Federico García Lorca 1898 - 1936
Federico del Sagrado Corazón de Jesús García Lorca, known as Federico García Lorca 5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936) was a Spanish poet, playwright, and theatre director.
As a poet, his early reputation rested
on the Romancero gitano (Madrid, 1928; tr. R. Humphries, The
Gypsy Ballads of García Lorca, Bloomington, 1953), the poems
of Poema del Cante Jondo (Madrid, 1931), and Llanto por Ignacio
Sanchez Mejias (Madrid, 1935; tr. A. L. Lloyd, in Lament for
the Death of a Bullfighter, and Other Poems, London, 1937), all
profoundly Andalusian, richly sombre in their mood and imagery, and
disquieting in their projection of a part-primitive, part-private world
of myth moved by dark and not precisely identifiable forces; but, beneath
the flamenco trappings, there is a deeper - perhaps personal - anguish,
as well as a superb rhythmical and linguistic sense (the Llanto
is one of the four best elegies in the Spanish language). Critical interest
has since shifted to the tortured, ambiguous and deliberately dissonant
surrealist poems of Poeta en Nueva York (Mexico City, 1940; tr.
B. Belitt, Poet in New York, London, 1955), and to the arabesque
casidas and gacelas of Divein de Tamarit (NY, 1940).
An early major anthology in English is Poems (tr. S. Spender
& J. L. Gili, London, 1939).
As a dramatist, early romantic pieces
with social implications such as Mariana Pineda (Madrid, 1928;
tr. J. GrahamLuidn & R. L. O'Connell in Collected Plays,
London, 1976) and the comic invention of La zapatera prodigiosa
(first performed 1930, amplified 1935, pub. Buenos Aires, 1938; The
Shoemaker's Prodigious Wife in Collected Plays) established
him in the public eye, while his fostering of popular theatre gave him
a left-wing reputation which contributed to his death (although his
homosexuality also made him a target).
His reputation as a playwright rests,
however, mainly on the three 'folk tragedies', Bodas de sangre
(Madrid, 1935; Blood Wedding), Yerma (Buenos Aires, 1937) and
La casa de Bernarda Alba (Buenos Aires, 1940; The House of
Bernarda Alba: all three tr. J. Graham-Lujan & R. L. O'Connell,
in III Tragedies, NY, 1959, incorporated into Collected Plays),
whose settings recall the Romancero gitano, as do the unspecified
dark forces (associated with earth, blood, sex, water, fertility/infertility,
death, and the moon) which appear to manipulate the characters in Bodas
de sangre and Yerma. Both these plays are richly poetic,
with an almost ritualized primitivism (Lorca was highly superstitious,
and his dark forces were not mere dramatic ploys).
La casa de Bernarda Alba is starker:
deliberately prosaic, more readily interpretable as social criticism
(i.e. of the pressures of convention, the imprisoning effect of mourning
customs, the frustration of female sexuality by the need to wait for
an acceptable match), but it is so dominated by the title character
- who tyrannizes her five daughters - that it emerges as the study of
a unique individual rather than a typical woman. Each tragedy has one
outstanding female role, those of Yerma and Bernarda having been written
for the great tragic actress Margarita Xirgu.
Lorca's technical experimentation (which
has affinities with innovators as dissimilar as PIRANDELLO and BRECHT)
was immensely versatile, and he had a superb sense for stage-effects
to reinforce the web of his recurrent imagery.
Robert Pring-Mill (Fellow
of St. Catherine's College, Oxford)
from The Fontana Biographical Companion to Modern Thought
Copyright © 1983 by Alan Bullock, R.B.Woodings, and John Cumming
from The Fontana Biographical Companion to Modern Thought
Copyright © 1983 by Alan Bullock, R.B.Woodings, and John Cumming
for more biography:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federico_Garc%C3%ADa_Lorca
Federico Garcia Lorca(left),Margarita Xirgu and Josep Maria de Sagarra
THE GUITAR
The weeping of the guitar begins. The goblets of dawn are smashed. The weeping of the guitar begins. Useless to silence it. Impossible to silence it. It weeps monotonously as water weeps as the wind weeps over snowfields. Impossible to silence it. It weeps for distant things. Hot southern sands yearning for white camellias. Weeps arrow without target evening without morning and the first dead bird on the branch. Oh, guitar! Heart mortally wounded by five swords.
GACELA OF THE DARK DEATH
I want to sleep the sleep of the apples, I want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries. I want to sleep the sleep of that child who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea. I don’t want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood, how the decaying mouth goes on begging for water. I’d rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for nor about how the moon does all its work before dawn with its snakelike nose. I want to sleep for half a second, a second, a minute, a century, but I want everyone to know that I am still alive, that I have a golden manger inside my lips, that I am the little friend of the west wind, that I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears. When it’s dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me because I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me, and pour a little hard water over my shoes so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off. Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples, and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me, because I want to live with that shadowy child who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.
CITY THAT DOES NOT SLEEP
In the sky there is nobody asleep. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep. The creatures of the moon sniff and prowl about their cabins. The living iguanas will come and bite the men who do not dream, and the man who rushes out with his spirit broken will meet on the street corner the unbelievable alligator quiet beneath the tender protest of the stars. Nobody is asleep on earth. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is asleep. In a graveyard far off there is a corpse who has moaned for three years because of a dry countryside on his knee; and that boy they buried this morning cried so much it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet. Life is not a dream. Careful! Careful! Careful! We fall down the stairs in order to eat the moist earth or we climb to the knife edge of the snow with the voices of the dead dahlias. But forgetfulness does not exist, dreams do not exist; flesh exists. Kisses tie our mouths in a thicket of new veins, and whoever his pain pains will feel that pain forever and whoever is afraid of death will carry it on his shoulders. One day the horses will live in the saloons and the enraged ants will throw themselves on the yellow skies that take refuge in the eyes of cows. Another day we will watch the preserved butterflies rise from the dead and still walking through a country of gray sponges and silent boats we will watch our ring flash and roses spring from our tongue. Careful! Be careful! Be careful! The men who still have marks of the claw and the thunderstorm, and that boy who cries because he has never heard of the invention of the bridge, or that dead man who possesses now only his head and a shoe, we must carry them to the wall where the iguanas and the snakes are waiting, where the bear’s teeth are waiting, where the mummified hand of the boy is waiting, and the hair of the camel stands on end with a violent blue shudder. Nobody is sleeping in the sky. Nobody, nobody. Nobody is sleeping. If someone does close his eyes, a whip, boys, a whip ! Let there be a landscape of open eyes and bitter wounds on fire. No one is sleeping in this world. No one, no one. I have said it before. No one is sleeping. But if someone grows too much moss on his temples during the night, open the stage trapdoors so he can see in the moonlight the lying goblets, and the poison, and the skull of the theaters.
BALLAD OF THE SLEEPWALKER
Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea and the horse on the mountain. With the shade around her waist she dreams on her balcony, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. Green, how I want you green. Under the gypsy moon, all things are watching her and she cannot see them. Green, how I want you green. Big hoarfrost stars come with the fish of shadow that opens the road of dawn. The fig tree rubs its wind with the sandpaper of its branches, and the forest, cunning cat, bristles its brittle fibers. But who will come? And from where? She is still on her balcony green flesh, her hair green, dreaming in the bitter sea. -My friend, I want to trade my horse for her house, my saddle for her mirror, my knife for her blanket. My friend, I come bleeding from the gates of Cabra. -If it were possible, my boy, I’d help you fix that trade. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. -My friend, I want to die decently in my bed. Of iron, if that’s possible, with blankets of fine chambray. Don’t you see the wound I have from my chest up to my throat ? -Your white shirt has grown thirsty dark brown roses. Your blood oozes and flees a round the corners of your sash. But now I am not I, nor is my house now my house. -Let me climb up, at least, up to the high balconies; Let me climb up! Let me, up to the green balconies. Railings of the moon through which the water rumbles. Now the two friends climb up, up to the high balconies. Leaving a trail of blood. Leaving a trail of teardrops. Tin bell vines were trembling on the roofs. A thousand crystal tambourines struck at the dawn light. Green, how I want you green, green wind, green branches. The two friends climbed up. The stiff wind left in their mouths, a strange taste of bile, of mint, and of basil My friend, where is she-tell me- where is your bitter girl ? How many times she waited for you ! How many times would she wait for you, cool face, black hair, on this green balcony ! Over the mouth of the cistern the gypsy girl was swinging, green flesh, her hair green, with eyes of cold silver. An icicle of moon holds her up above the water. The night became intimate like a little plaza. Drunken “Guardias Civiles” were pounding on the door. Green, how I want you green. Green wind. Green branches. The ship out on the sea. And the horse on the mountain. Romance Sonámbulo Verde que te quiero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar y el caballo en la montaña. Con la sombra en la cintura ella sueña en su baranda, verde carne, pelo verde, con ojos de fría plata. Verde que te quiero verde. Bajo la luna gitana, las cosas la están mirando y ella no puede mirarlas. Verde que te quiero verde. Grandes estrellas de escarcha vienen con el pez de sombra que abre el camino del alba. La higuera frota su viento con la lija de sus ramas, y el monte, gato garduño, eriza sus pitas agrias. ¿Pero quién vendra? ¿Y por dónde...? Ella sigue en su baranda, Verde came, pelo verde, soñando en la mar amarga. -Compadre, quiero cambiar mi caballo por su casa, mi montura por su espejo, mi cuchillo per su manta. Compadre, vengo sangrando, desde los puertos de Cabra. -Si yo pudiera, mocito, este trato se cerraba. Pero yo ya no soy yo, ni mi casa es ya mi casa. -Compadre, quiero morir decentemente en mi cama. De acero, si puede ser, con las sábanas de holanda. ¿No ves la herida que tengo desde el pecho a la garganta? -Trescientas rosas morenas lleva tu pechera blanca. Tu sangre rezuma y huele alrededor de tu faja. Pero yo ya no soy yo, ni mi casa es ya mi casa. -Dejadme subir al menos hasta las altas barandas; ¡dejadme subir!, dejadme, hasta las verdes barandas. Barandales de la luna por donde retumba el agua. Ya suben los dos compadres hacia las altas barandas. Dejando un rastro de sangre. Dejando un rastro de lágrimas. Temblaban en los tejados farolillos de hojalata. Mil panderos de cristal herían la madrugada. Verde que te quiero verde, verde viento, verdes ramas. Los dos compadres subieron. El largo viento dejaba en la boca un raro gusto de hiel, de menta y de albahaca. ¡Compadre! ¿Donde está, díme? ¿Donde está tu niña amarga? ¡Cuántas veces te esperó! ¡Cuántas veces te esperara, cara fresca, negro pelo, en esta verde baranda! Sobre el rostro del aljibe se mecía la gitana. Verde carne, pelo verde, con ojos de fría plata. Un carámbano de luna la sostiene sobre el agua. La noche se puso íntima como una pequeña plaza. Guardias civiles borrachos en la puerta golpeaban. Verde que te qinero verde. Verde viento. Verdes ramas. El barco sobre la mar. Y el caballo en la montaña.
ARBOLE, ARBOLE...
Tree, tree dry and green. The girl with the pretty face is out picking olives. The wind, playboy of towers, grabs her around the waist. Four riders passed by on Andalusian ponies, with blue and green jackets and big, dark capes. “Come to Cordoba, muchacha.” The girl won’t listen to them. Three young bullfighters passed, slender in the waist, with jackets the color of oranges and swords of ancient silver. “Come to Sevilla, muchacha.” The girl won’t listen to them. When the afternoon had turned dark brown, with scattered light, a young man passed by, wearing roses and myrtle of the moon. “Come to Granada, muchacha.” And the girl won’t listen to him. The girl with the pretty face keeps on picking olives with the grey arm of the wind wrapped around her waist. Tree, tree dry and green.
Arbolé, arbolé, seco y verdí. La niña del bello rostro está cogiendo aceituna. El viento, galán de torres, la prende por la cintura. Pasaron cuatro jinetes sobre jacas andaluzas, con trajes de azul y verde, con largas capas oscuras. “Vente a Córdoba, muchacha.” La niña no los escucha. Pasaron tres torerillos delgaditos de cintura, con trajes color naranja y espadas de plata antigua. “Vente a Córdoba, muchacha.” La niña no los escucha. Cuando la tarde se puso morada, con lux difusa, pasó un joven que llevaba rosas y mirtos de luna. “Vente a Granada, muchacha.” Y la niña no lo escucha. La niña del bello rostro sigue cogiendo aceituna, con el brazo gris del viento ceñido por la cintura. Arbolé, arbolé. Seco y verdé.
THE LITTLE MUTE BOY
The little boy was looking for his voice. (The king of the crickets had it.) In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. I do not want it for speaking with; I will make a ring of it so that he may wear my silence on his little finger In a drop of water the little boy was looking for his voice. (The captive voice, far away, put on a cricket’s clothes.)
BALLAD OF THE MOON, MOON
The moon came to the forge
wearing a bustle of Spikenards.
The boy is looking at her.
The boy is looking hard.
In the troubled air,
the wind moves her arms,
showing lewd and pure,
her hard, tin breasts.
"Run, moon, moon, moon.
If the gypsies came,
they would make of your heart
necklaces and white rings."
"Child, let me dance.
When the gypsies come,
they will find you on the anvil
with your little eyes shut tight."
"Run, moon moon moon.
I can hear their horses.
Child, let me be, don't walk
on my starchy white."
The rider was drawing closer
playing the drum of the plain.
In the forge the child
has his eyes shut tight.
Bronze and dream, the gypsies
cross the olive grove.
Their heads held high,
their eyes half open.
Ay how the nightjar sings!
How it sings in the tree!
The moon goes through the sky
with a child in her hand.
In the forge the gypsies
wept and cried aloud.
The air is watching, watching.
The air watched all night long.
wearing a bustle of Spikenards.
The boy is looking at her.
The boy is looking hard.
In the troubled air,
the wind moves her arms,
showing lewd and pure,
her hard, tin breasts.
"Run, moon, moon, moon.
If the gypsies came,
they would make of your heart
necklaces and white rings."
"Child, let me dance.
When the gypsies come,
they will find you on the anvil
with your little eyes shut tight."
"Run, moon moon moon.
I can hear their horses.
Child, let me be, don't walk
on my starchy white."
The rider was drawing closer
playing the drum of the plain.
In the forge the child
has his eyes shut tight.
Bronze and dream, the gypsies
cross the olive grove.
Their heads held high,
their eyes half open.
Ay how the nightjar sings!
How it sings in the tree!
The moon goes through the sky
with a child in her hand.
In the forge the gypsies
wept and cried aloud.
The air is watching, watching.
The air watched all night long.
WEEPING
Weeping,
I go down the street
Grotesque, without solution
With the sadness of Cyrano
And Quixote.
Redeeming
Infinite impossibilities
With the rhythm of the clock.
I go down the street
Grotesque, without solution
With the sadness of Cyrano
And Quixote.
Redeeming
Infinite impossibilities
With the rhythm of the clock.
FAREWELL
If I die,leave the balcony open.
The little boy is eating oranges.
(From my balcony I can see him.)
The reaper is harvesting the wheat.
(From my balcony I can hear him.)
If I die,
leave the balcony open !
THE FAITHLESS WIFE
So I took her to the river
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lighted up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives.
Without silver light on their foliage
the trees had grown larger
and a horizon of dogs
barked very far from the river.
Past the blackberries,
the reeds and the hawthorne
underneath her cluster of hair
I made a hollow in the earth
I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver,
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o'-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brilliance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold.
That night I ran
on the best of roads
mounted on a nacre mare
without bridle stirrups.
As a man, I won't repeat
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me more discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from the river.
The swords of the lilies
battled with the air.
I behaved like what I am,
like a proper gypsy.
I gave her a large sewing basket,
of straw-colored satin,
but I did not fall in love
for although she had a husband
she told me she was a maiden
when I took her to the river.
believing she was a maiden,
but she already had a husband.
It was on St. James night
and almost as if I was obliged to.
The lanterns went out
and the crickets lighted up.
In the farthest street corners
I touched her sleeping breasts
and they opened to me suddenly
like spikes of hyacinth.
The starch of her petticoat
sounded in my ears
like a piece of silk
rent by ten knives.
Without silver light on their foliage
the trees had grown larger
and a horizon of dogs
barked very far from the river.
Past the blackberries,
the reeds and the hawthorne
underneath her cluster of hair
I made a hollow in the earth
I took off my tie,
she too off her dress.
I, my belt with the revolver,
She, her four bodices.
Nor nard nor mother-o'-pearl
have skin so fine,
nor does glass with silver
shine with such brilliance.
Her thighs slipped away from me
like startled fish,
half full of fire,
half full of cold.
That night I ran
on the best of roads
mounted on a nacre mare
without bridle stirrups.
As a man, I won't repeat
the things she said to me.
The light of understanding
has made me more discreet.
Smeared with sand and kisses
I took her away from the river.
The swords of the lilies
battled with the air.
I behaved like what I am,
like a proper gypsy.
I gave her a large sewing basket,
of straw-colored satin,
but I did not fall in love
for although she had a husband
she told me she was a maiden
when I took her to the river.
DITTY OF FIRST DESIRE
In the green morning
I wanted to be a heart.
a heart.
And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.
(Soul,
turn oranged colored.
Soul, turn the color of love.)
In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.
And at the evenings end
I wanted to be my voice
A nightingale.
Soul,
turn orange colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
I wanted to be a heart.
a heart.
And in the ripe evening
I wanted to be a nightingale.
A nightingale.
(Soul,
turn oranged colored.
Soul, turn the color of love.)
In the vivid morning
I wanted to be myself.
A heart.
And at the evenings end
I wanted to be my voice
A nightingale.
Soul,
turn orange colored.
Soul,
turn the color of love.
THE GYPSY AND THE WIND
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes
along a watery path of laurels and crystal lights.
The starless silence, fleeing
from her rhythmic tambourine,
falls where the sea whips and sings,
his night filled with silvery swarms.
High atop the mountain peaks
the sentinels are weeping;
they guard the tall white towers
of the English consulate.
And gypsies of the water
for their pleasure erect
little castles of conch shells
and arbors of greening pine.
Playing her parchment moon
Precosia comes.
The wind sees her and rises,
the wind that never slumbers.
Naked Saint Christopher swells,
watching the girl as he plays
with tongues of celestial bells
on an invisible bagpipe.
Gypsy, let me lift your skirt
and have a look at you.
Open in my ancient fingers
the blue rose of your womb.
Precosia throws the tambourine
and runs away in terror.
But the virile wind pursues her
with his breathing and burning sword.
The sea darkens and roars,
while the olive trees turn pale.
The flutes of darkness sound,
and a muted gong of the snow.
Precosia, run, Precosia!
Or the green wind will catch you !
Precosia, run, Precosia !
And look how fast he comes !
A satyr of low-born stars
with their long and glistening tongues.
Precosia, filled with fear,
now makes her way to that house
beyond the tall green pines
where the English consul lives.
Alarmed by the anguished cries,
three riflemen come running,
their black capes tightly drawn,
and berets down over their brow.
The Englishman gives the gypsy
a glass of tepid milk
and a shot of Holland gin
which Precosia does not drink.
And while she tells them, weeping,
of her strange adventure,
the wind furiously gnashes
against the slate roof tiles.
LAMENT FOR IGNACIO SANCHEZ MEJIAS
At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone.
The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolated horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.
Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
At five o'clock in the afternoon.
A coffin on wheels is his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridiscent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.
Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon !
It was five by all the clocks !
It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
2. The Spilled Blood
I will not see it!
Tell the moon to come,
for I do not want to see the blood
of Ignacio on the sand.
I will not see it!
The moon wide open.
Horse of still clouds,
and the grey bull ring of dreams
with willows in the barreras.
I will not see it !
Let my memory kindle !
Warm the jasmines
of such minute whiteness !
I will not see it !
The cow of the ancient world
passed har sad tongue
over a snout of blood
spilled on the sand,
and the bulls of Guisando,
partly death and partly stone,
bellowed like two centuries
sated with threading the earth.
No.
I will not see it !
Ignacio goes up the tiers
with all his death on his shoulders.
He sought for the dawn
but the dawn was no more.
He seeks for his confident profile
and the dream bewilders him
He sought for his beautiful body
and encountered his opened blood
Do not ask me to see it !
I do not want to hear it spurt
each time with less strength:
that spurt that illuminates
the tiers of seats, and spills
over the cordury and the leather
of a thirsty multiude.
Who shouts that I should come near !
Do not ask me to see it !
His eyes did not close
when he saw the horns near,
but the terrible mothers
lifted their heads.
And across the ranches,
an air of secret voices rose,
shouting to celestial bulls,
herdsmen of pale mist.
There was no prince in Sevilla
who could compare to him,
nor sword like his sword
nor heart so true.
Like a river of lions
was his marvellous strength,
and like a marble toroso
his firm drawn moderation.
The air of Andalusian Rome
gilded his head
where his smile was a spikenard
of wit and intelligence.
What a great torero in the ring!
What a good peasant in the sierra!
How gentle with the sheaves!
How hard with the spurs!
How tender with the dew!
How dazzling the fiesta!
How tremendous with the final
banderillas of darkness!
But now he sleeps without end.
Now the moss and the grass
open with sure fingers
the flower of his skull.
And now his blood comes out singing;
singing along marshes and meadows,
sliden on frozen horns,
faltering soulles in the mist
stoumbling over a thousand hoofs
like a long, dark, sad tongue,
to form a pool of agony
close to the starry Guadalquivir.
Oh, white wall of Spain !
Oh, black bull of sorrow !
Oh, hard blood of Ignacio !
Oh, nightingale of his veins !
No.
I will not see it !
No chalice can contain it,
no swallows can drink it,
no frost of light can cool it,
nor song nor deluge og white lilies,
no glass can cover mit with silver.
No.
I will not see it !
3. The Laid Out Body
Stone is a forehead where dreames grieve
without curving waters and frozen cypresses.
Stone is a shoulder on which to bear Time
with trees formed of tears and ribbons and planets.
I have seen grey showers move towards the waves
raising their tender riddle arms,
to avoid being caught by lying stone
which loosens their limbs without soaking their blood.
For stone gathers seed and clouds,
skeleton larks and wolves of penumbra:
but yields not sounds nor crystals nor fire,
only bull rings and bull rings and more bull rings without walls.
Now, Ignacio the well born lies on the stone.
All is finished. What is happening! Contemplate his face:
death has covered him with pale sulphur
and has place on him the head of dark minotaur.
All is finished. The rain penetrates his mouth.
The air, as if mad, leaves his sunken chest,
and Love, soaked through with tears of snow,
warms itself on the peak of the herd.
What is they saying ? A stenching silence settles down.
We are here with a body laid out which fades away,
with a pure shape which had nightingales
and we see it being filled with depthless holes.
Who creases the shroud ? What he says is not true !
Nobody sings here, nobody weeps in the corner,
nobody pricks the spurs, nor terrifies the serpent.
Here I want nothing else but the round eyes
to see his body without a chance of rest.
Here I want to see those men of hard voice.
Those that break horses and dominate rivers;
those men of sonorous skeleton who sing
with a mouth full of sun and flint.
Here I want to see them. Before the stone.
Before this body with broken reins.
I want to know from them the way out
for this captain stripped down by death.
I want them to show me a lament like a river
wich will have sweet mists and deep shores,
to take the body of Ignacio where it looses itself
without hearing the double planting of the bulls.
Loses itself in the round bull ring of the moon
which feigns in its youth a sad quiet bull,
loses itself in the night without song of fishes
and in the white thicket of frozen smoke.
I don't want to cover his face with handkerchiefs
that he may get used to the death he carries.
Go, Ignacio, feel not the hot bellowing
Sleep, fly, rest: even the sea dies !
4. Absent Soul
The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
nor the horses, nor the ants in your own house.
The child and the afternoon do not know you
because you have dead forever.
The shoulder of the stone does not know you
nor the black silk, where you are shuttered.
Your silent memory does not know you
because you have died forever
The autumn will come with small white snails,
misty grapes and clustered hills,
but no one will look into your eyes
because you have died forever.
Because you have died for ever,
like all the dead of the earth,
like all the dead who are forgotten
in a heap of lifeless dogs.
Nobady knows you. No. But I sing of you.
For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.
Of the signal maturity of your understanding.
Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.
Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.
It will be a long time, if ever, before there is born
an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.
I sing of his elegance with words that groan,
and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.
translation by Will Kirkland and Christopher Mauer (2002)
http://www.boppin.com/lorca/index.html
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