The Attack of the Baroque

In the spirit of what Curt’s done recently with Heine and Rudel, I wanted to share three of my favorite Spanish Baroque poems.

I’m not much of a poet, so my translations aren’t terribly good, but they’re better than nothing, I suppose, if you don’t speak Spanish. The short lines in the first poem made a poetic translation difficult, but I’ve done the best I can. I took a bit more license with the second, trying to maintain the rhyme scheme at the cost of word-for-word literalism. The third is virtually untranslatable, so I’ve gone with a strictly literal translation. Enjoy.

Letrilla XLVIII
(burlesca)

  Andeme yo caliente
    y ríase la gente.

  Traten otros del gobierno
del mundo y sus monarquías,
mientras gobiernan mis días
mantequillas y pan tierno,
y las mañanas de invierno
naranjada y aguardiente,
    y ríase la gente.

  Coma en dorada vajilla
el Príncipe mil cuidados,
como píldoras dorados;
que yo en mi pobre mesilla
quiero más una morcilla
que en el asador reviente,
    y ríase la gente.

  Cuando cubra las montañas
de blanca nieve el enero,
tenga yo lleno el brasero
de bellotas y castañas,
y quien las dulces patrañas
del Rey que rabió me cuente,
    y ríase la gente.

  Busque muy en hora buena
el mercader nuevos soles;
yo concha y caracoles
entre la menuda arena,
escuchando a Filomena
sobre el chopo de la fuente,
    y ríase la gente.

  Pase a media noche el mar,
y arda en amarosa llama,
Leandro por ver su dama;
que yo más quiero pasar
del golfo de mi lagar
la blanca o roja corriente,
    y ríase la gente.

  Pues Amor es tan cruel
que de Píramo y su amada
hace tálamo una espada,
do se junten ella en él,
sea mi Tisbe un pastel
y la espada sea mi diente,
    y ríase la gente.

—Luis de Góngora, 1581

Song XLVIII
(burlesque)

  Let me walk with feeling
    and let the people laugh.

  Let others play at governing
the world and its monarchies,
while my days are governed by
a bit of butter and soft bread,
and on early winter morn
a bit of orange and brandy,
    and let the people laugh.

  Dining on a golden plate
let the Prince have his thousand cares,
like tiny golden capsules;
for I at my poor table
prefer to have black sausage
bursting with juice on the spit,
    and let the people laugh.

  When January has covered
the mountains in deep white snow,
let my brasier be loaded
full of acorns and chestnuts,
and let there be a friend to tell
stories of the king who went mad,
    and let the people laugh.

  Let the merchant - good luck to him -
search the globe for brand-new suns;
I’ll be finding shells and snails
while walking on the fine-grained sand,
listening to the nightingale
singing from the poplar’s branch,
    and let the people laugh.

  Passing over the midnight sea,
burning with amorous flame,
let Leander seek his lady;
for I prefer to let pass
from the gulf of my winepress
the white or the red current,
    and let the people laugh.

  Since Love is so cruel as to
make for Pyramus and his beloved
a wedding bed from sharpened steel
upon which he and she unite,
let a cake be my Thisbe
and the sword shall be my tooth,
    and let the people laugh.

Epitafio 212
  A Roma sepultada 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 Palatino.
  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 sepoltura
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.

—Francisco de Quevedo

Epitaph 212
  To Rome buried in her ruins

  You search in Rome for Rome, oh lost pilgrim!
but find Rome in Rome itself you never shall:
a corpse is all that’s left of her great wall,
and the Aventine is for itself a tomb.
  The Palatine can but lie where once it reigned;
and sanded down by force of time, the mounted seals
as victims of great battle themselves reveal,
Latium’s herald silenced as ages gained.
  Only the Tiber yet remains, whose current,
if once it watered the city, now weeps
at the casket with funereal lament.
  Oh, Rome!, in your grandeur, once so sweet,
that which was firm has since fled, without consent
now only the fleeting endures the heat.

Poema Satírico 522
  A un hombre de gran nariz

  Erase un hombre a una nariz pegado,
érase una nariz superlativa,
érase una alquitara medio viva,
érase un peje espada mal barbado;
  era un reloj de sol mal encarado,
érase un elefante boca arriba,
érase una nariz sayón y escriba,
un Ovidio Nasón mal narigado.
  Erase el espolón de una galera,
érase una pirámide de Egito,
los doce tribus de narices era;
  érase un naracísimo infinito,
frisón archinariz, caratulera,
sabañon garrafal, morado y frito.

— Francisco de Quevedo (Góngora was supposedly the inspiration for this satire)

Satiric Poem 522
  To a man with a great nose

  There once was a man to a nose attached,
there once was a superlative nose,
there once was a half-alive alembic,
there once was a badly bearded swordfish;
  there was a sundial badly faced,
there once was an elephant face up,
there once was a nose for scribes and executioners,
an Ovidius Naso badly nosed.
  There was once the bowsprit of a galley,
there once was a pyramid of Egypt,
the twelve tribes of noses it was;
  there once was an infinite nasality,
Frisian archnose, mask-mold,
painful swelling, purple and fried.