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الزمن المؤجل

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»Die gestundete Zeit«, 1953 erschienen, begründete Ingeborg Bachmanns Ruhm als eine der größten Dichterinnen der europäischen Moderne. »Ein einziger schmaler Gedichtband, ›Die gestundete Zeit‹, und schon war ihr Name allen bekannt, auch solchen, für die Lyrik sonst nicht eben zum täglichen Brot gehört. Seit Gottfried Benn hat es im deutschen Sprachraum kein lyrisches Talent gegeben, an dem sich die Grundbedingung dichterischer Existenz überzeugender bewahrheitet hat als an Ingeborg Bachmann.« Günter Blöcker, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

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First published January 1, 1953

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About the author

Ingeborg Bachmann

185 books618 followers
“What actually is possible, however, is transformation. And the transformative effect that emanates from new works leads us to new perception, to a new feeling, new consciousness.” This sentence from Ingeborg Bachmann’s Frankfurt Lectures on Poetics (1959-60) can also be applied to her own self-consciousness as an author, and to the history of her reception. Whether in the form of lyric poetry, short prose, radio plays, libretti, lectures and essays or longer fiction, Bachmann’s œuvre had as its goal and effect “to draw people into the experiences of the writers,” into “new experiences of suffering.” (GuI 139-140). But it was especially her penetrating and artistically original representation of female subjectivity within male-dominated society that unleashed a new wave in the reception of her works.

Although Bachmann’s spectacular early fame derived from her lyric poetry (she received the prestigious Prize of the Gruppe 47 in 1954), she turned more and more towards prose during the 1950’s, having experienced severe doubts about the validity of poetic language. The stories in the collection Das dreißigste Jahr (The Thirtieth Year; 1961) typically present a sudden insight into the inadequacy of the world and its “orders” (e.g. of language, law, politics, or gender roles) and reveal a utopian longing for and effort to imagine a new and truer order. The two stories told from an explicitly female perspective, “Ein Schritt nach Gomorrha” (“A Step towards Gomorrah”) and “Undine geht” (“Undine Goes/Leaves”), are among the earliest feminist texts in postwar German-language literature. Undine accuses male humanity of having ruined not only her life as a woman but the world in general: “You monsters named Hans!” In her later prose (Malina 1971; Simultan 1972; and the posthumously published Der Fall Franza und Requiem für Fanny Goldmann) Bachmann was again ahead of her time, often employing experimental forms to portray women as they are damaged or even destroyed by patriarchal society, in this case modern Vienna. Here one sees how intertwined Bachmann’s preoccupation with female identity and patriarchy is with her diagnosis of the sickness of our age: “I’ve reflected about this question already: where does fascism begin? It doesn’t begin with the first bombs that were dropped…. It begins in relationships between people. Fascism lies at the root of the relationship between a man and a woman….”(GuI 144)

As the daughter of a teacher and a mother who hadn’t been allowed to go to university, Bachmann enjoyed the support and encouragement of both parents; after the war she studied philosophy, German literature and psychology in Innsbruck, Graz and Vienna. She wrote her doctoral dissertation (1950) on the critical reception of Heidegger, whose ideas she condemned as “a seduction … to German irrationality of thought” (GuI 137). From 1957 to 1963, the time of her troubled relationship with Swiss author Max Frisch, Bachmann alternated between Zurich and Rome. She rejected marriage as “an impossible institution. Impossible for a woman who works and thinks and wants something herself” (GuI 144).

From the end of 1965 on Bachmann resided in Rome. Despite her precarious health—she was addicted to pills for years following a faulty medical procedure—she traveled to Poland in 1973. She was just planning a move to Vienna when she died of complications following an accidental fire.

Joey Horsley

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Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews
Profile Image for Paula  Abreu Silva.
387 reviews115 followers
January 26, 2023
3,5*

"UMA ESPÉCIE DE PERDA

Usámos a dois: estações do ano, livros e uma música.
As chaves, as taças de chá, o cesto do pão, lençóis de linho e uma
cama.
Um enxoval de palavras, de gestos, trazidos, utilizados,
gastos.
Cumprimos o regulamento de um prédio. Dissemos. Fizemos.
E estendemos sempre a mão.

Apaixonei-me por Invernos, por um septeto vienense e por
Verões.
Por mapas, por um ninho de montanha, uma praia e uma
cama.
Ritualizei datas, declarei promessas irrevogáveis,
idolatrei o indefinido e senti devoção perante um nada.

(- o jornal dobrado, a cinza fria, o papel com um apontamento)
sem temores religiosos, pois a igreja era esta cama.

De olhar o mar nasceu a minha pintura inesgotável.
Da varanda podia saudar os povos, meus vizinhos.

Ao fogo da lareira, em segurança, o meu cabelo tinha a sua cor
mais intensa.
A campainha da porta era o alarme da minha alegria.

Não te perdi a ti,
perdi o mundo."

✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤✤

"SOMBRAS ROSAS SOMBRAS

Sob um céu estranho
sombras rosas
sombras
numa terra estranha
entre rosas e sombras
numa água estranha
a minha sombra"
Profile Image for Tijana.
866 reviews288 followers
January 15, 2021
"Ne osvrći se.
Zaveži uzicu na cipeli.
Oteraj pse.
Baci ribe u more.
Ugasi vučike!

Dolaze teži dani."
Profile Image for Martin Riexinger.
297 reviews29 followers
August 28, 2025
Meine Bewertung spiegelt das breite Qualitätsspektrum der Gedichte wieder. Während das Gedicht, das der Sammlung den Namen gegeben hat, "Thema und Variation" und "Große Landschaft bei Wien" mit ihrer wuchtigen Bildsprache sowie paradoxen Beschreibungen von Sinneseindrücken und Denkprozessen zu den Höhepunkten der deutschsprachigen Lyrik im 20. Jh. gehören, finden sich in diesem Buch doch auch Beispiele abgedroschener Kultur- und Gesellschaftskritik in Knickprosa.

Die Sammlung enthält auch einen längeren Monolog des Fürsten Mnyschkin den Bachmann für Hans Werner Henzes Ballett "Der Idiot" nach Dostojewski verfasst hat. Der Sprachduktus erinnert an ihre besseren Gedichte, doch ohne Kontext erschließt sich dieses Werk nicht recht
Profile Image for Mesoscope.
614 reviews349 followers
September 16, 2022
(English version below)

Es gibt eine gewisse Tradition in deutschen Poesie, in der undurchsichtige, undeutliche Bildungen verwendet werden, die wir als “dunkle Poetik” nennen dürfen. Ich denke, diese Tradition beginnt mit Hölderlin, und wie ein trüber Fluss durch die Duinen Elegien Rilkes bis zur Gegenwart strömt. Ingeborg Bachmann ist eine gegenwärtige Vertreterin dafür, und sie gab uns ein Spur ihrer Method:

Wie Orpheus spiel ich
auf den Saiten des Lebens den Tod
und in die Schönheit der Erde
und deiner Augen, die den Himmel verwalten,
weiß ich nur Dunkles zu sagen.

Wenn wir nicht schon geahnt hätten, dass Bachmann bei der Seite Hölderlins war, verkündete sie uns es klar in ihrem Gedicht “Große Landschaft bei Wien”:

Asiens Atem ist jenseits.
Rhythmischer Aufgang von Saaten, reifer Kulturen
Ernten vorm Untergang, sind sie verbrieft, so weiß ichs
dem Wind noch zu sagen.

In Die gestundete Zeit verbindet Bachmann drei Traditionen. Die erste ist die dunkle Tradition unklarer Bilder. Aus dem Titelgedicht dieses Bandes:

Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald mußt du den Schuh schnüren
und die Hunde zurückjagen in die Marschhöfe.
Denn die Eingeweide der Fische
sind kalt geworden im Wind.

Man könnte vieles über diese Zeilen und wie sie funktionieren sagen, aber nichts, über was sie bedeuten, oder warum sie gewählt worden sind.

Die zweite ist die klassische lyrische Tradition. Die Anerkennung dieses Tendenzes in ihrem Werk verdanke ich ihrem leidenschaftlichen Verfechter Marcel Reich-Ranicki, der auf die lebhafte Klarheit hinweist, mit der sie selbst unklare Bilder evoziert, und der dies als Teil einer Linie sieht, die von Sappho stammt.

Die dritte ist die surrealistische und expressionistische Poesie des Zusammenbruchs nach dem ersten Weltkrieg, und darin hat Bachmann vielleicht in Georg Heym einen geistlichen Vorfahren, dessen Lyrik in Gedichten wie "Ophelia" mir an sie erinnert:

Ein langer, weißer Aal
Schlüpft über ihre Brust. Ein Glühwurm scheint
Auf ihrer Stirn. Und eine Weide weint
Das Laub auf sie und ihre stumme Qual.

Wie Heym ist Bachmann mit der Zerstörung des Krieges beschäftigt und wandert durch ein Ödland, das hoch aufgetürmt ist mit dem, was Eliot “a heap of broken images” (ein Haufen gebrochener Bilder) nannte.

In Bachmann sehe ich ein Genie, das diese drei Tendenzen zu einer eigenen kristallinen, ganz eigenwilligen Ausdrucksweise wirkungsstark vereint. In ihrer sorgfältigen Erforschung einer zerbrochenen Gegenwart geht sie wahrheitsgemäß mit den Tatsachen ihrer Zeit um, während sie in ihrer oft untertriebenen Entwicklung tiefer Strömungen des deutschen Denkens eine Art Kontinuität wach hält, die den Nachkriegsleser tröstet, indem sie sie mit der lebendigen Vergangenheit vereint, ohne atavistisch vor der schrecklichen Gegenwart zu fliehen. Ich weiß nicht, welchen besseren Trost ein anständiger Mensch in 1953 hätte suchen können.

Ehrlich gesagt ist der “dunkle” Stil von trüben Bildern nicht mein Geschmack. Andererseits, als ich Dante las, erkannte ich zum ersten Mal, wie stark als Leser ich auf klare, deutliche Bilder reagierte. Ich selbst habe keine starke persönliche oder ästhetische Reaktion auf Bachmanns Werke, aber ich erkenne ihren Mut und ihre technische Meisterschaft an.

***

There's a certain German poetic tradition that involves using opaque, indistinct imagery which we might call a dark poetics. I think of this tradition as beginning with Hölderlin, and it runs like a murky river down through Rilke's Duino Elegies and into the near-present to find a modern representative in Ingeborg Bachmann, who gives us this clue to her method:

Wie Orpheus spiel ich
auf den Saiten des Lebens den Tod
und in die Schönheit der Erde
und deiner Augen, die den Himmel verwalten,
weiß ich nur Dunkles zu sagen.

If we did not already sense that Bachmann was of the party of Hölderlin, she clearly announces it to us in her "Große Landschaft bei Wien":

Asiens Atem is jenseits.
Rhythmischer Aufgang von Saaten, reifer Kulturen
Ernten vorm Untergang, sind sie verbrieft, so weiß ichs
dem Wind noch zu sagen.

In Die gestundete Zeit, Bachmann combines three traditions. The first is the dark tradition of unclear imagery. From the titular poem of this volume:

Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit
wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald mußt du den Schuh schnüren
und die Hunde zurückjagen in die Marschhöfe.
Denn die Eingeweide der Fische
sind kalt geworden im Wind.

There are many things we can say about these lines, and how they function, but not, I think, what they mean or why they were chosen.

The second is the classical lyrical tradition. I owe the recognition of this tendency in her work to her ardent champion, Marcel Reich-Ranicki, who points out the vivid clarity with which she evokes images which are themselves unclear, and sees this as part of a line coming down from Sappho.

The third is the surrealist and expressionist post-World-War-I poetry of collapse, and in this perhaps Bachmann has a spiritual ancestor in Georg Heym, whose lyricism in poems like "Ophelia" reminded me of her:

Ein langer, weißer Aal
Schlüpft über ihre Brust. Ein Glühwurm scheint
Auf ihrer Stirn. Und eine Weide weint
Das Laub auf sie und ihre stumme Qual.

Like Heym, Bachmann is preoccupied with the devastation of the war, and wanders through a waste land piled high with what Eliot called "a heap of broken images."

In Bachmann, I find a genius who combines these three tendencies into her own crystalline, totally idiosyncratic manner of expression, and to powerful effect. In her careful exploration of a broken present she deals truthfully with the facts of her moment, while in her often-understated development of deep currents of German thought, she keeps alive a kind of continuity that comforts the post-War reader by connecting them to the living past, without taking atavistic flight from the awful present. I do not know what more solace a decent human being could have sought in 1953.

In all honesty, the "dark" style of murky images is not to my taste. On the contrary, when I read Dante I first recognized how deeply I respond as a reader to clear, distinct images. I do not myself have a strong personal or aesthetic response to Bachmann's work, but I recognize its courage and technical mastery.
Profile Image for Sarah.
Author 11 books370 followers
August 29, 2020
I thought the German would be a challenge and it was. I had to read closely and slowly and I had to reread, even though I knew some of these poems in English already. They are different in German, but both languages carry Bachmann’s depth and resonance. There’s more nature than I noticed in English.
I read many of the poems out loud to myself and basically had a very good time. I love Bachmann’s cadence and her word choices, some echoing the creative compound words of Paul Celan, her contemporary and once-lover. It’s more his trademark, he’s famous for it, but she employs it too, in words like Wolkenrot (cloudred) and Tagmond (daymoon) and Herbstmanöver (autumnmaneuver). It is true you can do this more casually in German even in everyday speech, at least to a certain extent, so maybe I make too much of it.
I love the emphatic in poetry, the command, the exclamation point. Not everyone can pull it off convincingly. But the first line of Bachmann’s poem “Psalm” is

Schweigt mit mir, wie alle Glocken schweigen!

which is: “Be still with me, as all bells are still!”

It could just as easily be “Stay quiet with me,” or “Go silent with me.”
I like all of those. I’ve always been sorry that English doesn’t have a good equivalent for “schweigen,” which is basically just be quiet. “Hush” is too unusual while “schweigen” is everywhere. “Shut your mouth” is a bit too in-your-face.
Profile Image for Greg.
1,128 reviews2,147 followers
February 19, 2009
Because I over think the whole reviewing and giving stars to books things I had to go searching for this title, and I could only find it in the original German on Goodreads. I guess this book hasn't been translated to English by itself, but it is included in the complete poems by Bachmann. What would happen if I ended up liking certain books contained in the complete poetry more than others? Or less. Would my rating be accurate, would anyone care? Should I spend my waking time thinking of more important things like how to write a resume, or maybe about the economy instead of worrying over the validity of my ratings on an online social networking site dedicated to books? Seriously, I spent probably over a half hour thinking about the pros and cons of rating the German language edition of this book today, and wondering if it was ok to add the German language one, when really what I read was an English translation. After I decided that it was ok, I also then went a step farther to bring my ethical dilemma to Karen, to make sure that she agreed I was doing the right thing. Then of course I needed to spend ten minutes or so writing this paragraph. Time well spent, yes?

A handful of the poems in this book I loved, the rest I didn't get into so much. Too much nature not enough angst and anguish of living after the Nazism. I have to admit to not getting The Idiot set to a ballet at the end. I think more was going on that I didn't quite understand, maybe I'd forgotten too many details from the original book, or maybe just not knowing a thing about ballet, and how or why it would relate to poetry did me in on that one. Anyway, I liked this. At the book's best moments they poems take on the feeling of Celan, at other times though there is something too lyrical and antiquated about them, sort of like the whole World War 2 thing hadn't ever happened, and sadly maybe too much talk of nature in the German context after Hitler always has the sounds of goose stepping jackboots sounding in the echoes of the picturesque valleys and fields (not to say there is anything fascist about the the author, it's just a German thing (and the author being Austrian doesn't change that though, because the man with the funny little mustache happened to be from Austria too (and the ancestors of yours truly if you accept the revisionist family tree, but if you go back to the source material it's a different story))).
Profile Image for Hassan Bin Salem.
279 reviews118 followers
November 6, 2022
مثل أورفيوس أعزف
الموت على أوتار الحيــاة
وفي مواجهة جمال الارض
وعينيك اللتين تحكمان السماء
لا اعرف سوى الكلام المعتم
لا تنس أنك أنت أيضا ، فجأة
في ذلك الصباح ، حين كان فراشك
ما زال مبتلا بالندى ، والقرنفلة
نائمة قرب قلبك
رأيت النهر المعتم
الذي مر بجانبك
لما كان وتر الصمت
مشدوداً الى موجة الدم
قبضت على قلبك الرقيق
تحولت خصلتك
الى شعر من ظ�� الليل
الندف السوداء في العتمة
تنزل على وجهك جليداً
ولست ملكاً لك
الآن نشكو معاً
لكنني مثل أورفيوس اعرف
الى جانب الموت الحياة
ومن أجلي تزرق
عينك المغلقة الى الأبد.
Profile Image for Madiha Ahmed.
222 reviews106 followers
August 11, 2022
أوصيكم بعدم القراءة لها ليلا لشدة شعورها ستهوى بكلماتها القليلة على قلبك وتفقد معها النوم

———
نادرًا ما يتم الاحتفاء بشاعر حديث ذي رتبة جادة في وقت مبكر جدًا مثل الشاعرة والكاتبة النمساوية إنجبورج باخمان. ولدت في كلاجينفورت في النمسا يوم 25 يونيو 1926.
في عام 1953 ، وهو العام الذي نُشر فيه أول مجموعة شعرية “الزمن المؤجل” وحصلت على واحدة من أكثر الجوائز الأدبية المرموقة في ألمانيا ما بعد الحرب من "جماعة 47" مما لفت انتباه عامة الناس إليها بعد ذلك بعامين ، وخصص أحد أبرز النقاد والشعراء في ألمانيا فصلا من كتابه عن الشعر الحديث إلى باخمان ، حيث أعلن صراحة عن رتبتها وانتمائها لشعراء مثل إليوت وريلكه وجوتفريد بين.
في عام 1959. طُلب من باخمان إلقاء سلسلة من المحاضرات حول الشعرية الحديثة في جامعة فرانكفورت ، مما أدى إلى مزيد من الدعاية والإشادة النقدية والثناء. برز نجمها ولكن هذا الصعود كان بلا شك أحد أعظم مصائب إنجبورج باخمان. وهو أن تكون دائما تحت أنظار الجمهور ، لكي يتم فحص كل إيماءة وكل كلمة وتحليلها ومناقشتها علنا. مما سبب لاحقا إحراجا مؤلما وقيودا على عملها مما أدى إلى تقليل نشاطها وكتابة شعرا أقل.
ترك انتهاء علاقتها التي دامت سنوات بالأديب السويسري (ماكس فريش) لخياناته ، جرحت غائرا في نفسها وكان رحيلها صادما حيث توفيت في روما عام ١٩٧٣ إثر حريق اندلع في غرفة نومها كان سببه عقب سيجارة. القصص المترجمة للعربية الوحيدة لها نشرت بعنوان “ العام الثلاثون”
📌ملاحظتي على الترجمة فقط أنها لم تتبع نفس طريقة باخمان في كتابة قصائدها بينما الترجمة الانجليزية اتبعت ذات الطريقة الشعرية في القصائد الأصلية.
وبالطبع ترجمة أ.سمير جريس بالتعاون مع يوسف لمود كانت رائعة وهو أفضل من يترجم عن الألمانية في الوقت الحالي والشكر لهما لترجمة هذا القصائد المختارة للعربية والتي تعد الوحيدة لها.
ما لمسته في شعر باخمان امتلاكها لصوت شعري رقيق متصل بالطبيعة وشعورا متمركز نحو الذات ومن جهة أخرى كان قاتما بعض الشيء تجاه ما يتجه اليه هذا العالم خاصة في قصيدتها”الزمن المؤجل”.
Profile Image for Hugo Santos.
201 reviews4 followers
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November 10, 2025
A palavra // só irá // arrastar consigo outras palavras, // a frase frases. // O mundo bem queria // definitivamente // impor-se, // estar já dito. // Não o digam.
Profile Image for Arpita.
19 reviews
November 1, 2022
Pretty upset that I cannot sit well with the english translations and try as I might to 'get' the last lines in german, it leaves me frustrated. But I do think there's some lightheartedness to it too, or a casual shrug at the misery of it all, which is peaceful. Or I have changed the entire meaning to my liking and my survival, which is again, great.
Profile Image for Castela.
31 reviews
Read
March 21, 2015
SEM ACEPIPES

Já nada me agrada.

Deverei eu
enfeitar uma metáfora
com uma flor de amendoeira?
Crucificar a sintaxe
sobre um efeito de luz?
Quem é que vai quebrar a cabeça?
com coisas tão fúteis?

Aprendi a entender as coisas
com as palavras
que existem
(para a classe mais baixa)

Fome
Vergonha
Lágrimas
e
Trevas.

Com o soluço impuro,
com o desespero
(e eu desespero ainda com o desespero)
por tanta miséria,
pelo estado do doente, pelo custo de vida,
sobreviverei.

Não descuido a escrita
mas a mim.
Os outros sabem
sabe Deus
o que fazer com as palavras.
Eu não sou o meu médico assistente.

Deverei eu
prender um pensamento,
conduzi-lo à cela iluminada de uma frase?
Alimentar o olhar, o ouvido
com nacos de palavras de primeira qualidade?
Estudar a líbido de uma vogal?
Investigar a cotação erótica das nossas consoantes?

Terei eu,
com a cabeça desfeita pelo granizo,
com cãibra da escrita nessa mão,
sob o peso de trezentas noites,
de rasgar o papel,
varrer as tramas de óperas de palavras,
destruindo assim: eu tu e ele ela isso

nós vós?

(Devo. Devem os outros.)

A minha parte - que desapareça!
Profile Image for Teresa.
1,492 reviews
June 9, 2017
"O TEMPO APRAZADO

Vêm aí dias difíceis.
O tempo até ver aprazado
assoma no horizonte.
Em breve terás de atar os sapatos
e recolher os cães nos casais da lezíria,
pois as vísceras dos peixes
arrefeceram ao vento.
Mortiça arde a luz dos tremoceiros:
o tempo até ver aprazado
assoma no horizonte.

Do outro lado enterra-se-te a amante,
a areia sobe-lhe pelo cabelo a esvoaçar,
corta-lhe a palavra,
impõe-lhe silêncio,
acha-a mortal
e pronta para a despedida
depois de cada abraço.

Não olhes em volta.
Ata os sapatos.
Recolhe os cães.
Lança os peixes ao mar.
Extingue os tremoceiros!

Vêm aí dias difíceis."
Profile Image for Sheyamii.
105 reviews11 followers
December 17, 2022
" كل ما نفعله ينكأ الجراح،
وأحداََ لم يغفر لأحد.
مجروحةٌ مثلك وجارحة،
عشت من أجلك."

"أنا ميتٌ يمشي
مسجلٌ في اللامكان
مجهولٌ في مملكة الموظفين
فائضٌ في المدن الذهبية
والريف الآخذ في الاخضرار
مقصيٌ منذ زمنٍ طويل
لم أمنح شيئاََ"
Profile Image for linse.
68 reviews3 followers
July 13, 2023
Besteht ein Herz darauf, ein Herz zu sein?
Profile Image for Mark Brownlow.
Author 6 books34 followers
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September 10, 2023
An exhibition on Bachmann at Vienna's Literature Museum left me astounded by her genius and the diverse range of written forms she could apply that genius to: poet, librettist, essayist, novelist... This slim volume of poetry was a struggle, as it seems my German is not nearly as fluent as I thought. (Hence no rating!) Even so, passages of comprehension built evocative images and ambiences: word crafting at a different level. Planning to re-read, slowly, with a (very large) dictionary at hand, and an empty mind ready to be filled and influenced.
Profile Image for Esthër.
167 reviews39 followers
October 15, 2013
"En la cuenca de mi mudez
pon una palabra
y levanta grandes bosques a ambos lados,
que mi boca
entera quede en la sombra"
Profile Image for M.W.P.M..
1,679 reviews27 followers
January 17, 2022
I have barely stepped upon your land,
silent country, barely disturbed a stone.
I was lifted so high by your sky,
placed so in clouds, mist, and remoteness,
that I had already left you
the moment I set anchor.

You have closed my eyes
with sea breeze and oak leaf,
upon the tears I cried
you let the grasses feed;
out of my dreams, suns dared
to venture across the land,
yet everything disappeared
as soon as your day began.
Everything remained unspoken.

Through streets flapped the great gray birds
that singled me out for expulsion.
Was I ever here?

I didn't want to be seen.

My eyes are open.
Sea breeze and oak leaf?
Under the serpentine sea
in place of you I see
the country of my soul succumb.

I have never stepped on its land.
- Departure from England, pg. 9

* * *

Like Orpheus I play
death on the strings of life,
and to the beauty of the Earth
and your eyes, which administer heaven,
I can only speak of darkness.

Don't forget that you also, suddenly,
on that morning when your camp
was still damp with dew, and a carnation
slept on your heart,
you saw the dark stream
race past you.

The string of silence
taut on the pulse of blood,
I grasped your beating heart.
Your curls were transformed
into the shadow hair of night,
black flakes of darkness
buried your face.

And I don't belong to you.
Both of us mourn now.

But like Orpheus I know
life on the side of death,
and the deepening blue
of your forever closed eye.
- Darkness Spoken, pg. 11

* * *

Harder days are coming.
The loan of borrowed time
will be due on the horizon.
Soon you must lace up your boots
and chase the hounds back to the marsh farms.
For the entrails of fish
have grown cold in the wind.
Dimly burns the light of lupines.
Your gaze makes out in fog:
the loan of borrowed time
will be due on the horizon.

There your loved one sinks in sand;
it rises up to her windblown hair,
it cuts her short,
it commands her to be silent,
it discovers she's mortal
and willing to leave you
after every embrace.

Don't look around.
Lace up your boots.
Chase back the hounds.
Throw the fish into the sea.a
Put out the lupines!

Harder days are coming.
- Borrowed Time, pg. 16

* * *

War is no longer declared,
bu rather continued. The outrageous
has become everyday. The hero
is absent from the battle. The weak
are moved into the firing zone.
The uniform of the day is patience,
the order of merit is the wretched star
of hope over the heart.

It is awarded
when nothing more happens,
when the bombardment is silenced,
when the enemy has become invisible
and the shadow of eternal armament
covers the sky.

It is awarded
for deserting the flag,
for bravery before a friend,
for the betrayal of shameful secrets
and the disregard
of every command.
- Every Day, pg. 27

* * *

Out of the corpse-warm foyer of heaven steps the sun.
There it is not the immortals,
but rather the fallen, we perceive.

And brilliance doesn't trouble itself with decay. Our godhead,
history, has ordered for us a grave
from which there is no resurrection.
- Message, pg. 30

* * *

Wherever we turn in the storm of roses,
the night is lit up by thorns, an the thunder
of leaves, once so quiet within the bushes,
rumbling at our heels.
- In the Storm of Roses, pg. 40
Profile Image for André.
2,514 reviews31 followers
March 30, 2023
Citaat : Er komen moeilijker dagen; De in onderpand gegeven tijd wordt zichtbaar aan de horizon.
Review : Ingeborg Bachmann, in 1926 te Klagenfurt, Oostenrijk, geboren, debuteerde in l953 met de dichtbundel Tijd in onderpand, in 1956 gevolgd door de omvangrijke bundel Aanroeping van de Grote Beer. Ze ontving de prijs van de Gruppe 47, een Duitstalig kunstenaarsvereniging, voor haar dichtbundel Die gestundete Zeit (lett. de uitgestelde tijd ofwel Tijd In Onderpand).



Ingeborg Bachmann debuteerde in een periode van het grote herstel. Ze distantieerde zich van de Oostenrijkse moderniteit en liet een sterk besef van de historische situatie in haar werk primeren. Deze thematiek wordt op vaak indirecte wijze verwoord in aan de natuur ontleende beelden, waarbij het ritme van de taal en de trefzekere zegging het onverwisselbare van Bachmanns toon uitmaken. Haar relatie tot de wereld is sober en er is een hoge preoccupatie met taal als onderwerp.

Mooi maar soms ook grimmig en pessimistisch werk.
Profile Image for ‪ghada meshref‬‏.
30 reviews3 followers
May 8, 2022
دي كانت أول مرة أقرأ لإنجبورج باخمان والحقيقة حسيت أن فايتني كتير أوي، فايتني شاعرة مرهفة الحس وصادقة وكلماتها حقيقة شبهها.
أنا يعتبر قرأت الكتاب 3 مرات ورا بعض من كتر جمال وصدق القصايد ولمست فيها حزن كبير ووجع ودا خلاني أرجع للمقدمة فعرفت أنها عانت فعلا في حياتها العادية من علاقات فاشلة واتعرضت للخيانة من الكاتب ماكس فريش وأنها في النهاية ماتت محروقة.

الحقيقة شاعرة عظيمة وحقيقة بشكل لا يوصف.
الترجمة كمان مميزة جدا وعيشتني القصايد بشكل كامل.
Profile Image for Yahya.
211 reviews21 followers
July 11, 2024
Bachmann'a ait herhangi bir şey okumak bana hem zihinsel hem de duygusal olarak iyi geliyor. Bu da kendi ruh halime dair yakın hissetmemle ilgili. Onun için ona dair ne varsa okuma sözü verdim kendime.
"Neyi anlatır yüreğin, neyin tanığıdır?
Titrer arasında dünle yarının, salınır,
sessiz sessiz, yabancı yabancı,
vurduğu
dökülüp gidişidir zamandan."
Profile Image for ريم الصالح.
Author 1 book1,283 followers
April 17, 2023
"هل عليّ أن أمضي، أن أقترب من كل شيء مرة أخرى؟
لم أعد أرى في أي طريقٍ طريقاً."

تكتب باخمان بكثافة هائلة، يمكنك أن تحس -بينما تقرؤها- بأن لها صوتاً خاصاً يظل -طوال القصيدة- منغمساً في التساؤل، بديع!
Profile Image for Klaus Mattes.
708 reviews10 followers
March 9, 2025
Gut 70 schon Jahre kapiert man bei der Lyrik mehr oder weniger nichts mehr. Muss sie aber gerade darum für perfekt halten.

Es kommen härtere Tage. Die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit wird sichtbar am Horizont.
Bald musst du den Schuh schnüren und die Hunde zurückjagen in die Marschhöfe. Denn die Eingeweide der Fische sind kalt geworden im Wind. Ärmlich brennt das Licht der Lupinen.
Dein Blick spürt im Nebel: die auf Widerruf gestundete Zeit wird sichtbar am Horizont. Drüben versinkt dir die Geliebte im Sand, er steigt um ihr wehendes Haar, er fällt ihr ins Wort, er befiehlt ihr zu schweigen, er findet sie sterblich und willig dem Abschied nach jeder Umarmung.
Sieh dich nicht um. Schnür deinen Schuh. Jag die Hunde zurück. Wirf die Fische ins Meer. Lösch die Lupinen! Es kommen härtere Tage!

Es kommen fischigere Lupinen. Wirf sie zurück ins Kühlregal. Schnür deinen Hund ein. Drüben versinkt ein Abschied in seiner Umarmung.
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