Robespierre fyller år...

OCH DET SKA VARA HANS MINST DYGDIGA FÖDELSEDAG NÅGONSIN!!
Sjunger/skriker: JAG ÄLSKAR FLICKOR, GOTT VIN JAG ÄLSKAR OCH! (Melodi: Vive Heni IV.)
//Grantaire. Och Danton.

Tranströmer på engelska

Citoyens

 

The night after the accident I dreamed of a pock-marked man,
Wandering in the alleys, singing.
Danton!
Not the other one - Robespierre never strolls about like that.
Every morning Robespierre powders, preens, washes himself, painstakingly and for an hour,
The rest of the day is dedicated to the People.
In the paradise of pampleths, among the machines of virtue.
Danton-
or whoever wore his mask-
stood as if he was standing on stilts.
I saw his face from below:
scarred and moon-shaped,
half of it light, half of it dark.
I wanted to speak.
My chest is heavy, the plumb
that sets the clocks going,
hands twisting: year one. Year two.
An acrid smell of sawdust.
And, as always in my dreams, no sun.
But the very walls shone,
lit up the alleys curling
down to the waiting room, the curved room,
the waiting room where we all…

Boye på engelska

Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking.
Why else would the springtime falter?
Why would all our ardent longing
bind itself in frozen, bitter pallor?
After all, the bud was covered all the winter.
What new thing is it that bursts and wears?
Yes, of course it hurts when buds are breaking,
hurts for that which grows
                         and that which bars.

Yes, it is hard when drops are falling.
Trembling with fear, and heavy hanging,
cleaving to the twig, and swelling, sliding -
weight draws them down, though they go on clinging.
Hard to be uncertain, afraid and divided,
hard to feel the depths attract and call,
yet sit fast and merely tremble -
hard to want to stay
                    and want to fall.

Then, when things are worst and nothing helps
the tree's buds break as in rejoicing,
then, when no fear holds back any longer,
down in glitter go the twig's drops plunging,
forget that they were frightened by the new,
forget their fear before the flight unfurled -
feel for a second their greatest safety,
rest in that trust
                   that creates the world.