Zbigniew Herbert

From Zbiegniew Herbert stems this phrase ‘birth of the earth’ when he described in ‘A Barbarian comes into the Garden’, the impression anyone can get when taking a boat out into the Aegean Sea and while passing an island, more a rock formation, how this reminds of how the earth was born. Such ‘intellectual experiences’ touch upon the source of philosophy: the wonder about the world, an experience and not an explanation.

Zbiegniew Herbert was first lawyer, then poet. He went often to a special monastery for the blind to write. His humor was tremendous and so his political position. He did not play games nor got involved in any of the political gambits as did so many other compatriots. Consequently when Marshall Law was declared by Jaruselski in Poland to quash Solidarnosc, he was one of the few well known intellectuals not identified as belonging to ‘la crème extreme’ and therefore was not arrested. Due to his judicial background he attended many trials thereafter as observer to ensure a minimum of fairness in the trial. In that sense he fulfilled a bit the role of an ‘imaginary witness’ as conceived by Adorno as the figure to pass on the truth to the next generations.

When Mariusz Lukasik had his first exhibition at the Kwarz Gallery, organized by artists, on Grollmannstreet in Charlottenburg, Berlin, Zbiegniew Herbert walked in and took immediately in the unusual etchings. Mariusz had grown up in the poor district of Warszawa called Praga. The etchings were like Rembrandt’s stark in contrast between darkness and light with the latter falling sparsely into a cellar where a man was sitting to repair his bicycle. Such art works, whether etchings or poems, reflect an affinity to an attire of mankind known more by what blind people see. As was mentioned above, Zbiegniew Herbert went to a monastery of the blind to write his poems; Mariusz Lukasik was nearly blind as a youth. Both artists have in their works this visionary going beyond the plainness of just seeing and describing what one sees. Although Picasso also said he paints what he see when still a child, or Otto Dix to Philippine Herring maintaining this principle of honesty in their art works, it is still another dimension to develop a vision out of blindness. As if the reverse to a full explosion of light to be imagined like a nuclear holocaust, darkness encompasses this double meaning of light fading out completely while still on the horizon there hovers a slim streak of evanescing light.

Source of photo: http://Cit.uvm.edu/real/gutman/herbert

Zbiegniew Herbert perceives the classics as a learning ground to see again. In that vision many things follow if not the curvatures of the earth, then the destiny of mankind with all tragic flaws as taught over centuries by Ancient Greek Classics. If anything motivates man to seek avoidance of his or her tragedy, then the tragic flaws making man and woman human rather than Gods are challenges not to seek the ideal, but to work out within the incomplete and imperfect something resembling not a classical ideal, but more a livable life. For if only the ‘stiff tongue’ could be unfastened, the lock keeping closed the doors to the imagination be opened, the feet able to run were before it was but a limp, then poems could soar like birds into the azure sky. That is not just hope but an intense longing for the original viewpoints touched by the certainty of the senses not separated from those intellectual experiences making it possible for wonder to give birth to open questions. A trace of that can be found in his poem about ‘Nike’ – victory – hesitating. Michel Foucault would pick up this hesitation and transform it into an even stronger message insofar as he said ‘we speak only then with the other when we have no victory necessary’. In that sense a poet is that much closer to stumbling over words, due to a stiff tongue, where words are not perfect nor as shiny as a pebble polished over centuries by water, but still capable of conveying man’s emotions when stepping for the first time into the all encompassing light and there confronts darkness as a being of its own. It could be the door opening slowly or the person stepping out of the cave for the first time to see reality, a reality so beautiful that it is blinding, especially if not share with others. Out of that resonates then the crucial question but why did the Enlightenment fail, if not depending too much on just ‘light’, but one depending upon illumination solely through reason and not by way of the senses beginning to speak to mankind as they suppose to when the smell is there and the sound of wood cracking in the fire gives an idea as to how future plans can be shaped when venturing forth in this world.

Nike when she hesitates

By Zbigniew Herbert

Most beautiful is Nike
when she hesitates
the right hand leaned against the air
wonderful like a command
but the wings quiver

She sees
The lonely youth
Follow the elongated track
Of the wagon of war
That grey path in a grey landscape
Shaped by rocks and bare shrubs

Soon the youth shall die
Already the scale of his fate
tilts

Nike has tremendous desire
To approach him
and to kiss him on his forehead

but she is afraid
that he

who has never tasted the sweetness of careness
upon getting to know her
could flee like all others
during battle

therefore Nike hesitates
and decides nevertheless
to remain in that posture
which the sculpturers have taught her
ashamed by this moment of compassion

she knows
that one will find in the grey of tomorrow morning
the youth
with open breast
closed eyelids
and with the rough obolos of fatherland
underneath the stiff tongue.

Translated by Hatto Fischer

For more POEMS by ZBIGNIEW HERBERT

These poems, and others by Herbert, are found at http://redfrog.norconnect.no/~poems/poets/herbert.html
which is managed by the Polish Academic Information Center at the State University of New York, Buffalo.

Pebble
by Zbigniew Herbert
The pebble
is a perfect creature
equal to itself
mindful of its limits
filled exactly
with a pebbly meaning
with a scent that does not remind one of anything
does not frighten anything away does not arouse desire
its ardour and coldness
are just and full of dignity
I feel a heavy remorse
when I hold it in my hand
and its noble body
is permeated by false warmth
- Pebbles cannot be tamed
to the end they will look at us
with a calm and very clear eye
Translated by Peter Dale Scott and Czeslaw Milosz

Why the Classics

by Zbigniew Herbert
1
in the fourth book of the Peloponnesian War
Thucydides tells among other things
the story of his unsuccessful expedition
among long speeches of chiefs
battles sieges plague
dense net of intrigues of diplomatic endeavours
the episode is like a pin
in a forest
the Greek colony Amphipolis
fell into the hands of Brasidos
because Thucydides was late with relief
for this he paid his native city
with lifelong exile
exiles of all times
know what price that is
2
generals of the most recent wars
if a similar affair happens to them
whine on their knees before posterity
praise their heroism and innocence
they accuse their subordinates
envious collegues
unfavourable winds
Thucydides says only
that he had seven ships
it was winter
and he sailed quickly
3
if art for its subject
will have a broken jar
a small broken soul
with a great self-pity
what will remain after us
will it be lovers' weeping
in a small dirty hotel
when wall-paper dawns
Translated by Peter Dale Scott and Czeslaw Milosz

The Envoy of Mr Cogito

by Zbigniew Herbert
Go where those others went to the dark boundary
for the golden fleece of nothingness your last prize
go upright among those who are on their knees
among those with their backs turned and those toppled in the dust
you were saved not in order to live
you have little time you must give testimony
be courageous when the mind deceives you be courageous
in the final account only this is important
and let your helpless Anger be like the sea
whenever your hear the voice of the insulted and beaten
let you sister Scorn not leave you
for the informers executioners cowards - they will win
they will go to your funeral with relief will throw a lump of earth
the woodborer will write your smoothed-over biography
and do not forgive truly it is not in your power
to forgive in the name of those betrayed at dawn
beware however of unnecessary pride
keep looking at your clown's face in the mirror
repeat: I was called - weren't there better ones than I
beware of dryness of heart love the morning spring
the bird with an unknown name the winter oak
light on a wall the splendour of the sky
they don't need your warm breath
they are there to say: no one will console you
be vigilant - when the light on the mountains gives the sign- arise and
go
as long as blood turns in the breast your dark star
repeat old incantations of humanity fables and legends
because this is how you will attain the good you will not attain
repeat great words repeat them stubbornly
like those crossing the desert who perished in the sand
and they will reward you with what they have at hand
with the whip of laughter with murder on a garbage heap
go because only in this way you will be admitted to the company of cold
skulls
to the company of your ancestors: Gilgamesh Hector Roland
the defenders of the kingdom without limit and the city of ashes
Be faithful Go

translated by John Carpenter & Bogdana Carpenter

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