Seventh Eclogue
Seventh Eclogue
Look, it grows dark and the floating barracks, surrounded
By oak trees, hemmed in by barbed wire, succumbs to the night.
Slowly the gaze releases our framed captivity
And only the mind knows how tightly the wires grip.
Do you see, dear friend, the way in which fantasy frees itself,
As easeful sleep dissolves our broken bodies
And once again the prison-camp turns towards home.
Ragged, with shaven heads, snoring, the prisoners
Fly back to their distant homes from Serbia’s dark summit.
Their distant homes! But does home still exist or has it
Been struck by some bomb, perhaps—is it still as it was
On the day we signed up? The one who groans on my left,
The one who sprawls on my right—have they made it back home?
Say, do they still have a home where these lines will make sense?
Feeling my way, line beneath line, without accents,
In the darkness, I write these verses the way that I live,
Blindly, inching my way like a silkworm across
The paper. Pocket-lamp, notebook—they’ve all been taken
Away by the lager’s guards, the post no longer
Arrives and nothing but mist descend on our barracks.
Poles, Frenchmen, noisy Italians, dissident
Serbs and wistful Jews live up here in the hills
Among rumours and vermin, their bodies broken and feverish
—And yet it’s one life they live, as they wait for good news,
A word from the woman they love, from a free human being,
And long for release, for the miracle lost in the dark.
I lie on a plank, among vermin, caged like an animal
As the fleas lay siege, but the flies at least have relented.
It’s night and, see, my sentence is one day shorter,
And so is my life. The camp is asleep and the moon
Shines on the world and the wires still bind us tight.
I look through the window and see the sentinels’ shadows
Patrolling a wall amid noises that drift through the night.
Do you see, dear friend, the camp is asleep and dreams
Are swirling around me as someone wakes up with a start,
Turns on his narrow bed and then drifts back to sleep,
His face lit up by a smile. Only I sit awake,
The stub of a spent cigarette in my mouth instead
Of the taste of your kisses and sleep still shuns me because
I neither know how to die, nor to live without you.
-Miklós Radnóti, Lager (CAMP) Heidenau, in the hills above Žagubica, July 1944
Radnóti, Miklós. “Seventh Eclogue” Nine Holocaust Poets, translated by Jim Doss. Loch Raven Press, Maryland, 2024. P. 327.
Guiding Questions.
1. The Roman poet Virgil wrote the original Eclogues, idealized pastoral poems, many of which Radnóti had translated. Following this ancient
tradition, the speaker notes his rural setting. How is this Serbian camp setting much different than an idealized pastoral setting? Cite Evidence.
2. How does the coming of darkness provide the prisoners with some mental and psychological release? Of what do they dream?
3. Why does the speaker repeat the word “distant” twice? What uncertainties remain for the prisoners regarding their homelands?
4. How does the speaker now write his poetry?
5. What is the “one” life the prisoners live as they hope for a better future?
6. Despite the dehumanizing conditions, how does the speaker use these late nights under the moon to reflect on his memories and beloved