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Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986)

Seventeen Haiku
Translated by Jon Tarnoc

1

Something was promised to
me by the afternoon and the
mountain. I have lost it.

2

The vast night.
Now there's nothing else
but fragrance.

3

Is there or not
the dream I forgot
before dawn.

4

Silent strings.
Music had known
my feelings.

5

Wouldn't greet me now,
the almond trees in the orchard.
They're your memory.

6

Obscurely,
books, knives, keys
follow my luck.

7

From that day on
I never moved the pieces
on the chessboard.

8

In the desert
dawn arrives.
Somebody knows it.

9

The idle sword
dreams of battles.
I have another dream.

10

The man's dead.
His beard and nails grow.
They don't know.

11

This is the hand
that has touched
your head of hair.

12

The mirror below
the eavesboard reflects
the Moon alone.

13

Under the Moon
an extended, solitary
shadow.

14

Extinguished light.
Is it of an empire
or that of a firefly?

15

New Moon.
Even she's watching
through another door.

16

The nightingale's far
away trill consoles
me unknowingly.

17

My aging hand
writing down verses
for oblivion.

cf.
Jorge Luis Borges. "Seventeen Haiku" (In: The New Republic, no. 3,537, p. 30. Washington, 1 November 1982)
Translations into English by Norman Thomas di Giovanni. Gift of James M. Campbell.

On Salvation by Deeds

One autumn, one of the autumns of time, the Shinto divinities gathered, not for the first time, at Izumo. They are said to have numbered eight million. Being a shy man I would have felt a bit lost among so many. In any case, it is not convenient to deal in inconceivable numbers. Let us say there were eight, since eight is a good omen in these islands.

They were downcast, but did not show it: the visages of divinities are undecipherable kanji. They seated themselves in a circle on the green crest of a hill. They had been observing mankind from their firmament or from a stone or from a snowflake. One of the divinities spoke:

Many days, or centuries, ago, we gathered here to create Japan and the world. The fishes, the seas, the seven colors of the rainbow, the generations of plants and animals have all worked out well. So that men should not be burdened with too many things, we gave them succession, issue, the plural day and the singular night. We also bestowed on them the gift of experimenting with certain variations. The bee continues repeating beehives. But man has imagined devices: the plow, the key, the kaleidoscope. He also imagined the sword and the art of war. He has just imagined an invisible weapon which could put an end to history. Before this senseless deed is done, let us wipe out men.

They remained pensive. Without haste another divinity spoke:

It is true. They have thought up that atrocity, but there is also this something quite different, which fits in the space encompassed by seventeen syllables.

The divinity intoned them. They were in un unknown language, and I could not understand them

The leading divinity delivered a judgment:

Let men survive.

Thus, because of a haiku, the human race was saved.

Izumo, April 27, 1984