I mentioned in a previous post that in the English-language literature the genre of villanelle has acquired the depth it didn’t use to have as a Mediterranean-born dance-song. You could see how W. H. Auden and Oscar Wilde used the form to convey very profound meaning; however, the villanelle Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night by Dylan Thomas reads like a sober yet beautiful illustration to The Return of Prodigal Son by Rembrandt. At the same time the poem bears certain parallels with Shakespeare’s sonnet no. 7 (Lo! in the orient when the gracious light…), in that the lyrical hero appeals to the subject (a monarch, a kind of pater familiae) to leave a successor before his age expires.
Dylan Thomas, Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night (listen to Thomas’s recording of the poem).
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| Rembrandt, The Return of the Prodigal Son |
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
William Shakespeare, Sonnet no. 7 (read the commentary and a 1609 version of the poem)
1. Lo! in the orient when the gracious light
2. Lifts up his burning head, each under eye
3. Doth homage to his new-appearing sight,
4.Serving with looks his sacred majesty;
5. And having climb’d the steep-up heavenly hill,
6. Resembling strong youth in his middle age,
7. Yet mortal looks adore his beauty still,
8. Attending on his golden pilgrimage:
9. But when from highmost pitch, with weary car,
10. Like feeble age, he reeleth from the day,
11. The eyes, ‘fore duteous, now converted are
12. From his low tract, and look another way:
13. So thou, thyself outgoing in thy noon
14. Unlooked on diest unless thou get a son.
Russian translation
Дилан Томас, Не уходи безропотно во тьму
Не уходи безропотно во тьму,
Будь яростней пред ночью всех ночей,
Не дай погаснуть свету своему
Хоть мудрый знает – не осилишь тьму,
Во мгле словами не зажжёшь лучей –
Не уходи безропотно во тьму,
Хоть добрый видит: не сберечь ему
Живую зелень юности своей,
Не дай погаснуть свету своему.
А ты, хватавший солнце налету,
Воспевший свет, узнай к закату дней,
Что не уйдёшь безропотно во тьму!
Суровый видит: смерть идёт к нему
Метеоритным отсветом огней,
Не дай погаснуть свету своему!
Отец, с высот проклятий и скорбей
Благослови всей яростью твоей –
Не уходи безропотно во тьму!
Не дай погаснуть свету своему!
