Borges Speaks In Riddles

Los Enigmas by Jorge Luis Borges

Yo que soy el que ahora está cantando

seré mañana el misterioso, el muerto,

el morador de un mágico y desierto

orbe sin antes ni después ni cuándo.

Así afirma la mística. Me creo

indigno del Infierno o de la Gloria,

pero nada predigo. Nuestra historia

cambia como las formas de Proteo.

¿Qué errante laberinto, qué blancura

ciega de resplandor será mi suerte,

cuando me entregue el fin de esta aventura

la curiosa experiencia de la muerte?

Quiero beber su cristalino Olvido,

ser para siempre; pero no haber sido.

***

The Enigmas (translated by John Updike)

I who am singing these lines today

Will be tomorrow the enigmatic corpse

Who dwells in a realm, magical and barren,

Without a before or an after or a when.

So say the mystics. I say I believe

Myself undeserving of Heaven or of Hell

But make no predictions. Each man’s tale

Shifts like the watery forms of Proteus.

What errant labyrinth, what blinding flash

Of splendour and glory shall become my fate

When the end of this adventure presents me with

The curious experience of death?

I want to drink its crystal-pure oblivion,

To be forever; but never to have been.

***

Notes:

Enigma – from Greek, to speak in riddles

1530 – statement which conceals a hidden meaning or known thing under obscure words or forms

1600 – anything inexplicable to the observer

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