Ithaka
As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
I have been reading this poem over and over again for the last couple of days, and every time I cry. I cry because it expresses my state of mind these days, or how my life is. It might not be a obvious poem to cry over, and to be honest I rearly cry over poems. Ithaka is my journey away from home and my journey back again. I can't find a proper way to express Ithaka in Norwegian, and while sitting here and trying to do it in English, it just dosen't work out that way either. What do you do then? Can it be one of the obstacles I have to face before returning to Ithaka? Am I lost in translation?
I'm caught in a trap. I have to languages, but find it hard to express myself perfectly in both of them. I rearly speak Norwegian, and when I do I tend to speak in an informal way. Though my English is adequate I still cannot express myself in the way as I do in Norwegian( or used to do in Norwegian...). My Norwegian is full of Englsih words, and my English has obvious traces of Norwegian in it.
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
angry Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as you keep your thoughts raised high,
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.
Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop at Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit many Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.
Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.
And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't have fooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full of experience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.
I have been reading this poem over and over again for the last couple of days, and every time I cry. I cry because it expresses my state of mind these days, or how my life is. It might not be a obvious poem to cry over, and to be honest I rearly cry over poems. Ithaka is my journey away from home and my journey back again. I can't find a proper way to express Ithaka in Norwegian, and while sitting here and trying to do it in English, it just dosen't work out that way either. What do you do then? Can it be one of the obstacles I have to face before returning to Ithaka? Am I lost in translation?
I'm caught in a trap. I have to languages, but find it hard to express myself perfectly in both of them. I rearly speak Norwegian, and when I do I tend to speak in an informal way. Though my English is adequate I still cannot express myself in the way as I do in Norwegian( or used to do in Norwegian...). My Norwegian is full of Englsih words, and my English has obvious traces of Norwegian in it.
Comments
Jaja, Ise.... Ikkje bli for djupe no. Desse filosofiske krumspringa dine er fornøylige, men skal ein sitta slik heile dagane, så blir ting veldig fort trist...
Kom deg ut!
Her følger et nytt dikt:
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference
-I Sannhed!!