Superb Sentences: João Cabral de Melo Neto

A series of beautiful phrases, sentences, and excerpts from Brazilian literature leading up to Brazil’s National Day of the Book on October 29.

From the play in verse “Morte e Vida Severina” (literally “Severe Death and Life” but since the work is about someone with that common name from the Brazilian northeast, translated aptly by Elizabeth Bishop as “Death and Life of a Severino”) by João Cabral de Melo Neto (1920-1999):
“E não há melhor resposta
que o espetáculo da vida:
vê-la desfiar seu fio,
que também se chama vida,
ver a fábrica que ela mesma,
teimosamente, se fabrica,
vê-la brotar como há pouco
em nova vida explodida
mesmo quando é assim pequena.”

And there is no better answer
than the spectacle of life:
seeing it challenge its line,
which is also called life,
seeing the factory that it,
stubbornly, makes itself,
see it bloom like recently
in a new exploded life
even while it’s still little.