#42 Tues (8/2/22) - A dream; in a circular stone tower, without door or windows, poem by J.L.Borges

I found this by chance at a blog called Ciudad Serva.  There are many Spanish language texts by Borges there, but none are attributed, sourced.

There are many poems and fragments written by Borges that are called Dream or some variant of Dream (The Dream, A Dream, Dream, etc.)

This one, I found in Poesia Completa from La cifra (1981), but not in any of the translated collections. 

It seems very familiar to me. Why Iran?

---------------------------------------------------

Un sueño

En un desierto lugar del Irán hay una no muy alta torre de piedra, sin puerta ni ventana. En la única habitación (cuyo piso es de tierra y que tiene la forma del círculo) hay una mesa de madera y un banco. En esa celda circular, un hombre que se parece a mí escribe en caracteres que no comprendo un largo poema sobre un hombre que en otra celda circular escribe un poema sobre un hombre que en otra celda circular… El proceso no tiene fin y nadie podrá leer lo que los prisioneros escriben.

Jorge Luis Borges | Poesia Completa, 605 | La Cifra, 1981 - Found at Ciudad Seva

Google Translate:

A dream

In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very high stone tower, without door or window. In the only room (which has a dirt floor and is in the shape of a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that circular cell, a man who looks like me writes in characters that I do not understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell writes a poem about a man who is in another circular cell… The process is endless and no one will be able to read what the prisoners write.

I found another translation, very similar, from a blog:

A Dream by Jorge Luis Borges

In a deserted place in Iran there is a not very tall stone tower that has neither door nor window. In the only room (with a dirt floor and shaped like a circle) there is a wooden table and a bench. In that circular cell, a man who looks like me is writing in letters I cannot understand a long poem about a man who in another circular cell is writing a poem about a man who in another circular cell . . . The process never ends and no one will be able to read what the prisoners write. (Translated, from the Spanish, by Suzanne Jill Levine.)

 

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