Death and the Lover

[메모리아]

And now the sick man opened his eyes again

and looked for a long while into his friend's face.

He said farewell with his eyes.

And with a sudden movement,

as though he were trying to shake his head, he whispered:

"But how will you die when your time comes, Narcissus,

since you have no mother?

Without a mother, one cannot love.

Without a mother, one cannot die.”

What he murmured after that could not be understood.

Those last two days Narcissus sat by his bed day and night,

watching his life ebb away.

Goldmund's last words burned like fire in his heart.

(The Last Phrases of 'Narziß und Goldmund' by Herman Hesse)

**************************************************

윗 글은 헤세의 명작 ‘나르시스와 골드문트(원명-죽음과 연인)’의

마지막 귀절입니다.

여기서 말하는 골드문트의 ‘어머니’는 Primal Mother,

마돈나, 또는 사랑과 죽음의 힌디 여신 칼리를 상징할 수도 있겠고,

불가의 관음, 기학의 양음중에 음, 도가의 물과 같은 의미,

심리학에서의 잣대 짓는 여인이나 칼 융의 아니마(아니무스)를

상징하기도 한다면 너무 과도한 설명인가요?^^

“When my mother called me and I had to follow.

She is everywhere.

She was Lise, the gypsy;

she was Master Niklaus's beautiful Madonna;

she was life, love, ecstasy.

She also was fear, hunger, instinct.

Now she is death; she has her fingers in my chest."

***************************************************

작품속의 골드문트의 어머니에 대한 설명입니다.

헤세의 모든 작품은 키에르케고르의 ‘죽음에 이르는 병’처럼

실패와 단절의 고통의 주문에 걸린

The Mystical Search로 촛점이 맞춰져 있는 것 같아요.

바로 많은 시인들이 절규하는 ' Pang of Loss'이지요?!

“All existence seemed to be based on duality, on contrast.

Either one was a man or one was a woman,

either a wanderer or a sedentary burgher,

either a thinking person or a feeling person—

no one could breathe in at the same time as he breathed out,

be a man as well as a woman, experience freedom as well as order,

combine instinct and mind.

One always had to pay for the one with the loss of the other,

and one thing was always just as important

and desirable as the other.”

******************************************************

그러면 다시 부가 설명이 더 이상 필요없는

개인적으로 가장 명문으로 꼽는  작품으로 돌아가 볼까요?

“He sniffed at the John's-wort,

held one of its small leaves to the light

to study the hundred tiny pin pricks in it.

Strange, he thought, each of these thousand little leaves has its

own miniature firmament pricked into it, like a delicate embroidery.

How strange and incomprehensible everything was, the lizards,

the plants, even the stones, everything.

Oh, how incomprehensible everything was,

and actually sad, although it was also beautiful.

One knew nothing.

One lived and ran about the earth and rode through forests,

and certain things looked so challenging and promising and nostalgic:

a star in the evening, a blue harebell, a reed-green pond,

the eye of a person or of a cow.

And sometimes it seemed

that something never seen yet long desired was about to happen,

that a veil would drop from it all;

but then it passed,

nothing happened,

the riddle remained unsolved,

the secret spell unbroken,

and in the end one grew old and looked cunning

like Father Anselm or wise like Abbot Daniel,

and still one knew nothing perhaps,

was still waiting and listening.”

P.S.

70년에서 빼기 몇년의 나의 인생 여정 돌이켜 보면,

이 곳 저 곳 참 많이도 기웃거리며 살아 온 삶이었읍니다.

Still Waiting and Listening…

아직도 여전히 정착되지 못하고 안주하지 못하는 심정속에서도

마음 한 곳에선 그래도 마지막 정착지는 영원한 본향일 거라는

아련한 심증 또한 거부할 수가 없군요.

문제는 그 고향에 대한 설명을 잘 할 수 없다는 데 있지요!

현자들은 “But you are home already!

All you have to do is Wake Up!” 이라고들 하지요?!

선가에서 말하는 “True Nature”를 가르키기도 하지만

돌이켜보면 여전히 그 비밀의 장소로 향하는 내 개인의 여정속에는

공포와 의문과 선입관과 아집과 편견으로 막혀있어

도무지 오리무중속입니다.

골드문트의 윗 고백처럼 보일 듯 말 듯 하다가도

마침내는 여전히 의문과 신비속의 안개길 입니다.

칼 융은 인생의 궁극적인 목적은 자기 ‘자신만의 법칙’을 찾는 것이라고

했지요. 바로 동양의 ‘도’와 순리의 법칙과 비슷한 것 같아요.

The only meaningful life is a life

that strives for the individual realization of

Absolute and unconditional of its own particular law!

또한 신심이 깊은 자에겐 마리아의 노래같은

무조건의 사랑에 대한 고백정도가 되겠지요.

Magnificat anima mea, 내 영혼이 경외합니다

Exultavit spiritus meus, 내 정신이 황홀합니다

Quia respexit humilitatem ancillae suae,

내 영혼이 미천함에서 존귀함을 받았으니...

Magnificat! 당신을 찬송합니다!

또 횡설수설했읍니다!^^

하지만 또 이 순간이 지나고 저 순간이 오면

일순 바람이 불고

또 한 여인이 또 다른 나와 친구들을 낳겠지요...

나르시스와 골드문트같은...

So Strange!

So Seltsam!

"Then it passed,

nothing happened,

the riddle remained unsolved,

the secret spell unbroken,

and in the end one grew old and looked cunning

like Father Anselm or wise like Abbot Daniel,

and still one knew nothing perhaps,

was still waiting and listening.”