Portuguese poetry, translated, fear
On the recent Lina_ Raül Refree album I listened to Medo. Amália Rodrigues sang this fado. The words are by Reinaldo Ferreira, a Portuguese poet in Moçambique. The Internet Archive has a copy of a site with his poems from a book published in Moçambique. The fado skips the third stanza and so I have skipped it here, too.
Quem dorme à noite comigo?
É meu segredo, é meu segredo!
Mas se insistirem, desdigo.
O medo mora comigo,
Mas só o medo, mas só o medo!
E cedo, porque me embala
Num vaivém de solidão,
É com silêncio que fala,
Com voz de móvel que estala
E nos perturba a razão.
Gritar? Quem pode salvar-me
Do que está dentro de mim?
Gostava até de matar-me.
Mas eu sei que ele há-de esperar-me
Ao pé da ponte do fim.
Who sleeps with me tonight?
It is my secret, it is my secret.
If you insist, I deny it.
It's fear that lives with me,
but only fear, but only fear.
It's early, and I am wrapped
in waves of solitude.
It talks in silence,
with words of creaking furniture,
disturbing us our faculties.
To scream? Who can save me
from what is within me?
I'd even like to kill myself.
But I know, it will be there
at the foot of the bridge, at the end.
(Translation mine)
