Tiago’s tattoo

Tiago’s tattoo, eit foto av ø på Flickr.

Tiago’s tattoo: «Last Poem» by Fernando Pessoa’s heteronym Alberto Caeiro, whose poems I'm right now working on translating into Norwegian. It reads:

É talvez o último dia da minha vida.
Saudei o sol, levantando a mão direita,
Mas não o saudei, dizendo-lhe adeus,
Fiz sinal de gostar de o ver antes: mais nada.

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This could be the last day of my life.
I greeted the sun by raising my right hand,
But I didn't really greet it or say good-bye, either.
I just showed I still like seeing it, thats's all.

(translated by Chris Daniels)

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Dette er kanskje den siste dagen i livet mitt.
Eg helste sola, løfta den høgre handa,
Men det var ikkje ei helsing og ikkje eit farvel.
Eg viste at eg var glad for å ha sett henne: ikkje meir.

(mi gjendikting, foreløpig versjon)

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Fun fact: Tiago has the variant «antes» (before) as the last word before the colon, while new editions of Caeiro’s work now has the word «ainda» (still). Richard Zenith doesn't even list the variant «antes», pointing to the likelihood that it's regarded as a mistake in the original transcription, that has now been corrected. But Tiago prefers the «antes», and I have used it for the basis of this translation, as a tribute (though not sure if I'll use it in the book ...).