Miroslav Krleža's The Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh: 'The Vigil or the Night Watch'
Translation of the fourth poem in Miroslav Krleža's The Ballads of Petrica Kerempuh (1936)
VIGILIJA ALI STRAŽA NOČNA KAPTOLSKEGA ŽITKAPISCA VITIZNANCA I MEŠTRA ARTIS SCRIBENDI IGNACA VLAŠKOVULIČANCA
THE VIGIL OR THE NIGHT WATCH
OF IGNATIUS OF VLAŠKO STREET, POET BIOGRAPHER AND MASTER ARTIS SCRIBENDI AT THE CAPITOL
A. D. 1530
The night watchman is following,
the sand flowing through the hour glass
following as it falls all night long...
**
Foretelling in chicken entrails
the bishop’s future Triumph,
the versifier sleeplessly keeps the watch.
**
Watching as he fabricates
lies in the Episcopal Missal,
a blood-red Initial,
bitterly dissecting,
and in his tormented mind conjecturing
whether the Bishop is Sardanapalus.
**
In Dalmatian brocade,
Venetian vestments,
episcopal crosier in hand
and Temple of Jerusalem whip,
no hint in all this of Religion.
the Bishop is a fiendish fiddler,
heart of wolf or bird of prey,
as if spawned by the devil...
**
Greedy, grasping man,
Moneygrubber, glutton, sweet tooth hog,
but in the Chronicles glorified
thus is this sinful viper memorialised.
**
False, depraved beast,
goldilocked-goldfinch,
admitted through the Vatican’s Holy Door,
Cardinal Triumphator
kissing the Pope in Rome...
awaiting the triple papal hat
as true adornment...
**
But he, the pitiful chronicler,
hungering for fat sinecures, a fox,
ink licking fawner, poetic flatterer,
pinched, raw-boned inhabitant of Vlaško Street,
sad wordsmith and copyist,
scribbler of schoolboy verses,
fabricator of episcopal renown,
shameless fabricator, court jester,
ventriloquising starling,
resentful, rattle-boned toiler,
shady compiler, venal reckoner,
hireling, hack,
whistling piper on broken reed,
mud-caked, stockinged squealer,
miserable soul in a vipers’ nest,
shod and cloaked by strangers,
cockchafer-eating sycophant
pen-pushing, ink licking toady,
night watchman, rabid cur,
ravaged by consumption,
rage gnawing at him all night long,
penniless beggar
without heaven’s blessing or hope of salvation.
**
Ah, if he were at least a Lutheran,
scorched in hell-fires,
fleur-de-lis in his hands,
if he were at least a cursed man dragged through the world,
as reviled, beaten, crushed worm,
a Poet Prophet nailed to the pillory,
if only he were Atlas, mighty Rock,
fountain and font of justice,
his forehead crowned with laurels,
he would overawe the hypocrites...
**
From his mouth the foul odour,
pestilential breath from entrails of lies:
black as dry ink powder,
circumdederunt… rancid breath,
all ashes, sin, lies and soot,
putrefying sweat, fetid breath,
nettle soup, spelt beans,
prayers in worm-ridden sandals...
**
And the diabolic Bishop, Italian foreigner,
dread of underlings, terror of the Capitol,
fraternal fear, feculent breath,
mouldering bones, putrid tongue,
ashes, sin, death, and dust.
**
The night watchman is following,
the sand flowing through the hour glass
following as it falls all night long...
**
Foretelling in chicken entrails
the bishop’s future Triumph,
the versifier sleeplessly keeps the watch.
**
Please ask permission to cite this draft translation.
Draft translation from the text:
Krleža, Miroslav (1946) [1936] ‘VIGILIJA ALI STRAŽA NOČNA.’ Balade Petrice Kerempuha. Zagreb: Nakladni Zavod Hrvatske, 18-21.