Introduction
About Karin Boye
Work by Karin Boye
  • Poems
  • Prose
  • Recordings
  • Water-colours
  • Around Karin Boye
    The Society
    Sales

    SAMSON SINGS AS HE GRASPS THE PILLARS OF THE TEMPLE:

    Ordained a nazir to the Lord
    you scarcely possess a name,
    chosen, lifted
    from the earth's mild embrace you came.
    Ordained a nazir to the Lord
    you are called the Lord's hand
    and brandish the Lord's lightning
    in terror-stricken lands.

    Ordained a nazir to the Lord
    the Lord's spirit you bear
    and have not your own spirit
    to love a mortal dear.
    Woe to that hour
    when man and god I failed,
    when I became the man Samson,
    and the order's strength quailed.

    In remorse grew my power
    near the millstones' din.
    Of victories easily won
    they spoke to Judah's son.
    Now I pull down Dagon's temple,
    for Samson is devoured,
    and I am again a nameless one,
    whose name is the Lord's sword!


    Translated into English by David McDuff in "Karin Boye: Complete poems".

    Swedish original



    Copyright © 2005:
    Translation from Swedish into English: David McDuff

    Published with the permission of:
    David McDuff, translation.
    May and Hans Mehlin, Layout.

    For more information, please visit the website of David McDuff and his own pages with the translations.

     
    Sök:


    Web karinboye.se