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The man of Tyre went down to the sea pondering, for he was Greek, that God is one and all alone and ever more shall be so. And a woman who had been washing clothes in the pool of rock where a stream came down to the gravel of the sea and sank in, who had spread the white washing on the gravel banked above the bay, who had lain in her shift on the shore, on the shingle slope, who had waded to the pale green sea of evening, out to a shoal, pouring sea-water over herself now turned, and came slowly back, with her back to the evening sky. Oh lovely, lovely with the dark hair piled up, as she went deeper, deeper down the channel, then rose shallower, shallower with the full thighs slowly lifting of the wader wading shorewards and the shoulders pallid with light from the silent sky behind both breasts dim and mysterious, with the glamorous kindness of twilight between them and the dim blotch of black maidenhair like an indicator giving a message to the man - So in the cane-brake he clasped his hands in delight that could only be god-given, and murmured: Lo! God is one god! But here in the twilight godly and lovely comes Aphrodite out of the sea towards me!
Authorship:
- by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), appears in Last Poems, (1929). [author's text not yet checked against a primary source]
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Olli Kortekangas (b. 1955), "The man of Tyre", from Amores, no. 2. [text verified 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations, and transliterations (if applicable):
- GER German (Deutsch) (Bertram Kottmann) , title 1: "Der Mann aus Tyros", copyright © 2015, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [Administrator]
This text was added to the website between May 1995 and September 2003.
Line count: 23
Word count: 222
Der Mann aus Tyros ging hinab ans Meer, und sann nach, denn er war Grieche, dass Gott ein einiger Gott sei und ganz allein und dies für alle Ewigkeit. Und eine Frau, die in einer Felsvertiefung Wäsche gewaschen hatte, wo zum Kieselstrand ein Bach herunterkam, um dort ins Meer zu fließen, die ihr weiße Wäsche auf dem Kieselbett der Bucht ausgebreitet hatte, die ihr Gewand am höheren Gestade abgelegt, die zum blassgrünen Abendmeer gewatet war, hinaus zu einer Sandbank, wo sie über sich das Meereswasser strömen ließ, kehrte nun um und schritt langsam zurück, den Rücken zum Abendhimmel. Wie anmutvoll, wie schön mit ihrem hochgesteckten Haar als sie den tiefen Priel hinabschritt, weiter hinab, um sich dann im Seichten immer höher zu bewegen, die üppigen Schenkel langsam aus dem Wasser tretend, dem Strande zu, die Schultern hell im Licht des stillen Horizonts, die Brüste dunkel und geheimnisvoll mit dem Zauberglanz der Dämmerung auf ihrem Busen und dem dunklen Fleck des schwarzen Haars wie ein Signal, dem Manne eine Botschaft gebend - - So faltete er im Röhricht die Hände vor Entzückung, die nur von Gott geschenkt sein mag, und raunte: Sehet! Gott ist ein einiger Gott! Doch hier naht aus dem Meere mir im Dämmerlicht göttlich und lieblich Aphrodite!
Authorship:
- Translation from English to German (Deutsch) copyright © 2015 by Bertram Kottmann, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you must ask the copyright-holder(s) directly for permission. If you receive no response, you must consider it a refusal.
Bertram Kottmann.  Contact: BKottmann (AT) t-online.de
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Based on:
- a text in English by D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence (1885 - 1930), appears in Last Poems, (1929).
This text was added to the website: 2015-09-28
Line count: 21
Word count: 209