Poems Found in Translation: Siglo de Oro
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Francisco de Quevedo: Giganton (From Spanish)

gigante or gigantón was an enormous stuffed effigy paraded through town streets on certain holidays during the Middle Ages and early Renaissance. They were usually made out of flammable materials, and were often set on fire in celebration. This sonnet has been misunderstood by many — even trained hispanists — who didn't grasp that this poem's "giant" is in fact such a gigantón. Willis Barnstone, for example, completely misses this in his translation and so bungles a number of lines which don't make much sense unless one knows what a gigantón is.

Disillusionment with External Appearances, whence an Examination of Inner Truth
By Francisco de Quevedo
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

See how that paunchy wicker-giant struts
Along the street, all pride and gravity?
Well, he's got rags and kindling-brush for guts.
A flunkey props him up for all to see,
Whose soul he feeds upon to move as well.
He waves his grandeur anywhere he wants,
But any who examine his stiff shell
Will sneer at all that frippery he flaunts.

Such is the seeming splendor of the vile 
Tyrants who live by ludicrous illusion, 
An eminent, fantastic garbage pile. 
See how they blaze in purple as they girt
Their hands with gems in colorful profusion. 
Inside, they are all nausea, worms, and dirt.


The Original:

Desengaño de la Exterior Aparencia, con el Examen Interior y Verdadero

¿Miras este Gigante corpulento
Que con soberbia y gravedad camina?
Pues por de dentro es trapos y fajina,
Y un ganapán le sirve de cimiento.
Con su alma vive y tiene movimiento,
Y adonde quiere su grandeza inclina,
Mas quien su aspecto rígido examina
Desprecia su figura y ornamento.

Tales son las grandezas aparentes
De la vana ilusión de los Tiranos,
Fantásticas escorias eminentes.
¿Veslos arder en púrpura, y sus manos
En diamantes y piedras diferentes?
Pues asco dentro son, tierra y gusanos.

Notas Léxicas:

Fajina: conjunto de ramitas, cortezas y otros despojos de las plantas, que se solía emplear para hacer rellenos de diversas clases; en este case, la materia de la que se compone el gigantón.

Escorias: en un sentido literal, las heces vidriosas que flotan a la superficie de los hornos de fundir metales; y en otro figurado, cualquier cosa vil, desechada y de ningún valor.

Góngora: On The Deceptive Brevity of Life (From Spanish)

On the Deceptive Brevity of Life 
By Luís de Góngora
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Less did the speedy bowshot arrow seek
its destined target than it sharply bit!
And no more silently did chariot streak 
round to its goal across dumb sand and grit
than hastens toward its end, invisibly
harried, this time of ours. He that would doubt
(a beast bereft of reason though he be) 
has a black star in each sun coming out. 
Carthage proclaims it. How can you not know? 
You dice with danger, friend, while yet you chase
shadows and cling to fraud against your fears. 
Think not the hours will spare you as they go,
the hours forever grinding down the days,
the days as ever gnawing up the years.

The Original:

De la Brevedad Engañosa de la Vida

Menos solicitó veloz saeta
Destinada señal, que mordió aguda!
Agoral carro por la arena muda
No coronó con mas silencio meta
Que presurosa corre, que secreta
a su fin nuestra edad. A quien lo duda,
(fiera que sea de razón desnuda)
cada sol repetido es un cometa.
Confiéssalo Cartago ¿y tu lo ignoras?
Peligro corres Licio, si porfías
en seguir sombras y abraçar engaños.
Mal te perdonarán a ti las horas;
las horas que limando están los días,
los días que royendo están los años. 

Quevedo: Brevity and Nullity (From Spanish)

Brevity and Nullity
(Describing his life's brevity and how the life he has lived seems nothing)
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

 "Is any life home?" Can none answer me? 
"Help!" All my yesteryears are wasted here.  
Fate has chawed off my every day and year,  
my hours gone under in insanity.  
 How powerless, I cannot even see
where or how time and health have fled my gaze.  
My life went missing. Now I just have days 
alive, beset by all catastrophe. 
 The past is gone. Tomorrow never is.  
The now spares not a second on the go. 
I am a Was, a Will, a weary Is.  
 To now, tomorrow and the past I sew
diaper and winding-sheet, remaining this 
succession of deceased and long ago.  

Audio of me reciting this poem in Spanish:


The Original:

Represéntase la brevedad de lo que vive y cuán nada parece lo que se vivió

   ¡Ah de la vida! Nadie me responde?
Aquí de los antaños que he vivido;
la fortuna mis tiempos ha mordido;
las horas mi locura las esconde.
   ¡Que sin poder saber cómo ni adónde,
la salud y la edad se hayan huído!
Falta la vida, asiste lo vivido
y no hay calamidad que no me ronde.
   Ayer se fue, mañana no ha llegado,
hoy se está yendo sin parar un punto;
soy un fue, y un seré y un es cansado.
   En el hoy, y mañana, y ayer, junto
pañales y mortaja, y he quedado
presentes sucesiones de difunto.

Quevedo: How All Things Warn of Death (From Spanish)

How All Things Warn Of Death
By Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

     I looked upon the walls of my old land,
so strong once, and now moldering away,
worn out by Time's long march, day after day,
which had already sapped their will to stand.
 
     I went out to the country, saw the sun 
drink up the streams unfettered from the frost,
and cattle groan how light of day was lost
to woodland, with its shadows overrun.
 
     I went into my home, but saw the crude 
and rotted ruins of an agèd room;
my cane gone weak and crooked in the grime.
     I felt my sword surrendering to Time
and nothing of the many things I viewed
reminded me of anything but Doom.


Audio of me reading this poem in Spanish


The Original:

Enseña Cómo Todas Las Cosas Avisan de la Muerte

     Miré los muros de la patria mía,
si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados,
de la carrera de la edad cansados,
por quien caduca ya su valentía.
     Salíme al campo; vi que el sol bebía
los arroyos del yelo desatados,
y del monte quejosos los ganados,
que con sombras hurtó su luz al día.
     Entré en mi casa; vi que, amancillada,
de anciana habitación era despojos;
mi báculo, más corvo y menos fuerte.
     Vencida de la edad sentí mi espada,
y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos
que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.

Quevedo: Rome Entombed in its Ruins (From Spanish)

This is a poem that, fittingly, has a long history of surviving in translation and cross-linguistic imitation. Quevedo's Spanish is a paraphrase of a French poem by Du Bellay "Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome", which is in turn itself a paraphrase of Janus Vitalis Qui Romam in media quaeris novus advena Roma. Other variations on the "Rome is no more in Rome" theme proliferated over the centuries in Europe, often as translations or paraphrases of either Vitalis', Du Bellay's or Quevedo's versions, but occasionally as freer adaptations of the theme, in a number of languages including English, Russian, Polish and others. I'll be translating Du Bellay's and Vitalis' poems soon, and perhaps write a more extended discussion of the theme (and its permutations) to accompany them. Thanks are due to John Emerson who handily assembled many of these poems together in one place, including the hard-to-get-to Latin poem by Vitalis.

Rome Entombed in its Ruins
By Francisco De Quevedo
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

You look for Rome in Rome, O peregrine!
     And find in Rome that Rome Herself is gone:
     The walls She flaunted are a corpse of stone,
     A tomb for its own self, the Aventine.
Here rests, where once it reigned, the Palatine
     And those medallions scoured by Time show more 
     Old battle damage from the constant war
     Of ages, than the escutcheoned Latin sign.
Only the Tiber has remained, whose flow
     Watered the town's growth, weeping at its grave  
     A teary stream in mournful tones of woe.
O Rome in beauty and greatness of Thy past
     All that stood firm has fled, and nothing save
     What runs in transience remains to last.

The Original:

A Roma Ensepultada En Sus Ruinas

Buscas en Roma a Roma oh peregrino!
y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas:
cadáver son las que ostentó murallas
y tumba de sí proprio el Aventino.

Yace donde reinaba el Palatino
y limadas del tiempo, las medallas
más se muestran destrozo a las batallas
de las edades que Blasón Latino.

Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente,
si ciudad la regó, ya sepultura
la llora con funesto son doliente.

Oh Roma en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura,
huyó lo que era firme y solamente
lo fugitivo permanece y dura!

Garcilaso de la Vega: "While there is yet the color of the rose" (From Spanish)

The donor who requested this poem also requested that I make my audio recording of the original Spanish using a reconstruction of the pronunciation Garcilaso himself would have used. This I have done.

Sonnet XXIII
By Garcilaso de la Vega
Translated by A.Z. Foreman
Requested by Enrique Flores

While there is yet the color of the rose
And of the lily in your countenance,
And while the burning candor of your glance 
Can fire the heart and yet constrain its throes;

And while yet that soft hair of yours which flows
From a gold vein, in a disheveled dance
Is tangled by wind's sudden dalliance
As round that lovely proud white neck it blows,     

Gather the harvest from your joyous spring
Of sweetest fruit before Time comes in rage
Of snow to cover that fair peak at last.

The rose will wither in the wind's chill blast.
So changing everything comes flighty Age    
Never to change its way for anything.
Soneto XXIII
Garcilaso de la Vega
Click to hear me recite the original Spanish


En tanto que de rosa y de açucena
se muestra la color en vuestro gesto
y que vuestro mirar ardiente honesto
enciende el coraçon y lo refrena,

Y en tanto que el cabello que en la vena
del oro se escogio con buelo presto
por el hermoso cuello blanco enhiesto
el viento mueue esparze y desordena

Coged de vuestra alegre primauera
el dulce fruto antes que el tiempo ayrado
cubra de nieue la hermosa cumbre

Marchitara la rosa el viento elado
todo lo mudara la edad ligera
por no hazer mudança en su costumbre







Quevedo: Love Constant Beyond Death (From Spanish)

It has occurred to me to try out a side-by-side presentation of my translations instead of the consecutive presentation I've been employing heretofore. I originally eschewed a side-by-side presentation of my translations because I wanted to discourage a particular kind of reading, which I know from experience to be tempting if one is familiar with the language of the original. The reader gets through line one of the original, then line one of the translation, then back to line two of the original and then of the translation and so forth, resulting in an impoverished appreciation of both texts and an overfocus on difference. As J.F. Nims put it:

Objections to what some may regard as intrusions, as foreign matter in the English version, generally come from those who do not understand the nature of poetry - those who read the translation and its original on facing pages, line by line, ping-pong fashion, eyes right, eyes left, triumphant when a discrepancy is found. Perhaps it would be better - many have thought so - not even to print the text of a poem together with a translation which itself is meant to be a poem. The original is an experience. The translation, different but an analogous, is an experience - but the two experiences cannot well be enjoyed together.
And yet I decided to try it. Stupidly perhaps. But here goes. 

Love Constant Beyond Death
By Francisco de Quevedo
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

    That terminal shadow may with darkness seal          
my eyes shut when it steals white day from me,
and in an instant, flattering the zeal
of this my eager soul, let it go free.
    But on this hither shore where once it burned
it shall not leave behind love’s memory.
My flame can swim chill waters. It has learned
to lose respect for laws’ severity. 
    This soul that was a god's hot prison cell,
veins that with liquid humors fueled such fire,
marrows that flamed in glory as I strove
    shall quit the flesh, but never their desire.
They shall be ash. That ash will feel as well.
Dust they shall be. That dust will be in love.
Amor Constante Mas Allá de la Muerte
Francisco de Quevedo
Click here to hear me recite the original Spanish

    Cerrar podrá mis ojos la postrera
sombra que me llevare el blanco día,
y podrá desatar esta alma mía
hora a su afán ansioso lisonjera;
    mas no de essotra parte, en la riuera,
dejará la memoria, en donde ardía:
nadar sabe mi llama l'agua fría,
y perder el respeto a lei severa.
    Alma que a todo un dios prissión ha sido,
venas que humor a tanto fuego an dado,
medulas que han gloriosamente ardido,
    su cuerpo dejarán, no su cuydado;
serán ceniça, mas tendrá sentido;
polvo serán, mas polvo enamorado.

Quevedo: On The Brevity of Life, Thoughtless and Suffering, Surprised by Death (From Spanish)

He Indicates the Brevity of Life, Unthinking and Suffering, as it is Surprised by Death
By Francisco de Quevedo
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

     My yesterday was dream. My morrow, dirt!
A while past, nothing; a while later, smoke.
All pitiful ambition I exert
to strike at what destroys me with one stroke.

     I, skirmish of the war I cannot win,
am the true weakness of my strategy.
As I let my own cannons do me in,
the body does not bear but buries me.
 
     Yesterday's out, tomorrow yet unplayed. 
Today runs by and is and was and flings
me headfirst into death without delay.

     The moment and the hour are each a spade
salaried by my fears and sufferings
to dig my monument in living clay.


The Original:

Significa la Propia Brevedad de la Vida, Sin Pensar y con padecer, Salteada de la muerte

     !Fue sueño ayer; mañana será tierra!
!Poco antes, nada; poco después, humo!
!Y destino ambiciones, y presumo
apenas punto al cerco que me cierra!
     Breve combate de importuna guerra,
en mi defensa, soy peligro sumo;
y mientras con mis armas me consumo,
menos me hospeda el cuerpo, que me entierra.
     Ya no es ayer; mañana no ha llegado;
hoy pasa, y es, y fue, con movimiento
que a la muerte me lleva despeñado.
     Azadas son la hora y el momento
que, a jornal de mi pena y mi cuidado,
cavan en mi vivir mi monumento.

Saint John of the Cross: The Dark Night of the Soul (From Spanish)



Dark Night of the Soul
By St. John of the Cross
Translated by A.Z. Foreman

Songs of the soul rejoicing at having achieved the high state of perfection, the Union with God, by way of spiritual negation.

Once in the dark of night,
Inflamed with love and yearning, I arose
(O stroke of sheer delight!)
And went, as no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose

All in the dark went right,
Down secret steps, disguised in other clothes,
(O stroke of sheer delight!)
In dark when no one knows,
When all my house lay long in deep repose.

And in the luck of night
In secret places where no other spied
I went without my sight
Without a light to guide
Except the heart that lit me from inside.

It guided me and shone
Surer than noonday sunlight over me,
And led me to the one
Whom only I could see
Deep in a place where only we could be.

O guiding dark of night!
O dark of night more darling than the dawn!
O night that can unite
A lover and loved one,
Lover and loved one moved in unison.

And on my flowering breast
Which I had kept for him and him alone
He slept as I caressed
And loved him for my own,
Breathing an air from redolent cedars blown.

And from the castle wall
The wind came down to winnow through his hair
Bidding his fingers fall,
Searing my throat with air
And all my senses were suspended there.


I stayed there to forget.
There on my lover, face to face, I lay.
All ended, and I let
My cares all fall away
Forgotten in the lilies on that day.

The Original:

La Noche Oscura Del Alma
San Juan De La Cruz

Canciones del alma que se goza de auer llegado al alto estado de la perfeccion, que es la union con Dios, por el camino de la negacion espiritual

En una noche obscura,
con ansias en amores imflamada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
sali sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

A escuras y segura,
por la secreta escala disfraçada,
¡oh dichosa uentura!
a escuras y ençelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada.

En la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me ueya,
ni yo miraua cosa,
sin otra luz ni guia
sino la que en el coraçon ardia.

Aquesta me guiaua
mas cierto que la luz del mediodia,
adonde me esperaua
quien yo bien me sabia,
en parte donde nadie parecia.

¡Oh noche que me guiaste!
¡oh noche amable mas que el aluorada!,
¡oh noche que juntaste
amado con amada,
amada en el amado transformada!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para el solo se guardaua,
alli quedo dormido,
y yo le regalaua,
y el ventalle de cedros ayre daua.

El ayre de la almena,
cuando ya sus cabellos esparzia,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello heria,
y todos mis sentidos suspendia.

Quedeme y oluideme,
el rostro recline sobre el amado,
ceso todo, y dexeme,
dexando mi cuidado
entre las açucenas olvidado.