One of the those sad little Parisian-sounding tunes

Love never goes away,

Never completely dies,

Always some souvenir

Takes us by sad surprise.

 

You went away from me,

One rose was left behind--

Pressed in my Book of Hours,

That is the rose I find....

 

Though it's another year,

Though it's another me,

Under the rose is a drying tear,

Under my linden tree....

 

Love never goes away,

Not if it's really true,

It can return, by night, by day,

Tender and green and new

As the leaves from the linden tree, love,

  That I left with you.

 

-Thomas Pynchon

 

Pynchon is famous for the songs he embeds in his novels. Like a stage musical, people break into song at all times, sometimes motivated, but not always. Here apprentice witch Geli Tripping is accompanying herself on a balalaika when our hero (?) Tyrone Slothrop first meets her. (p.289 in my edition.) A lot of the poems/songs are contextual--whenever Major Marvy's Mothers, an American military detachment chasing Slothrop appears, they approach singing obscene limericks--but this one felt like it could stand on its own. It reminds me a bit of Heine.

 

Pynchon's a bit in the air these days and I'm rereading Gravity's Rainbow. I saw One Battle After Another, the new film by Paul Thomas Anderson, last night--quite good, I thought--based on Pynchon's novel Vineland. And the old wizard has a new novel out this fall, Shadow Ticket, but I haven't read it yet. How much of the old Pynchon am I going to reread before I get that? I'm not sure, but clearly some.

 

The post title comes from the introduction of the poem: "...Slothrop heard a girl singing. Accompanying herself on a balalaika. One of those sad little Parisian-sounding tunes in 3/4..." 

Heinrich Heine's The Lotus Flower

The Lotus Flower

The lotus flower is frightened

By the sun's majestic light;

With downcast eyes and dreaming

She longs for the quiet of night.

 

The moon, he is her lover,

He wakes her with silver rays;

To him she unveils her friendly

Devoted flower face.

 

She blooms and sparkles, gazing

Silently up to his glow;

In fragrance she weeps and trembles

From rapture of love and woe.

 

-Heinrich Heine (tr. Ernst Feise)

 

Heine was a German poet, born in 1797 in Düsseldorf, when the revolutionary French forces occupied the town. His parents were Jewish. In 1831, he moved as a political exile to Paris, where he lived the rest of his life. In 1848, he suffered a paralytic stroke and was confined to bed (his 'mattress-grave' he called it) from then until his death in 1856, but still writing all the time.

 

The German:

 

Die Lotosblume

 

Die Lotosblume ängstigt

Sich vor der Sonne Pracht,

Und mit gesenktem Haupte

Erwartet sie träumend die Nacht.

 

Der Mond, der ist ihr Buhle,

Er weckt sie mit seinem Licht,

Und ihm entschleiert sie freundlich

Ihr frommes Blumengesicht.

 

Sie blüht und glüht und leuchtet

Und starret stumm in die Höh;

Sie duftet und weinet und zittert

Vor Liebe und Liebesweh.

 

-Heinrich Heine

Heinrich Heine (#poem)

 

Sapphires are those eyes of yours,

Ravishingly sweet,

Oh, triply fortunate the man

Whom lovingly they greet.

Your heart is like the diamond

That sparkles noble beams;

Oh, triply lucky is the man

For whom with love it gleams.

Your lips are like twin ruby stones,

None lovelier anywhere;

Oh, triply fortunate is the man

To whom they love aver.

Oh, if I knew this lucky man

And found him thus in clover,

Just tète-a-tète in the deep green wood

His luck would soon be over.

-Heinrich Heine (tr. Walter Arndt) 

I've been reading Heinrich Heine (1797-1856) lately, looking first at the German, but then quickly cheating and reading the English. Heine was the major German poet after Goethe, Jewish but not usually practicing. He got into trouble with the authorities and lived his later years in France. 

The German (if it helps):

Saphire sind die Augen dein,
Die lieblichen, die süßen,

Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,

Den sie mit Liebe grüßen.

Dein Herz, es ist ein Diamant,

Der edle Lichter sprühet.

Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,

Für den es liebend glühet.

Rubinen sind die Lippen dein,

Man kann nicht schönre sehen.

Oh, dreimal glücklich ist der Mann,

Dem sie die Liebe gestehen.

Oh, kennt ich nur den glücklichen Mann,

Oh, daß ich ihn nur fände,

So recht allein im grünen Wald,

Sein Glück hätt' band ein Ende.

I've found the Arndt translations pretty good overall, but I'm not really sure why he changes up the third line refrain in this.

Poem For A Thursday is a meme started by Jennifer at Holds Upon Happiness. Also Brona has a poem.