Evanston: navegar é preciso, viver não é preciso
Evanston: navegar é preciso, viver não é preciso
You are a good group and I am honored that you read this journal. Often you bring to my attention something I did not know. So it was with the Portuguese words above which came to me Sunday in an email from the Brazilian sailor and naval architect, Roberto Barras.
I’ve seen more of the sea and the world than most. I’ve been reading seriously and listening to music for more than a half a century. Yet still I am often startled by my ignorance.
Carol and I met Roberto and his wife Eileen at Rio de Janeiro’s Marina da Gloria in 2002.
In the 1960s, Roberto and Eileen sailed from Brazil in a 25’ engineless vessel to the South Pacific where they cruised for three years. Although such voyages have never been common in small boats, in the 1960s they were not common in any size boat.
Roberto shares my particular affection for small craft. He once designed a boat that he describes as a near sistership to GANNET; and while he followed my voyages in THE HAWKE OF TUONELA, he is more interested in what I do with the less predatory bird.
The Portuguese words, which are attributed to Don Henrique, the prince who in English is known as Henry the Navigator, founder of the first school of navigation and prime mover in the Portuguese voyages of discovery, can be translated as “To sail is necessary; to live is not.”
For the Portuguese this was literally true.
In the north they grow grapes and make good wine, but the sea is--or was--the nation’s life.
As is my custom, I did some research and learned more.
The earliest reference to the expression is in Plutarch’s Lives. Writing of the Roman General Gnaeus Pompey:
Having thus been set over the administration and management of the grain trade, Pompey sent out his agents and friends in various directions, while he himself sailed to Sicily, Sardinia and Africa, and collected grain. When he was about to set sail with it, there was a violent storm at sea, and the ship-captains hesitated to put out; but he led the way on board and ordered them to weigh anchor, crying with a loud voice: "To sail is necessary; to live is not." By this exercise of zeal and courage attended by good fortune, he filled the sea with ships and the markets with grain, so that the excess of what he had provided sufficed also for foreign peoples, and there was an abundant overflow, as from a spring, for all.
The words were inscribed over a marine building in Bremen, Germany, which leads to speculation that they served as the motto of the Hanseatic League in the Middle Ages; and they may also have been the motto of the great Dutch port of Rotterdam. The sea was life to Holland as well.
Roberto told me of a fado by the Brazilian, Ceateno Veloso.
I found an English translation of the lyrics:
The Argonauts
The ship, my heart cannot handle it
Such torment, happiness
My heart is discontent
The day, the limit, my heart, the port, no
Navigating is necessary, living is not
The ship, night in the beautiful sky
The free smile, lost Horizon, morning dawn
The laugh, the arc, of morning
The port, nothing
Navigating is necessary, living is not
The ship, the brilliant automobile
The free track, the noise
Of my tooth in your vein
The blood, the swamp, slow soft noise
The port - silence
Navigating is necessary, living is not
And I learned of a poem by the great Fernando Pessoa:
Navegar é Preciso
Navegadores antigos tinham uma frase gloriosa:
"Navegar é preciso; viver não é preciso".
Quero para mim o espírito [d]esta frase, transformada a forma para a casar como eu sou:
Viver não é necessário; o que é necessário é criar.
Não conto gozar a minha vida; nem em gozá-la penso.
Só quero torná-la grande,
ainda que para isso tenha de ser o meu corpo e a (minha alma) a lenha desse fogo.
Só quero torná-la de toda a humanidade;
ainda que para isso tenha de a perder como minha. Cada vez mais assim penso.
Cada vez mais ponho da essência anímica do meu sangue o propósito impessoal de engrandecer a pátria e contribuir para a evolução da humanidade.
É a forma que em mim tomou o misticismo da nossa Raça
I have two books of Pessoa’s poems translated into English, but Navegar é Preciso is not among them. So I put it in Google Translate and got:
Sailing is need
Older browsers had a glorious phrase:
"Navigating is necessary, living is not accurate."
I want the spirit to me transformed the way for marriage as I am:
Living is not necessary, what is needed is created.
Do not enjoy my life story, nor enjoy it I think.
I just want to make it big,
even though it has to be my body and (my soul) of the wood fire.
I just want to make it to all mankind;
though to have to lose it as my own. Increasingly, well napkin.
Increasingly put the essence of my soul blood impersonal purpose of enhancing the nation and contribute to the evolution of humanity.
It is the way that I took in the mysticism of our race.
Obviously there is still work to be done before computers rule the world.
I’ve thought about Pompey’s, The Hanseatic League’s, Rotterdam’s, Don Henrique’s, Pessoa’s, Veloso’s words, and in fact to sail is no longer necessary--except for a few of us, which I expect includes a higher proportion of those reading this than the general public--but to live, while a biological imperative--consciousness resists unconsciousness--was never necessary.
What is necessary, for some, is to live beyond mere existence.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012