Ballad of Love Through the Ages - Carlos Drummond de Andrade

As every Brazilian school-boy knows, today marks the 510th Anniversary of the "discovery" of Brazil in 1500 by the Portuguese admiral Dom Pedro Álvares de Cabral.  To celebrate the fact that I still remember his full name AND the size of his fleet (13 ships, 1,500 hundred men) from grade-school history classes, today's poem comes from Brazil: another one by Carlos Drummond de Andrade, the acknowledged greatest 20th Century poet writing in Portuguese.   As in my comments with his first poem here, I wish that you could read and hear it in the original.  However, this is the next best thing: a translation by Mark Strand, a poet in his own right, who, like Elizabeth Bishop, brought the necessary poetic soul, skills, and sensitivity to do it justice.  This isn't a poem at Drummond's lyrical best or most complex in meaning or imagery, but it has always charmed me because of its simplicity, humor, and scope. 
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Ballad of Love Through the Ages
                                                                   transl. by Mark Strand
From the beginning of time,
I liked you, you liked me.
I was Greek, you were Trojan,
Trojan but not Helen.
I sprung from a wooden horse
to kill your brother.
I killed, we quarreled, we died.

I became a Roman soldier
persecutor of Christians.
At the catacomb door
I met you again.
But when I saw you fall
naked in the Colosseum
and the lion coming toward you,
I made a desperate leap
and the lion ate us both.

Next I was a Moorish pirate,
the scourge of Tripoli.
I set fire to the frigate
where you were hiding from
the fury of my brigantine.
But when I went to grab you
and take you as my slave,
you crossed yourself and drove
a dagger through your heart.
I killed myself as well.

Later on, in happier days,
I was a courtier at Versailles,
clever and debauched.
You dreamed of being a nun…
I vaulted over the convent wall
but difficult politics
led us to the guillotine.

These days I’m totally modern:
dancing, jogging, working out.
And I have money in the bank.
And you’re a fabulous blonde:
dancing, jogging, working out.
None of it pleases your father.
But after a thousand reversals,
I, one of Paramount’s heroes,
give you a hug, a kiss, and we marry.
                                                                            Carlos Drummond de Andrade - Brazilian