Jorge Luis Borges, Dante

by Vertebrata

PAKAO,  I, 32

Od jutarnjega do večernjega sumraka, jedan leopard, posljednjih dana XII stoljeća, gledao je nekoliko dasaka, nekoliko okomitih željeznih šipaka, raznovrsne muškarce i žene, debeo zid i, možda, kameni žlijeb ispunjen suhim lišćem. Nije znao, nije mogao znati, da hlepi za ljubavlju i okrutnošću i za žestokim užitkom da razdire i za vjetrom s jelenjim vonjem, ali ga je nešto gušilo i bunilo se u njemu, a Bog mu govoraše u snu: Živiš i umrijet ćeš u ovome zatvoru, tako da te samo meni znan čovjek mogne vidjeti određen broj puta, da te ne zaboravi i da metne tvoj lik i simbol u jednu pjesmu, koja ima točno mjesto u poretku svemira. Trpiš ropstvo, ali ćeš dati jednu riječ pjesmi.  Bog, u snu, prosvijetli okrutnost zvjerinju, i ona razumije te razloge, i prihvati tu kob, ali, kad se probudi, bijaše u njoj samo mračno prepuštanje, hrabro neznanje, jer je ustroj svijeta odviše zamršen za priprostost jedne zvijeri.

Godinama poslije, Dante umiraše u Ravenni, isto onako neopravdan i sâm kao bilo koji čovjek. Bog mu, u snu, objavi tajnu svrhu njegova života i djela; Dante, začuđen, napokon dozna tko je i što je i blagoslovi svoje gorčine. Predaja veli da je, probudivši se, osjetio kao da je primio i izgubio nešto beskonačno, nešto što neće moći nadoknaditi, pa čak ni nazreti, jer je ustroj svijeta odviše zamršen za priprostost ljudi.

 

 

RAJ,  XXXI, 108

Diodor Sicilac iznosi priču o rastrganom i razbacanom bogu; tko, idući kroz sumrak ili zapisujući koji datum svoje prošlosti, nije pokatkad osjetio da se nešto beskrajno izgubilo?

Ljudi su izgubili jedno lice, nenadoknadivo lice, i svi su poželjeli biti onaj hodočasnik (odsanjan u Empireju, ispod Ruže) koji je u Rimu vidio Veronikin rubac i promrmljao s vjerom:  Gospodine moj Kriste, Bože pravi, takav li dakle bješe lik tvoj sveti?*

Ima jedno kameno lice na putu i natpis koji kazuje: Istiniti lik Svetoa Lica Boga iz Jaéna; kad bismo doista znali kakvo je bilo, bio bi u nas ključ prispodoba i doznali bismo da li je sin tesarov bio, također, Sin Božji.

Pavao ga vidje kao svjetlost koja ga obori; Ivan kao sunce kad blista punim sjajem; Tereza od Isusa vidje ga mnogo puta, okupana u mirnoj svjetlosti, i nikad mu ne mogaše odrediti boju očiju.

Gubimo te crte, kao šo se može izgubiti čudotvorni broj, sastavljen od običnih znamenaka; kao što se, zauvijek, gubi slika u kaleidoskopu. Možemo ih ugledati i ne prepoznati. Profil kakva Židova u podzemnoj željeznici možda je Kristov; ruke koje nam uzvraćaju sitniš, kroz prozorčić, možda ponavljaju one što ih jednoga dana vojnici čavlima na križ pribiše.

Možda se neka crta toga raspetoga lica krije u svakom zrcalu; možda lice umrije, i bî uništeno, da bi Bog mogao biti svi.

Tko zna nećemo li ga noćaš vidjeti u labirintima sna a da to sutra ne znamo.

 

*Mjesto na koje aludira Borges (Raj, XXXI, 103-108), u prijevodu Mate Marasa, u cjelini glasi:

Ko taj možda iz Hrvatske sada

dolazi našu Veroniku zreti,

što je se s davnog ne nasiti glada,

već, dok je vidi, veli u pameti:

“Gospode moj Kriste, Bože pravi,

takav li dakle bješe lik tvoj sveti?”

 

Jorge Luis Borges,  Tvorac (1960)

 

 

INFERNO, I, 32

FROM the twilight of day till the twilight of evening, a leopard, in the last years of the thirteenth century, would see some wooden planks, some vertical iron bars, men and women who changed, a wall and perhaps a stone gutter filled with dry leaves. He did not know, could not know, that he longed for love and cruelty and the hot pleasure of tearing things to pieces and the wind carrying the scent of a deer, but something suffocated and rebelled within him and God spoke to him in a dream: “You live and will die in this prison so that a man I know of may see you a certain number of times and not forget you and place your figure and symbol in a poem which has its precise place in the scheme of the universe. You suffer captivity, but you will have given a word to the poem.” God, in the dream, illumined the animal’s brutishness and the animal understood these reasons and accepted his destiny, but, when he awoke, there was in him only an obscure resignation, a valorous ignorance, for the machinery of the world is much too complex for the simplicity of a beast.

 

PARADISO, XXXI, 108

DIODORUS SICULUS relates the story of a broken and scattered god; who of us has never felt, while walking through the twilight or writing a date from his past, that something infinite had been lost?

Men have lost a face, an irrecoverable face, and all long to be that pilgrim (envisioned in the Empyrean, beneath the Rose) who in Rome sees the Veronica and faithfully murmurs: “My Lord, Jesus Christ, true God, and was this, then, the fashion of thy semblance?”

There is a stone face beside a road with an inscription saying “The True Portrait of the Holy Face of the God of Jaén”; if we really knew what it was like, the key to all parables would be ours and we would know if the carpenter’s son was also the Son of God.

Paul saw it as a light which hurled him to the ground; John saw it as the sun when it blazes in all its force: Teresa of Léon saw it many times, bathe in a tranquil light, and could never determine the colour of its eyes.

We have lost these features, just as  one may lose a magic number made up of customary digits, just as one loses for ever an image in a kaleidoscope. We may see them and be unaware of it. A Jew’s profile in the subway is perhaps that of Christ; the hands giving us our change at a ticket window perhaps repeat those that one day were nailed to the cross by some soldiers.

Perhaps some feature of that crucified countenance lurks in every mirror; perhaps the face died, was obliterated, so that God could be all of us.

 

Jorge Luis Borges, El Hacedor (1960)

 

Gustav Dore, Paradiso XXXI, Rosa Celeste: Dante and Beatrice gaze upon the highest Heaven, The Empyrean