And where the wild Danube throws up its yellow sand,
and where vast Thracian Mount Rhodope touches the sky.
There they keep the herds penned in, and no grass
is visible on the plains, or leaves on the trees:
but the land far and wide lies formless under mounds of snow
and heaps of ice rising seven metres high.
It’s always winter, always North winds breathing cold.
There the Sun never disperses the pale mists,
neither when he finds high heaven, carried by his team,
nor when he drenches his chariot headlong in Ocean’s red waters.
Ice-floes form suddenly on the running rivers,
and the water soon carries metalled wheels on its back,
once greeting boats and now broad wagons:
Everywhere bronze cracks, clothes freeze as they’re worn,
and they cut out the liquid wine with axes,
whole lakes turn to solid ice, and bristling icicles
harden on their straggling beards.
OR IN THE ORIGINAL LATIN
At non qua Scythiae gentes Maeotiaque unda,
turbidus et torquens flauentis Hister harenas, 350
quaque redit medium Rhodope porrecta sub axem.
illic clausa tenent stabulis armenta, neque ullae
aut herbae campo apparent aut arbore frondes;
sed iacet aggeribus niueis informis et alto
terra gelu late septemque adsurgit in ulnas. 355
semper hiems, semper spirantes frigora Cauri;
tum Sol pallentis haud umquam discutit umbras,
nec cum inuectus equis altum petit aethera, nec cum
praecipitem Oceani rubro lauit aequore currum.
concrescunt subitae currenti in flumine crustae, 360
undaque iam tergo ferratos sustinet orbis,
puppibus illa prius, patulis nunc hospita plaustris;
aeraque dissiliunt uulgo, uestesque rigescunt
indutae, caeduntque securibus umida uina,
et totae solidam in glaciem uertere lacunae, 365
stiriaque impexis induruit horrida barbis.
Ich tiger einsam durch das Haus,
Ausblick am Zipfel Venedigs an der Punta della Dogana (c) Foto von M.Fanke
Venedig – Fassade Santa Maria dello Salute (c) Zeichnung von Susanne Haun
Erste Eindrücke in Venedig (c) Foto von M.Fanke
penwithlit 