Auger Shaped
Leo Belmont
1900
I want to be a Pole. You have my word!
I want to reach the peak of Polishness
But I can find no way to manage:
They always shout: “You’re a jew!”
When I defend the jews from slander,
Hoping to secure a life for them,
Usually I hear a sidelong whisper:
“Ah, what must it be like to be a jew!”
When instead I denounce the faults of jews,
When I preach that they should be ashamed,
“An antisemite?,” they mutter at once.
“Oh, this one, too, is surely a jew!”
If at times I criticize a Polish fault,
Or offend some Christian myth,
They exclaim with disgust: “Some Pole that is!
“He’s only a most ordinary jew!”
When I admire Polish ideals,
When I bristle at the Prussian expulsions,1
They say, “He’s of a different religion,
“He’s not a Pole, but a Jew!”
When I run to a priest and accept baptism,
Wishing just once to reach the peak of grace,
They shout: “But he’s of a different race,
“He’s only a converted jew!”
Thus the hydra of doubt keeps troubling me,
Poisoning my woeful life,
That I am neither dog nor otter,
But some poorly shaped auger,
A Jewish Pole, a Polish jew!
Translated by .
Madeline G.
Levine
Notes
[The mass expulsion of Poles with Austrian or Russian citizenship from the German-controlled Prussian Partition of Poland, 1885–1890.—Trans.]
Credits
Leo Belmont, “Nakształt świdra” [Auger Shaped], Rymy i Rytmy: Wybór poezyj, vol. 1 (Warsaw: Jan Fiszer, 1900), pp. 344–45.
Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.
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