Having survived the latest bout of Workshop (like the flu but hurts all over) I'm starting to read
The Judicial House of Lords 1876-2009 (Oxford: Oxford Uni Press 2009) edited by Louis Blom-Cooper, Brice Dickson & Gavin Drewry - starting with Michael Kirby's chapter on Australia and New Zealand (pp 339-350) - and listening to a friend sing Hugo Hofmannsthal over the phone ...
Manche freilich müssen drunten sterben
wo die schweren Ruder der Schiffe streifen,
andere wohnen bei dem Steuer droben,
kennen Vogelflug und die Länder der Sterne.
Manche liegen mit immer schweren Gliedern
bei den Wurzeln des verworrenen Lebens,
anderen sind die Stühle gerichtet
bei den Sibyllen, den Königinnen,
und da sitzen sie wie zu Hause,
leichten Hauptes und leichter Hände.
Doch ein Schatten fällt von jenen Leben
in die anderen Leben hinüber,
und die leichten sind an die schweren
wie an Luft und Erde gebunden.
Ganz vergessener Völker Müdigkeiten
kann ich nicht abtun von meinen Lidern,
noch weghalten von der erschrockenen Seele
stummes Niederfallen ferner Sterne.
Viele Geschicke weben neben dem meinen,
durcheinander spielt sie all das Dasein,
und mein Teil ist mehr als dieses Lebens
schlanke Flamme oder schmale Leier.
Granted, some must die below deck,
Where streak the ship's heavy oars.
Others dwell above at the helm,
Knowing flights of birds and realms of stars.
Some lie forever with heavy limbs
At the roots of confused life.
For others are seats prepared
With sibyls and queens
And there they sit as if at home
With light heads and light hands.
Yet a shadow from those other lives
Falls into these lives,
And the light are bound to the heavy
As to the air and earth:
My eyelids cannot shed
Quite forgotten people's weariness,
Nor my terrified soul fend against
The silent falling of distant stars.
Many fates weave beside my own,
Life entangles them all,
And my part is more than this life’s
Slender flame or slim lyre.
Scott Horton's translation puts it thus ...
Many lie always with heavy limbs
At the roots of a life intertwined,
Others have seats prepared for them
With the sibyls, the queens,
And sit there as if at home,
With a giddy head and light hands.
But a shadow falls from those lives
Across and into the others' lives,
And the light are bound to the heavy
As the air is bound to the earth.
The weariness of peoples quite forgotten
I cannot banish from my eyelids,
Neither can I keep away from my terrified soul
The silent descent of distant stars.
