Original Text:

O poeta é um fingidor.
Finge tão completamente
Que chega a fingir que é dor
A dor que deveras sente.

E os que lêem o que escreve,
Na dor lida sentem bem,
Não as duas que ele teve,
Mas só que éles não têm.

E assim nas calhas de roda
Gira, a entreter a razão
Ésse comboio de corda
Que se chama o coração

Just my afternoon stab at translating some Portuguese.

This was an interesting poem to translate. "Autopsychogram" or "autopsychograph" to me implied that this work taken as a whole was indeed the legible chart of some self made illegible through the obfuscation of art -- the poet's self-generated map of himself (yea, make sense of that.) Put another way, it's a bit like a hieroglyphic, but whether mine or the original author's I confess I may have somewhat lost sight of.

There are (at least) 13 "authorized" translations of "Autopsicografia", by Fernando Pessoa (Take that, Wallace Stevens!). Pessoa himself used at least 5 known pseudonyms, which is interesting in its own right, and is part of what makes him a favorite author of mine. This website [link] lists a number of translations of this poem, and that's where I was reminded that a) I enjoy Pessoa a lot and b) I've been meaning to try a translation - so here we be.

My favorite version so far, by Keith Bosley:


The poet is a fake.
His faking seems so real
That he will fake the ache
Which he can really feel.

And those who read his cries
Feel in the paper tears
Not two aches that are his
But one that is not theirs.

And so in its ring
Giving the mind a game
Goes this train on a string
And the heart is its name.