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Abraham Sutzkever: Song for the Men Taking to the Woods (From Yiddish)
For Berakha
A poem for Jews who had escaped the Vilna ghetto and fled to the forests, in order to participate in bushwhacking guerrilla warfare against the Nazis. Sutzkever dated all his wartime poems. This one, importantly, is dated two days before Sutzkever and his wife would follow the men here hymned, escaping to the woods themselves, eventually joining a Jewish resistance unit commanded by Moshe Rudnitski.
Sprout up! Staunch heroes, stubborn strong young men � and take your ground. Sprout up! Sons of the future, make the world know what you are, For all the will of all a people, swallowed underground, Condenses � swelling lava in your breast beneath a scar. If the old blade has gone to rust in vagabond confusion, Then file off all the yesterdays, and sharpen its today. Never is it too late to show the people's retribution. Redeem the age-old sin with steel. There is a price to pay. Cities have all flown their true colors, turned to stone betrayers, Have riveted your way to sizzling graves on every hand. Forests have welcomed you with singing leaves to safer lairs: "Come, come to us now darlings, and refine your just demand." Our new-anointed stalwart rangers, striders of the trees, Against the brink that lay in wait, your feet kick back with No. The glory's glinted in you! Glory of the Maccabees Just as it did in our land two millennia ago. There always will be those who bend to earth, who tire, who kneel. Woe to the slave that rests his hope in mercy from a slave. As did the Maccabees, blast forth rebellion, and in steel Let honor shine again with every mel�e of the brave.
� Vilna Ghetto, September 10th, 1943 The Original:
Notes on the Yiddish:
With Sutzkever, as with Robert Frost, if you do not read and listen closely, you will miss much. This poem is more than simply a bit of rousing verse. It can work perfectly well as such, but on closer listening things grow increasingly complex. I have with profit consulted Frieda W. Aaron's comments on this poem, though I find her reading and translation somewhat unsatisfactory. Vakst ar�ys, ir heldn � fe�ste �yngeshparte yu�ngen Vakst ar�ys, ir tsu�kunftzin, un zayt der velt bavu�st! Gor der viln funem folk, in u�ntererd farshlu�ngen, Kle�yet zikh - a la�vediker shtrom in a�yer brust.
(Sprout up, you heroes � strong unyeilding young men / sprout up, you future-sons, and be renowned to the world! / All the will of the people, swallowed underground, congeals itself � a lavalike surge in your breast)
Tsukunftzin seems to be "sons of the future" but zin can have another meaning of "consciousness, sense." Tsukunftzin could be taken as "sense of (a) future" i.e. "you who give a sense that we have a future despite this extermination." In other poems, Sutzkever highlights the identity of zin/zin "sons/sense" in interesting ways. Still, though, the fact that zin "sense" is singular makes this a stretch. It's worth noting that this poem was first published two years after the date of composition, with a hyphen between the two lexemes. i.e. ???????-??? tsukunft-zin as if to call attention to the sense of the two elements. (The hyphen does not appear in later reprintings.)
It is easy to take, as Aaron does, the final two lines to mean "The entire will of the people has been swallowed under the earth / But a lava surge is coming together in your breast." But note that line three does not contain a main verb, or a conjunction. The whole line is in fact the subject of kleyenzikh which has a dash after it. i.e. "All the will of the people, having been swallowed underground, coalesces � a lavalike surge...." Moreover, the word untererd is "underground" not just in the geological sense, but the clandestine political one, as in "an underground movement." In Yiddish as in English, to "go underground" (geyen in der untererd) means to go clandestine, to start behaving in some covert way.
The final line is interesting. Kleyen zikh is a curious verb which I had to ask others about. It appears to be a synonym of kleben zikh "to take form, to coagulate, coalesce, to be sticky, to stick together" (i.e. like kley "glue.")
The word shtrom has two meanings Yiddish: "course, torrent, tide" and "scar." Oyb es hot farzha�vert in der vo�glenish dos ayzn Faylt fun em aro�p di nekhtns un em shlayft atsi�nd. Ke�ynmol iz nit shpet dem folks neko�me tsu bava�yzn: O�ystsukoyfn mit geve�r di do�yresdike zi�nd.
(If the iron has rusted in wandering / file off from it the yesterday, and sharpen its here and now. / Never is it too late to manifest the people's vengeance: / To redeem with weapons the generations-old sin.)
Frieda Aaron is right I think that the doyresdike zind "generations-old sin, long-lasting sin" is meant to suggest both "the sin of Jewish passivity and the sin of the endless chain of crimes visited upon the Jews." And that the latter is more central. Oyskoyfn "redeem, ransom" has a heavily agentive and aggressive tone to it, it seems to me, given Sutzkever's other uses of it. It is suggestive of overcoming. Of payback, of meeting the enemy blow for blow.
Gever means not only "weapon" but "endurance." S'hobn shtet farva�ndlt zikh in shte�ynerne farre�ter, Tsu�geshmidt tsu zi�dndike gri�ber a�yer gang. Hobn ve�lder aykh bagri�st mit zi�ngendike ble�ter: -Kumt tsu undz, ir ta�yere, un la�ytert dem ferla�ng.
(The cities have transformed into stone betrayers, / welded to boiling graves your way. / Forests greeted you with singing leaves: / Come to us, dear ones, and polish the demand)
Aaron reads, and transcribes, zidndike (sizzling, boiling, seething, roiling) as if it were zindike (sinful.) Apart from making a hash of the meter, and not being what Sutzkever wrote (I've checked all three volumes of his in which this poem appears, and none of them have zindike), this causes her interpretation of this stanza to go somewhat off the rails. She relates the image thus to sins of hatred and persecution. Persecution is to the point of course, but I take the zidndike griber as graves that are themselves murderous. The graves are composed not of earth and stone, but of human masses whose roiling hatred makes them lethal to the objects of that hate. These graves you need but step into, and they will boil you alive. Zidndik has the sense of "incited, excited" in reference to people. It is contrasted with the zingendike bleter (note the sound echo zidndik/zingendik) which offer succour and sanctuary. As gentile society has proven itself barbarous, civilizational norm is inverted. It is the wilderness that now offers haven from the savagery of the cities.
Loyb tsu aykh ir nay-geza�lbte gvu�redike ge�yer, A�yer fus hot o�pgeshtupt dem lo�kerdinkn rand. S'hot in aykh a glants geto�n der rum fun Makabe�yer, Vi mit yorn tsveytoyznt tsuri�k in eygn land.
(Praise be to you, you new-anointed, stalwart rovers / your leg has staved back the brink that lay in ambush. / In you the glory of the Maccabees has given forth lustre / As in our own land two thousand years ago.)
Aaron translates gvuredike geyer as "strong questers" which is an odd choice. Gv�redik "stalwart, heroic, intrepid" is nothing so generic and general as "strong." geyer seems more like wanderer, rover.
Lokerdik "lurking" but more specifically "lying in wait, poised to ambush."
opshtupn suggests pushing back, as well as staving off.
Shte�ndik ze�nen do tsu dr'erd gebo�ygene, un mi�de. Vey dem knekht in ho�fenung af ra�khmim - ba a knekht. Vi di Makabe�yer blozt funa�nder di miri�de, Zol der ko�ved u�floykhtn in shve�rdikn gefe�kht!
(There are always those bowed to the earth, tired. / Woe to the slave in hope of mercy from a slave. / As the Maccabees blow rebellion about, / Let glory shine forth in sword combat.)
The reader's first instinct may be to take blozt as if its subject were the Maccabees. It isn't. blozt is the imperative plural (i.e. blow!). The verb with the separable prefix funanderblozn means roughly " blow all round, blast far and wide."
Gefekht could refer to any sort of combat or skirmish, but the sense of dueling is there as well, of noble hand-to-hand battle. Particularly when connected with swords. There's an epic quality here. These partisans are presumably not actually fighting with swords but with projectile weapons. But here they are elevated to the level of mythic lore.
By Wes Jamroz, excerpts from his new book, Shakespeare's Sequel to Rumi's Teaching "Jalaluddin Rumi and William Shakespeare are considered to be the greatest poets of Persian and English literature, respectively. However, there is much more in common between these two titans of poetry who lived some 350 years and 2,000 miles apart. In his Sonnets, Shakespeare acknowledged that his writings were inspired by Rumi�s poetry. He referred to Rumi as one of �Alien pens� whom he was asked to study. He described Rumi as �He of tall building, and of goodly pride�. Shakespeare admitted that Rumi�s verses were so powerful that they were stopping his thoughts before he was able to formulate them. Although Shakespeare was strongly influenced by Rumi�s poetry, it should be emphasized that his writings were not merely some adaptations of Rumi�s illustrations from an Eastern environment into the Western culture. Such understanding would greatly diminish Shakespeare�s role. Shakespeare wa...
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