chamaimelon: (Default)
chamaimelon ([personal profile] chamaimelon) wrote2008-05-02 02:45 pm
Entry tags:

Синтаксическое

W. H. Auden
Words

A sentence uttered makes a world appear
Where all things happen as it says they do;
We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear:
Words have no words for words that are not true.

Syntactically, though, it must be clear;
One cannot change the subject half-way through,
Nor alter tenses to appease the ear:
Arcadian tales are hard-luck stories too.

But should we want to gossip all the time,
Were fact not fiction for us at its best,
Or find a charm in syllables that rhyme,

Were our fate not by verbal chance expressed,
As rustics in a ring-dance pantomime
The Knight as some lone cross-roads of his quest?

[identity profile] ra66it.livejournal.com 2008-05-03 03:00 am (UTC)(link)
Words have no words for words that are not true.
Эта строчка почему то всегда завораживала...

[identity profile] chamaimelon.livejournal.com 2008-05-03 05:34 am (UTC)(link)
Меня больше трогает "Syntactically, though, it must be clear" :)

[identity profile] lupandin.livejournal.com 2008-05-30 04:20 pm (UTC)(link)
A sentence uttered makes a world appear
!!!

[identity profile] lupandin.livejournal.com 2008-06-05 06:55 am (UTC)(link)
We doubt the speaker, not the tongue we hear
А мне кажется, что по слову можно многое сказать о говорящем.

[identity profile] logophilka.livejournal.com 2008-07-10 02:19 pm (UTC)(link)
...а меня вчера студент-англист пытался убедить, что Оден не писал сонетов:)