POETRY AND
THE
SACRED
89
about Milosz's creativity. Only a Polish reader can say a few words about
Milosz the translator, and specifically Milosz the Bible translator.
Last night, I debated with Adam Michnik about what was worse in
Milosz's life, the fierce attack by his political adversaries or his solitude. He
thought it was the misery due to the m.any vicious attacks from the fifties
on, but I maintained that the most unpleasant thing in Milosz's life was his
solitude in the sixties and the seventies. Out of this solitude there arose his
magnificent works. His weapon against solitude was not whining but
working.
In
the seventies, he began
to
translate the Bible. To do so, he
learned Greek and Hebrew. He found the best diction to purifY the lan–
guage, to save it from the banality of journalism, and from the language f
pedants. He started with the Book of Psalms and went on to the Book of
Job, the Book of Five Megillahs, which comprised, among others,
Ecclesias tes and the Jeremiads and so on, to the Book of Psalms, the Gospel
of Mark, and St.John's Apocalypse.
In
this way, he inscribed himself in the
long series of Polish wri ters and poets who, starting from the fifteenth cen–
tury, had produced a series of translations of the Bible, and Milosz's Polish
translations are magnificent. They have the tone of his poetry, plus some–
thing else.
It
is his poetry vibrant wi th the echo of Biblical language.
Thank you.
