what senses-intuitions were amiss

yet still haunted him who long since

had lost them, nor desired to have them back
to repeat the same and random lacks

while circumnavigating that or this;

it invited them all, called on their throng
to try again, to apply themselves strong

and mighty upon the pure feast and wring

out of a cornucopia past all song
the full mythical nature of all things.

It told me so (though no voice nor breathing

nor echoes nor percussion testified
that from a mountainside a single sigh

was addressing a miserable, nightly being):

“What you sought in yourself or far above
those narrow confines, what wouldn’t do

though you humbled yourself often enough

‘til at the last moment you withdrew,
regard, attend, examine – all these riches

beyond the priceless pearl, this science which

is hermetic, formidable and sublime,
this total explanation of life,

this primal, singular nexus past all rhyme,

all of it unconceivable to you,
so evasive it was, so out of reach

even after you burned your best and worst

on the last, outermost and ardent quest –
see, contemplate it all, open your breast

and hold it, keep it all with you at last!”

The bridges most superb, the buildings past
all conceivable craft, all though of first

or last causes gone beyond all pitch,

all resources and means of earth steep
– all passions, all impulses, all of pain

and whatever defines us human beings

then proceeds through animals and plants
to soak in the angry sleep of minerals deep;
what will turn round the world until again
is engulfed in the wholesome, all too plain
geometrical order of all things,

and the absurd original, its enigmas

more truthful and higher still than all the grandest
monuments ever built to truth on earth;

ant the memory of the gods, and that solemn

sentiment of death which mars all birth
as we see it flowering through the stem

of even the most glorious thing alive

– everything in a glimpse was there to drive
my senses back to a realm august

finally given to the human gaze…

Why, as I was too reticent to cast
an eye, as I would offer no reply

to such a marvel calling unto praise

a faithless, undesirable, sad, ungrateful
and consequently hopeless outcast

(too tired to be told of things higher

or else to let go of shadows baleful
as filter through all rays in brighter skies),

my defunct beliefs far below

weren’t as quick as to colour or to repaint
a face neutral: faith was too slow

to build a newer face upon the faces

I go on demonstrating pale and faint
to each path I tread upon of late;

as if another being, a distant mate

of the one I had been, had now replaced
for years countless what of me became,

I resigned my will and thus abandoned

what I might have wanted – no command
was offered: as some flower, say a rose

reluctant to being open is well nigh close,

as though a tardy gift were now too bland
to be longed for – how much less
possessed! – I set my eyes upon my feet
and proceeded uncurious, void of sense
and tired, quite tired and quite unfit

to behold any splendour, any gift.

Night had finally landed, thick and strict;
a quiet darkness was all round, all dense,

almighty… The machine of the world

recomposed itself as slow and wordless
as it had been repulsed. I weighed the cost:

my hands hanging be my sides, tense,

my whole body bending on the road
of old, stony Minas, there I strolled

evaluating what I had lost. 

Carlos Drummond de Andrade

(1902-1987)

A Máquina do Mundo
Carlos Drummond de Andrade

(ANDRADE, 2001, p. 281-285)

E como eu palmilhasse vagamente

uma estrada de Minas, pedregosa,
e no fecho da tarde um sino rouco

se misturasse ao som de meus sapatos

que era pausado e seco; e aves pairassem
no céu de chumbo, e suas formas pretas

lentamente se fossem diluindo

na escuridão maior, vinda dos montes
e de meu próprio ser desenganado,

a máquina do mundo se entreabriu

para quem de a romper já se esquivava
e só de o ter pensado se carpia.

Abriu-se majestosa e circunspecta,

sem emitir um som que fosse impuro
nem um clarão maior que o tolerável

pelas pupilas gastas na inspeção

contínua e dolorosa do deserto,
e pela mente exausta de mentar

toda uma realidade que transcende

a própria imagem sua debuxada
no rosto do mistério, nos abismos.

Abriu-se em calma pura, e convidando

quantos sentidos e intuições restavam
a quem de os ter usado os já perdera

e nem desejaria recobrá-los,

se em vão e para sempre repetimos
os mesmos sem roteiro tristes périplos,

convidando-os a todos, em coorte,

a se aplicarem sobre o pasto inédito
da natureza mítica das coisas,

assim me disse, embora voz alguma

ou sopro ou eco ou simples percussão
atestasse que alguém, sobre a montanha,

a outro alguém, noturno e miserável,

em colóquio se estava dirigindo:
“O que procuraste em ti ou fora de

teu ser restrito e nunca se mostrou,

mesmo afetando dar-se ou se rendendo,
e a cada instante mais se retraindo,

olha, repara, ausculta: essa riqueza

sobrante a toda pérola, essa ciência
sublime e formidável, mas hermética,

essa total explicação da vida,

esse nexo primeiro e singular,
que nem concebes mais, pois tão esquivo

se revelou ante a pesquisa ardente

em que te consumiste... vê, contempla,
abre teu peito para agasalhá-lo”.

As mais soberbas pontes e edifícios,

o que nas oficinas se elabora,
o que pensado foi e logo atinge

distância superior ao pensamento,

os recursos da terra dominados,
e as paixões e os impulsos e os tormentos

e tudo que define o ser terrestre

ou se prolonga até nos animais
e chega às plantas para se embeber

no sono rancoroso dos minérios,

dá volta ao mundo e torna a se engolfar,
na estranha ordem geométrica de tudo,

e o absurdo original e seus enigmas,

suas verdades altas mais que todos
monumentos erguidos à verdade:

e a memória dos deuses, e o solene

sentimento de morte, que floresce
no caule da existência mais gloriosa,

tudo se apresentou nesse relance

e me chamou para seu reino augusto,
afinal submetido à vista humana.

Mas, como eu relutasse em responder

a tal apelo assim maravilhoso,
pois a fé se abrandara, e mesmo o anseio,

a esperança mais mínima – esse anelo

de ver desvanecida a treva espessa
que entre os raios do sol inda se filtra;

como defuntas crenças convocadas

presto e fremente não se produzissem
a de novo tingir a neutra face
que vou pelos caminhos demonstrando,
e como se outro ser, não mais aquele
habitante de mim há tantos anos,

passasse a comandar minha vontade

que, já de si volúvel, se cerrava
semelhante a essas flores reticentes

em si mesmas abertas e fechadas;

como se um dom tardio já não fora
apetecível, antes despiciendo,

baixei os olhos, incurioso, lasso,

desdenhando colher a coisa oferta
que se abria gratuita a meu engenho.

A treva mais estrita já pousara

sobre a estrada de Minas, pedregosa,
e a máquina do mundo, repelida,

se foi miudamente recompondo,

enquanto eu, avaliando o que perdera,
seguia vagaroso, de mãos pensas.