They told me you were dead

The Friends of Heraclitus

                by Charles Simic

Your friend has died, with whom

You roamed the streets,

At all hours, talking philosophy.

So, today you went alone,

Stopping often to change places

With your imaginary companion,

And argue back against yourself

On the subject of appearances:

The world we see in our heads

And the world we see daily,

So difficult to tell apart

When grief and sorrow bow us over. 

You two often got so carried away

You found yourselves in strange neighborhoods

Lost among unfriendly folk,

Having to ask for directions

While on the verge of a supreme insight,

Repeating your question

To an old woman or a child

Both of whom may have been deaf and dumb.

What was that fragment of Heraclitus

You were trying to remember

As you stepped on the butcher’s cat?

Meantime, you yourself were lost

Between someone’s new black shoe

Left on the sidewalk

And the sudden terror and exhilaration

At the sight of a girl

Dressed up for a night of dancing

Speeding by on roller skates.

 

Callimachus XXXIV G-P (A.P. 7.80):

Εἰπέ τις, Ἡράκλειτε, τεὸν μόρον ἐς δέ με δάκρυ
    ἤγαγεν ἐμνήσθην δ᾿ ὁσσάκις ἀμφότεροι
ἠέλιον λέσχῃ κατεδύσαμεν. ἀλλὰ σὺ μέν που,
    ξεῖν᾿ Ἁλικαρνησεῦ, τετράπαλαι σποδιή,
αἱ δὲ τεαὶ ζώουσιν ἀηδόνες, ᾗσιν ὁ πάντων
    ἁρπακτὴς Ἀίδης οὐκ ἐπὶ χεῖρα βαλεῖ.

They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead,

They brought me bitter news to hear and bitter tears to shed.

I wept as I remember'd how often you and I

Had tired the sun with talking and sent him down the sky.

And now that thou art lying, my dear old Carian guest,

A handful of grey ashes, long, long ago at rest,

Still are thy pleasant voices, thy nightingales, awake;

For Death, he taketh all away, but them he cannot take.

                    by William Johnson Cory 

Someone told me of your death, Heraclitus, and it moved me to tears, when I remembered how often the sun set on our talking. And you, my Halicarnassian friend, lie somewhere, gone long long ago to dust; but they live, your Nightingales, on which Hades who seizes all shall not lay his hand.
                                   by W. R. Paton

 

Greek and Paton translation from http://curculio.org/?p=116.
Cory translation from bartleby.com.

Charles Simic from Walking the Black Cat. Copyright © 1996 by Charles Simic. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.