In love with Holland
August 2, 2007 at 5:45 PM
by Ashleigh
Recently I've had the intense sensation of being in love with Holland.
It seems more earnest when people ask me, shock-struck faces agape, why anyone would exchange Africa's immense beauty for Holland.
I react almost angrily in my defense of the beauty of the Netherlands. I say 'but Holland is beautiful too, in a different way!' They negate my reaction and I get angrier.
I remind them of its polders, canals, tall poplars across the polders, marching rows of windmills turning in white brilliance, coloured stripes of tulips across the landscape. They tell me about Table Bay, the plains, lions, giraffes. I counter and so we go on.
I never felt this sense of awe in my own country. Maybe because there is evidence all over Holland of how the land has been grabbed from the sea. This makes its beauty even more precious.
Africa just is. But Holland was created.
This is one of the most-loved Dutch poems, by poet Hendrik Marsman, which I initially read because of my Dutch teachers at school and which now represents to me everything I feel about the Dutch countryside.
Herinnering aan Holland
Denkend aan Holland
zie ik brede rivieren
traag door oneindig
laagland gaan,
rijen ondenkbaar
ijle populieren
als hoge pluimen
aan den einder staan;
en in de geweldige
ruimte verzonken
de boerderijen
verspreid door het land,
boomgroepen, dorpen,
geknotte torens,
kerken en olmen
in een groots verband.
De lucht hangt er laag
en de zon wordt er langzaam
in grijze veelkleurige
dampen gesmoord,
en in alle gewesten
wordt de stem van het water
met zijn eeuwige rampen
gevreesd en gehoord.
My translation*:
Memories of Holland
Remembering Holland
I see wide rivers
slowing moving through
unending lowlands,
tall poplars
like high plumes
against the horizon;
and in the impossibly
sunken spaces
farms spread through the land,
trees, towns, pollarded towers,
churches and elms
in great communion.
The sky hangs low
the sun reluctant
smothered in a grey
and multicoloured mist
and in all the provinces
the sound of water
and its history of catastrophe
is heard and feared.
* My translation is not meant to be exact, but to give English readers an idea of the feelings that the poem evokes.
Comments
Hey, if you decide on a career change I think you've got a real flair for translation! (Is there anything you can't do?!)
Really looking forward to meeting up tomorrow. Charging the phone and camera now!
Found you via your comments on "Something to Say". Hi fellow ex-pat. Know how you feel about our adopted country, but at times the wind and rain do get me down. I'll be reading and commenting more when it's not so late at night!
This says it perfectly, "Africa just is. But Holland was created."
So glad you are in love. It is always wise to bloom where planted.
I love that poem. I like your translation of it too, you did a good job.
Funny, I felt this way about your country. :)
Ah, but I'm just back from Australia and I'm in love too ;)
Maybe just have to get used to Holland again, to really appreciate it.
I also like Marsman for his alliterations. One of my favorites is:
In de weide grazen
De vreemde dieren
De reigers zeilen
over de blinkende meren
De roerdompen staan
Bij de donkere plas
En in de uiterwaarden
Galopperen de paarden
met golvende staarten
over het golvende gras
greetz,
holland is a great place to be! i love the land, the sea, the beaches, the canals and little harbours, frikandel special, vla and poffertjes etc...! i visit holland at least once in the year, mostly zeeland.
It does look beautiful - and it's very similar to the Cambridgeshire fens where I grew up.
Sometimes people don't understand that "flat" landscapes don't mean boring they mean space and air and subtle colours and sky and clouds and light. A friend once said he thought artists brought up in the flat lands - holland, east anglia - had a special sense of light and colour and detail - van Dyke, Breughel, Gainsborough, Constable ...
August 2, 2007 7:53 PM