Baresi
Tha gach rud ’s eòl dhomh mu mhoraltachd ’s dleastanas an urra ri Franco Baresi a’ tarraing cudeigin sìos far a’ bhall’ air Football Italia. Sheachnaich sinn Sgòil Shàbaid a dh’fhaicinn.
Ciod is crìoch àraidh do’n duine? Dia a ghlòrachadh, agus a mhealtuinn gu siorruidh.Tha Dia ’na spiorad, neo-chrìochnach, bith bhuan, agus neo-chaochluidheach. Is e fìreanachadh gnìomh saor ghràis Dhé air a ghabhail thugainn le creidimh a mhàin. ’S e peacadh briseadh lagha Dhé.
An àite na ceud freagart seo air ar meomhair, an àite saorsa na h-Eaglaise Saoire, bha Baresi. A’ clipeadh adhbrann winger nas luaithe na, a’ gearain mu cho mì-mhòdhail sa bha grabhataidh. Baresi, a’ seasamh air òrdagan an aireamh 9 aig cornair, a’ cuideachadh luchd-dùbhlain an àirde le ghaoisid-achlais. Baresi. An cuideachd an diabhail ’s làn-fhios aige. A’ faighinn às leis.
Bha mi air mo bheò-ghlacadh. Chan e cothrom na Féinne a th’ann am ball-coise ach seo – mealladh, cùil-bheart, feall. A’ toirt car à laghan Dhé, à laghan FIFA. ’S e am bunait luachan Coirinteach, le làn fhìos gur e korinthiazesthai – a bhith beò mar Choirintich – a’ ciallachadh a bhith beò le raipeas raoiteach mì-mhoralta.
Nuair a smaoineachas mi mu dheidhinn ball-coise chì mi Baresi – Baresi lem aodann-sa – na sheasamh aig an Acropolis ann an Corinth a’ cuir mìle siursach, balaich agus clann-nighean, sios à teampall Aphrodite dha baile nam maraichean fodha. Gaire dùbailte air ar n-aodann, a’ coimhead air an saoghal a chruthaich sinn.
Agus sin, gus do cheist a fhreagairt, an adhbhar a tha mi freagarrach airson na dreuchd-sa, a’ malairt bathair-aimh ann am Banca Companaidh Anart Bhreatainn.
Translations of this Poem
Baresi
Translator: Pàdraig MacAoidh Peter Mackay
All I know most surely about morality and obligations I owe to watching Franco Baresi take people down off the ball on Football Italia in the early 1990s.We skipped Sunday School to watch him.
What is the chief end of man? Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy him forever. God is a spirit, infinite, eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth. Justification is an act of God’s free grace, wherein he pardoneth all our sins, and accepteth us as righteous in his sight, only for the righteousness of Christ imputed to us, and received by faith alone.
Instead of these hundreds of answers on our tongue, instead of the freedom of the Free Church, we got Baresi, clipping the heels of a winger faster than him, shrugging about the whims of gravity. Baresi, standing on the number 9’s toes at a corner, helping opponents up by their oxter hair, shouting ‘Offside’ and making the world stop. Baresi, of the devil’s party and knowing it. Getting away with it.
I was besotted. Football is not about fair play but this – deception, trickery and cheating, taking the piss out of the laws of God, out of Fifa. Nutmegging. Those Corinthian values.The knowledge that the Greek korinthiazesthai, to ‘live like a Corinthian’, means to ‘live with drunken and immoral debauchery’.
When I close my eyes and think of football in its purest form, I imagine Baresi – no, Baresi with my face – standing in a toga at the Acropolis in Corinth, sending hundreds of prostitutes, boys and girls, down to the docks to the waiting sailors. Smiling ambiguously at the world we have created.
And that – to answer your question – is why I think I am suited to a position here in the commodities trading section of the British Linen Company Bank.
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Pàdraig MacAoidh Peter Mackay
Pàdraig MacAoidh / Peter Mackay is originally from the Isle of Lewis; he lectures in the School of English at the University of St Andrews, and has written widely on Scottish and Irish poetry.
