Sonnet 118 (William Shakespeare) | Σονέτο 118 (Ουίλλιαμ Σαίξπηρ) [Like as, to make our appetites more keen: Καθώς για να κεντρίσουμε την όρεξή μας]
Like as, to make our appetites more keen, With eager compounds we our palate urge; As, to prevent our maladies unseen, We sicken to shun sickness when we purge; Even so, being full of your ne'er-cloying sweetness, To bitter sauces did I frame my feeding; And, sick of welfare, found a kind of meetness To be diseased, ere that there was true needing. Thus policy in love, to anticipate The ills that were not, grew to faults assured, And brought to medicine a healthful state Which, rank of goodness, would by ill be cured; But thence I learn and find the lesson true, Drugs poison him that so fell sick of you.
| Καθώς για να κεντρίσουμε την όρεξή μας με μαντζούνια πικρά τη γέψη μας τσιγκλάμε και γι’ αρρώστιες απρόοπτες, για προφύλαξή μας, καθάρσια παίρνουμε και, αντίθετα, αρρωστάμε, έτσι η χορτάτη απ’ την αχόρταστή σου γλύκα υγειά μου κάνει πικροδίαιτες με αηδία κι άρρωστος απ’ την καλοπέρασην εβρήκα θεράπεια ν’ αρρωστήσω δίχως να ’ναι χρεία. Μ’ αυτή μου την προληπτική διαιτητική στον έρωτα, απ’ το τίποτα έγινε το λάθος να τρέχει η γεροσύνη μου στη γιατρική, η έγκωμη απ’ το καλό, να βρει γιατρειά στο πάθος. Κι έτσι έμαθα μια αλήθεια, πόσο παν χαμένα τα γιατρικά σ’ αυτόν που αρρώστησε από σένα.
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Μετάφραση: Βασίλης Ρώτας
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γιατρεία επιλέγει ο Ρώτας και όχι
γιατρειάThe poet continues his apologia for waywardness and unfaithfulness. This he does with an extended double simile of sharpening the appetite with aperitifs and the practice of avoiding future sickness by taking preventative medicines. The sonnet occurs within a group of five which do their best to account for the poet's wilfulness and back-sliding. Having declared that love is eternal and unchanging in sonnet 116, he is now placed in the awkward situation of showing why he has not been true to the ideal. This sonnet is one of his attempts to rectify the situation and justify himself with arguments which inevitably have to be over-subtle and sophisticated. The youth has perhaps claimed that alteration and change in lovers is natural and justifiable. They need not therefore maintain eternal truthfulness. As evidence of this he cites the poet's own moral turpitude and his willingness to roam and sail before the wind, an accusation which obviously hits home.
http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/118