With so much time now on my hands, I've reawakened my old addiction for poetry. I'm surprised that it took me this long to get to Señor Pablo Neruda, who is certainly one of the most romantic poets. I prefer the lyricism of the Spanish texts, but the English translations are just as lovely.
This one evokes the languid romance of a hot summer's day by the beach.
This one evokes the languid romance of a hot summer's day by the beach.
Poem IX
Ebrio de trementina y largos besos,
estival, el velero de las rosas dirijo,
torcido hacia la muerte del delgado día,
cimentado en el sólido frenesí marino.
Pálido y amarrado a mi agua devorante
cruzo en el agrio olor del clima descubierto,
aún vestido de gris y sonidos amargos,
y una cimera triste de abandonada espuma.
Voy, duro de pasiones, montado en mi ola única,
lunar, solar, ardiente y frío, repentino,
dormido en la garganta de las afortunadas
islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas.
Tiembla en la noche húmeda mi vestido de besos
locamente cargado de eléctricas gestiones,
de modo heroico dividido en sueños
y embriagadoras rosas practicándose en mí.
Aguas arriba, en medio de las olas externas,
tu paralelo cuerpo se sujeta en mis brazos
como un pez infinitamente pegado a mi alma
rápido y lento en la energía subceleste.
(In English)
Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made out of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.
Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.
Ebrio de trementina y largos besos,
estival, el velero de las rosas dirijo,
torcido hacia la muerte del delgado día,
cimentado en el sólido frenesí marino.
Pálido y amarrado a mi agua devorante
cruzo en el agrio olor del clima descubierto,
aún vestido de gris y sonidos amargos,
y una cimera triste de abandonada espuma.
Voy, duro de pasiones, montado en mi ola única,
lunar, solar, ardiente y frío, repentino,
dormido en la garganta de las afortunadas
islas blancas y dulces como caderas frescas.
Tiembla en la noche húmeda mi vestido de besos
locamente cargado de eléctricas gestiones,
de modo heroico dividido en sueños
y embriagadoras rosas practicándose en mí.
Aguas arriba, en medio de las olas externas,
tu paralelo cuerpo se sujeta en mis brazos
como un pez infinitamente pegado a mi alma
rápido y lento en la energía subceleste.
(In English)
Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made out of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.
Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles, And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.
Thank you for posting the poem in Spanish. I was having trouble finding it. But I must say that the translation is completely off! It is a beautiful poem in English, but it does not at all capture what it says in Spanish. It seems that the translator took A LOT of liberties with the translation. It really is almost like a completely different poem. I would say it is completely different except that is that the "Drunk on Turpentine" image.
ReplyDeleteAgain, though, thank you for posting in Spanish.
Here is my rough translation of the poem you posted in Spanish. Again, I really love the English poem that is supposed to be the translation, but as you will see, it sounds like a different poem.
ReplyDeleteDrunk with turpentine and long kisses,
summertime, I sail the boat made of roses,
bent towards the death of the thin day,
grounded in the solid marine madness.
Pale and lashed to my ravenous water
I cross in the sour smell of the uncovered weather
still dressed in gray and bitter sounds
and a sad crest of the abandoned spray.
I go, hard with passions, mounted on my one wave,
lunar, solar, hot and cold, sudden,
asleep in the throat of the lucky
islands, white and sweet as fresh hips.
My garment of kisses trembles in the moist night
charged to insanity with electric currents,
heroically divided into dreams
and intoxicating roses practicing themselves on me.
Upstream, in the middle of the outer waves,
your parallel body yields to my arms
like a fish infinitely fastened to my soul
fast and slow in the energy under the sky.