Poetry
Staré ženy
Not translated into English
František Halas · 1935
Opening lines
smutná odpoledne nedělní
smutná starými paními
které se belhají k oknům
starou cestou vyšlapanou v koberci
sad Sunday afternoons
sad with old ladies
who hobble to the windows
along the old path worn into the carpet
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from digitalniknihovna.cz
Synopsis
A litany in five parts. On dreary Sunday afternoons, old women limp from table to bed, from mirror to photographs, then lean on their elbows at the window to look at the street. The poet addresses in turn their eyes, their hands, their hair, their faces and their laps, and strings together their images: hands that now hold only a handkerchief or a cross, eyes for which the world is nothing any more.
Context
The poem appeared in 1935, the year its author took over the editorship of the review Rozhledy, and F. X. Šalda immediately hailed it as a small masterpiece. It is built on an apostrophe taken up as a refrain, at the beginning and at the end of the stanzas, in the manner of litanies, and combines images drawn from everyday life with references to Antiquity and the liturgy. It was included in the 1957 volume of poems, and translated into French in 1989 in the Revue K.
Who it is for
A single poem of about ten pages, in free verse without punctuation, made of repetitions and enumerations.
Prizes and reception
Regarded as the crowning piece of his work and as one of the legendary collections of Czech poetry.