Tuvia Ruebner
Translated from the Hebrew by Lisa Katz with Shahar Bram
The Ambassadors
I don't know where to begin.
The main thing is the skull. But
why this angle?
Here are two sturdy men, about forty.
One is absorbed in himself to some extent.
The other stands with his legs apart,
a foot inside the circle on the marble floor
as though within the vault of heaven.
His gown collared in expensive fur,
its sleeves richly embroidered,
his strength suppressed like flashes in an atom
before it breaks open.
The two ambassadors, I read,
have French names, Jean de Dinteville,
and Georges de Selve.
The thoughtful one also knows his worth.
And what is that on a slant, in the middle?
They are leaning on a kind of chest
covered with a red Persian rug , upon which
different instruments are displayed, navigational tools,
if I'm not wrong, a compass, a cube,
astrological devices.
A beautiful globe
and on the lower shelf a lute and a book whose pages are open.
They are humanists, these ambassadors,
or at least lovers of fine art.
Holbein the Younger painted them on oak at the beginning of the 16th century.
Why do these two framed by the green curtain look at me,
these ambassadors with strange names,
why do they look at me so seriously
never letting their glance falter for a moment,
their eyelids frozen,
and never say a word?
Spring blossomed all at once,
within a week all the trees were green
the colors coupled, separated, coupled,
shouted with joy,
the sky flashed.
