Brazilian Portuguese translation of “The Dance”, by William Carlos Williams.
Translation by Luísa Pessoa.
A DANÇA
Na grande obra de Breughel, A Quermesse,
os dançarinos bailam, bailam e se
balançam, o estrondo e o fragor e o
ronco dos foles, corneta e rabecas
apoiados nas panças (roliças como as
canecas em que bebem as rodadas)
suas bundas e barrigas bambeando
para revirá-las. Chutando e rodando
na Área Comum, revirando traseiros,
só coxas robustas suportam o peso
de tão roliços arranjos, trotando alegres,
na grande obra de Breughel, A Quermesse.
THE DANCE
In Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess,
the dancers go round, they go round and
around, the squeal and the blare and the
tweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddles
tipping their bellies (round as the thick-
sided glasses whose wash they impound)
their hips and their bellies off balance
to turn them. Kicking and rolling about
the Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, those
shanks must be sound to bear up under such
rollicking measures, prance as they dance
in Breughel’s great picture, The Kermess.
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