NOTA: Para uma discussão muito breve do simbolismo deste poema inserido no conjunto d'Os Tempos ver a minha introdução a "O Encoberto".
English version
An introduction to the poem: According to an old prophecy, king Sebastian did not die in Morocco and he will one day return to his homeland, arriving in a misty morning. Mist is thus intertwined with the myth of the return of the Desejado (he who is yearned for), be he king Sebastian or someone else. In this final poem of Mensagem, Fernando Pessoa introduces a final turn that allows for a masterful close to the whole Poem: he describes the rather hapless and forsaken situation of his country at the time of his writing and ends by stating that such situation is, symbolically speaking, mist. And so he cries out that the time is thus come: "It is the hour!" meaning that a time such as his is indeed the right moment for the prophecy to be fulfilled!
Mist
Neither king nor law, neither peace nor war,
Define with outline and substance
This dull brilliance of the land
That is Portugal sinking in sadness -
Brightness without light or heat,
Like that which the will-o’-the-wisp confines.
Nobody knows what one wants.
Nobody is aware of one’s own soul,
Nor of what is evil, nor of what is pure.
(What distant anxiety weeps nearby?)
All is uncertain and ultimate.
All is fragmented, nothing is whole.
Oh Portugal, today you are mist...
‘Tis the hour!
NOTA: Ver AQUI a tradução de 1997 do Prof. Mike Harland (que eu li antes de produzir a versão acima)
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