My book
The Ambassador and the Pharaoah is about Hans Holbein’s Double Portrait, TheAmbassadors that is one of the most enigmatic painting of the Renaissance, and
about an other painting signed by Holbein too: Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh although
art historians agree that it is not a real Holbein-painting.
The
precise date is known in the case of The Ambassadors since there are several
devices measuring time on the upper shelf of the chiffonier. It is April the
11th, 1533. The specialty of this day is that it was Good Friday, 1500 years
after the crucifixion of the 33 years old Jesus. This feature makes the
painting analogous to the two most complex literary works of the Middle Ages:
Dante’s La Divina Commedia, whose plot begins on Good Friday in 1300, and
Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, in which the last day of the plot is also the same
in 1400.
I
enclose a poem from the book in Hungarian and in English - translated by Péter
Balikó Lengyel. Thanks Peter!
Pokolra juss, vagy
juss mennybe,
akár csak egy követ
menj be:
szóvivő,
mint akinek nincs
is dolga
más, mint szépen
meghajolva,
s ahogy ő,
úgy járni el ura
helyett,
s már feledni is a
helyet
íziben.
Légy világfi, vagy
légy tudós,
ne firtasd, hogy
mit rejt a sors,
s mit üzen.
S egyszer majd,
merengve éppen,
szemed egy különös
képen
ráhibáz
valami sohase
látott
furcsa tárgyra, ami
bár ott
van, de még sincs:
mint egy fátum
úgy jelen meg. Vanitatum
vanitas.
*
Whether into
hell or heaven,
as ambassador
now enter
—
like a hasty
harbinger,
whose
only mission is to bow,
forgetting
all the massacre.
And, as
he, just act in stead
of him
who sent you as your master,
then
retrace your steps — the faster
the
better.
Be thou
of the world or faith,
never
scrutinize thy fate,
or the
message it may harbor.
One day,
as you muse before
a
painting so peculiar
that it
makes you merrier,
your gaze
will fix a sight unseen —
an object
that has never been,
yet is
there inevitably
as your
death or destiny:
a vanitas,
or vanity.
Nincsenek megjegyzések:
Megjegyzés küldése