The Woman? Bone Of Contention Poem by Peter Mamara

by M. Eminescu (1850-1889)

The woman? Other than an eternal toy of her own-dreams,
What else is this bone of contention?
She has her waxy mask and her proud mind.
She has wild passions in a nature of a babe.
She has a conduct without common sense
— When cruel, when with mercy.
You are a dream in her mind. And now she cuddles you.
And tomorrow she kills you. Now she listens to your whisper of love,
So, she can hear it with the same grin on her lips.
And tomorrow she tortures you with proposals.
And she knows that she taunts you, and that she breaks any nerve in you.
A comedienne old as the world, she plays comedy today.
And she shall play it for one thousand years from now
— Using the same proud, candid, and sometimes sad mask.
And the man loved by her: he laughs now and he dies tomorrow.
And this woman: heartlessness' embodiment,
What is she doing in this world of torment?
She, the one that doesn't think, she thinks only with her lips,
Since nature gave her words of love and kisses.
It gave her the happiest laugh, and an intoxicating smile.
So much wisdom is in her flower-like mouth.
So much understanding seems that you notice at her.
And so much pleasure seems she brings to your sad heart,
When tired you lean your head on her shoulder.
Or when you look into her sweet to kill eyes
Such as to forfeit even your eternal salvation
And you become ill, and sacrifice yourself to worms.
So you put together in this world: a layer of generations.
You sacrifice your pride, and right mind, and your goals.
Oh death you, dear friend, you protect the lucky ones
Under your large shroud… And your magic rod
Touches the head of a man who wants you.
It makes him like the Titans, so he hates everything.
He hates himself and he hates the world
And he hates the thought that he is hated.
He sees this life like a step toward salvation,
Like a chance to suffer — a long apathy inside timid hearts —
And a burden, which hundreds of years that elapsed
Had loaded on his shoulders.
The charade of this life is govern by gold,
When in fact, the purpose of this life is for salvation.
The day, which looks at you happily, is ironic
While in nature, a living being keeps down another living being.
The back and forth bend of the flowers in the wind, is touching,
While they nourish from the ground, with their roots.
Anomalous is the Earth — treasurer of lives
When its bosom hides thousand of scattered seeds,
Which, come up to the sunlight,
Greet each other with their heads,
But compete against each other with their roots.
Life is a fight, and the entire nature is a fight.
Millions of creatures with their days cut short,
Dying, they give sustenance through decay
To that coat that covers the nature in a lovely way.
In vain you make up words and throw them in the wind.
Childbearing is the role for a woman in this world.
Take a look at those laughs, smiles, dreams and moans,
They sow the seed in you, the desire for procreation.
Why do you wrestle with the night, and mumble at the moon?
If you do it or not, it is the same… the same.
If you weren't in this world to breed the tribe,
Any slender guy, any blockhead could be an Adam
For the future life…
And be it a rod in a fence, if women are left on this planet,
All shall burn with desire for it.
Oh, death! — Not the one that kills so it can give birth again,
And which is a shadow to life — a shameful shadow —
But the eternal death in which everything is one,
And into which everything shall plunge: the sun and the moon…
You are the enigma of the unclear main beliefs
That only a brain from thousands of brains understands it.
End-of-time you, chaos you, and lack-of-life you…
Even to a genius, you tell only what is in books…
Oh, weak lightning you… for the one who isn't afraid of you
You freeze life's nerve from the fleeting time,
While others poke relentlessly at the world with their thoughts
— Life is times-past which are written on water.
Darkness you, sweet friend,
You snuff out with a huff, the magical pastime of the glitzy world.
Thought of the night you…
A woman kills you with her odd whispers.
Nothing is in her whisper.
Do you know what she whispers?
Not that she want me. She only hates you.
When she smiles at me, then she is on the lookout.
You are the target towards whom she aims her victory.
She never knew that what she wants is something else.
You are her enemy. I am her revenge-tool…
A tormented tool… A shameful utensil…
I lie to myself. I want, and I think that
Love brings for me some improvement.
(1876)

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