PAUL CELAN IN THE SEINE

This is an inevitable slip of the tongue. Alone, abroad. Oh! 'April will warm us.' This is an impossible upward gaze. Alone, after his death, floating in the Seine.
Paul Celan drinks from the Seine. The more he drinks, the thirstier he gets. He drinks darkness. A river's parts and a river's whole. He drinks, down to the stem of the final word.
The pure ones are the first to die. Resistance abandoned - you, glorious deserter, have shaken off the concentration camp, your early years, those amusing Nazis. You have returned humiliation completely to the Jews, you let them wander on, get beaten on the way, search on for an impossible solution.
Floating, from the river Seine to the river Jordan, from Paris to Jerusalem, Paul Celan drinks, with his eyes, drinks in a self-invented manner. Quenches his thirst, alone, from two streams: from heaven and hell.
His eyes open in our eyes. He says: 'When God commanded me to drink.'

保罗·策兰在塞纳河

保罗·策兰在塞纳河

    这是不可避免的失语：一个人，在外邦。啊！“四月使我们温暖。”这不是不可能的仰视：一个人死后漂过塞纳河。
    保罗·策兰畅饮塞纳，越喝越渴。他喝着黑暗，从局部到全部的黑暗；他喝掉最后一个词的词根。
    最纯洁的最先赴死。放弃抵抗——你，光荣的逃兵，抛弃了集中营、早年、滑稽的纳粹；你也尽数把耻辱还给了犹太人，让他们继续流浪，挨打，寻求得救而不能得到。
    漂啊，从塞纳到约旦，从巴黎到耶路撒冷。保罗·策兰用眼睛喝，用他自己发明的喝法喝，一个人畅饮着来自天国和地狱的两条河。
    他的眼睛睁开在我们的眼睛里。他说：“当上帝叫我喝时。”

                                （1992）