2021.07.26 16:59
Davids with their slings in Miłosz and Dickinson
Whenever I see very similar words in two texts, I wonder if it's a coincidence or a deliberate reference. This time I noticed that Miłosz writes: "dwudziestoletni poeci Warszawy nie chcieli wiedzieć, że coś w tym stuleciu myślom ulega, nie Dawidom z procą". In the English translation (done by Hass in collaboration with Miłosz himself (Wikipedia says: "While at Berkeley, Hass spent 15 to 20 years translating the poetry of Miłosz, his fellow Berkeley professor and neighbor, as part of a team with Robert Pinsky and Miłosz.")) these words are: "The twenty-two-year-old poets of Warsaw did not want to know that something in this century submits to thought, not to Davids with their slings". I noticed the words "Davids with their slings" because the same words were used in a poem by Charles Monroe Dickinson: "Not in the pampered courts of kings, not in the homes that rich men keep, God calls His Davids with their slings, or wakes His Samuels from their sleep."
And that's it, I don't know myself if it's a coincidence or not. However, I do know that Hass appreciated the advertising slogan "Raid kills bugs dead", created by the American poet Lewis Welch (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Hass#Career), and this Lewis Welch had a Polish partner, and this partner had a son named Huey Lewis, and this son was a musician and made a song used in the movie "Back to the Future" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VLKDKWCWVXc), and this song was titled "Power of Love", and in the 90s in Białystok there was a punk rock band named "Power of Love" (source: https://bialystok.wyborcza.pl/bialystok/7,87318,21027862,degeneraci-kartoteki-i-kasety-bialostocka-scena-alternatywna-80.html). So, what, would that also be a coincidence?
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