Paul Celan’s ‘Todtnauberg’

By Scott Horton

Arnica, eyebright, the

drink from the well with the

roll star die on top,

in the

cabin,

written in the book

—whose name did it receive

before my own? — ,

the lines written

in this book about

a hope, today,

for the words

to come

in the heart

of a thinker,

sod of the woods, uneven,

orchis and orchis, separately,

crudity, later, in the process of driving,

clearly,

he who is driving us, the human being,

he who hears it along with us,

the half-

trodden cudgel-

path on the high moor,

moist,

much.

–Paul Celan, “Todtnauberg,” from Lichtzwang (1970) in: Gesammelte Werke, vol. 2, pp. 255-56 (S.H. transl.)