Jón á Bægisá - 30.09.2004, Page 122

Snorri Hjartarson
Hamlet
You wait, the evening reduces the day’s brocade
to dusk-red fibers, shadowy threads of gray
which night reweaves in new eerie patterns:
Norns and serpents feasting on their prey,
your heart, around a fire stoked by love,
all that is pure and fine must turn and fade
retreating through the door of your deep sorrow;
through dark stairwells the noise of drink and song
is borne from the high hall of the royal borough
while bitter silence seeps from the king’s tomb,
your hunch and fear in lame standoff still.
Then striking bells chime hard and long:
destiny’s voice claiming you, cold and muted,
calling you to a meeting in the gloom
of the tall fortress, famous in tradition,
a fatherly summons which from now on will
sound in your mind with awe and agony.
Ushered into a chilly world, you see
your courses, your fate, your filial obligation:
The earth craves blood, the times are vile, corrupt,
your mother, your country, your life itself swept
to serve the lust of your sly uncle, the crowned
murderer, the fratricide! Wherever you turn your eyes
obtuse masses, deep in sleep that lames,
120
á. ffiœp&iá- — Tímarit pýðenda nr. 8 / 2004