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Correspondence from Fernando Pessoa to Karl Germer
Apartado 147 Lisbon
3rd. December, 1930.
Dear Mr. Germer:
I wrote you this morning and am just writing you again with a sort of peace-offering for the eleventh circle you mentioned in a past letter of yours.
I am sending you one of the
products of my recent peaceless repose—a
translation into Portuguese of the Master Therion's "Hymn
to Pan". I shall send you afterwards a literal
translation of this translation, so the circle already
referred to may be consulted as to the inwardness. As Portuguese has the same pliancy and fluidity as English (it is the only "Latin" language in this case), there was no radical difficulty in the translation. The rhythm of the original has been strictly maintained and the form and colour of the meaning have not been lost. But there are necessarily some departures from the literal; the chief one is due to the fact that, whereas "Man" very kindly rhymes with "Pan", homem is far less accommodating. The Portuguese line "Meu homem e afá!' means "My man and my desire!" and so is not too wide of the Mark.
In some cases the literalness is quite startling; "With the lonely lust of devildom" comes out into "Do cio sózinho da demonía", which actually hisses and shrieks (hisses underlined in red, shrieks in blue—S and I sounds).
Yours very sincerely,
Fernando Pessoa
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