One semester of Spanish

Lope de Vega- ciclo de senectute- the latter years

I go to and from my solitudes.
And walking off by myself
My thoughts are enough for me.
I don’t know what the village has
where I live and and where I die
But I can’t go any further
Than from myself.

As for me, I am neither good or bad
But something tells me that he who is all soul
Is still trapped in his body.

I understand what is enough for me
But what I don’t understand
Is how an ignorant prideful man
Can stand himself.

Of all the things that tire me
I can easily defend myself
Yet I can’t guard myself
From the dangers of the fool.

He will say that I am one too
But with false arguments
For humility and foolishness
Cannot fit together in one man.

I know the difference
For in him I see
His madness and arrogance
And in me
humility in my self-hatred

Nature knows more than
Is found out in this time
For many who are born wise
It’s only because they say it’s so.

“I only know that I no nothing”
a philosopher said, making known his humility
where more is less.

I do not esteem myself as wise
But as unfortunate
For those who are not fortunate
How can they be discrete?

The world cannot last long
For as they say and I believe it to be so-
it is like a cracked glass
That will soon shatter.

These are signs of judgment-
Seeing that we are all losing this game
Some for too many cards
And others for not having enough.

They say that long ago the Truth left for the heavens
Thus had man placed her in his esteem
And she has not returned since.

We live in two ages
Our own and someone else’s
Silver is ours
And copper that of our neighbor.

Who would not be worried
-If he be a good Spaniard-
Seeing men in olden times
And valor in a modern state?

Everyone goes around well dressed
And complains about prices-
Romans from the waist up
And Pilgrims from the waist down.

God said that man would first eat his bread
By the sweat of his brow
For breaking His commandment.

And some inobedient
Out of shame and fear
Have switched the effects
for the articles of their honor.

Virtue and philosophy wander like blind men
One after the other
They go along crying and begging.

The world has two poles,
One single movement,
Favor for the best life
And money for the best blood.

I hear the bells ring
And it doesn’t surprise me though it could
That in place of so many crosses
There be so many dead men.

I am peering at the graves
Whose marble works though eternal
Are saying without tongues
That their owners were indeed not.

Blessed be he who made them!
For only through them
Did the lowly have vengeance
On the great and the powerful.

They paint Envy as ugly
I confess that I feel it
For some people
Who don’t know
Anyone who lives amongst walls.

Without book and papers
Treaties, accounts, or stories
When they wish to write
They borrow an inkwell.

Without being rich or poor
They have a chimney and garden
Worries don’t wake them
Or wranglings and pretensions.

Nor do they murmur against the great
Or offend the lowly
Nor do they ever – unlike me-
Sign an I–O-U
Or give out holiday cards.

So with this envy of which I speak
And what I pass over in silence
I go to and from my solitudes.

(From the Dorotea, 1632)


A mis soledades voy,
de mis soledades vengo,
porque para andar conmigo
me bastan mis pensamientos.
No sé qué tiene el aldea
donde vivo y donde muero,
que con venir de mí mismo,
no puedo venir más lejos.
Ni estoy bien ni mal conmigo;
mas dice mi entendimiento
que un hombre que todo es alma
está cautivo en su cuerpo.
Entiendo lo que me basta,
y solamente no entiendo
cómo se sufre a sí mismo
un ignorante soberbio.
De cuantas cosas me cansan,
fácilmente me defiendo;
pero no puedo guardarme
de los peligros de un necio.
Él dirá que yo lo soy,
pero con falso argumento;
que humildad y necedad
no caben en un sujeto.
La diferencia conozco,
porque en él y en mí contemplo
su locura en su arrogancia,
mi humildad en mi desprecio.
O sabe naturaleza
más que supo en este tiempo,
o tantos que nacen sabios
es porque lo dicen ellos.
«Sólo sé que no sé nada»,
dijo un filósofo, haciendo
la cuenta con su humildad,
adonde lo más es menos.
No me precio de entendido,
de desdichado me precio;
que los que no son dichosos,
¿cómo pueden ser discretos?
No puede durar el mundo,
porque dicen, y lo creo,
que suena a vidrio quebrado
y que ha de romperse presto.
Señales son del juicio
ver que todos le perdemos,
unos por carta de más,
otros por carta de menos.
Dijeron que antiguamente
se fue la verdad al cielo;
tal la pusieron los hombres,
que desde entonces no ha vuelto.
En dos edades vivimos
los propios y los ajenos:
la de plata los estraños,
y la de cobre los nuestros.
¿A quién no dará cuidado,
si es español verdadero,
ver los hombres a lo antiguo
y el valor a lo moderno?
Todos andan bien vestidos,
y quéjanse de los precios,
de medio arriba romanos,
de medio abajo romeros.
Dijo Dios que comería
su pan el hombre primero
en el sudor de su cara
por quebrar su mandamiento;
y algunos, inobedientes
a la vergüenza y al miedo,
con las prendas de su honor
han trocado los efectos.
Virtud y filosofía
peregrinan como ciegos;
el uno se lleva al otro,
llorando van y pidiendo.
Dos polos tiene la tierra,
universal movimiento,
la mejor vida el favor,
la mejor sangre el dinero.
Oigo tañer las campanas,
y no me espanto, aunque puedo,
que en lugar de tantas cruces
haya tantos hombres muertos.
Mirando estoy los sepulcros,
cuyos mármoles eternos
están diciendo sin lengua
que no lo fueron sus dueños.
¡Oh, bien haya quien los hizo!
Porque solamente en ellos
de los poderosos grandes
se vengaron los pequeños.
Fea pintan a la envidia;
yo confieso que la tengo
de unos hombres que no saben
quién vive pared en medio.
Sin libros y sin papeles,
sin tratos, cuentas ni cuentos,
cuando quieren escribir,
piden prestado el tintero.
Sin ser pobres ni ser ricos,
tienen chimenea y huerto;
no los despiertan cuidados,
ni pretensiones ni pleitos;
ni murmuraron del grande,
ni ofendieron al pequeño;
nunca, como yo, firmaron
parabién, ni Pascuas dieron.
Con esta envidia que digo,
y lo que paso en silencio,
a mis soledades voy,
de mis soledades vengo.

(La Dorotea, 1632)

More extracts from Las Soledades (The Solitudes) 1613

The footsteps of a wandering pilgrim

Some lost and others inspired,

Lines that the Sweet Muse dictated to me

In confused solitude . . . . .

(Preliminary verses of the Solitudes)


Pasos de un peregrino son, errante,
Cuantos me dictó versos dulce Musa
En soledad confusa,
Perdidos unos, otros inspirados . . .

(Dedicatoria)
---------------------------------------------------------

Oh most fortunate refuge at any hour.

Pallas’ temple, Flora’s dwelling,

Not of modern hands.

The designs erased, the model was sketched

in keeping with the concave of the heavens.

The sublime building

Your materials are poor

Where the goatherd keeps

Innocence instead of steel.

And the whistle for his livestock.

Most fortunate refuge at any hour!


Ambition doesn’t dwell in thee, chasing after wind.

Food for the Egyptian asp.

Not what starts out with a human face

And ends up being a deadly beast

A capricious sphinx

That makes Narcissus go after echoes

And despise springs.

Nor does it waste gun powder

in impertinent warning shots

when it is most needed.


A profane ritual

That rustic sincerity mocks

Over a curved shepherds staff.

Most fortunate refuge at any hour!


Flattery ignores your threshold

That siren of palaces

Whose sands so many ships have kissed

Sweet trophies of a chanting dream.

Here Pride is not bronzing the feet of Lies

Through the sphere of its feathers

Nor do wax wings fall into foam

because the Sun's rays.

Oh most fortunate refuge at any hour!



«¡Oh bienaventurado
Albergue a cualquier hora,
Templo de Pales, alquería de Flora!
No moderno artificio
Borró designios, bosquejó modelos,
Al cóncavo ajustando de los cielos
El sublime edificio;
Retamas sobre robre
Tu fábrica son pobre,
Do guarda, en vez de acero,
La inocencia al cabrero
Más que el silbo al ganado.
¡Oh bienaventurado
Albergue a cualquier hora!
»No en ti la ambición mora
Hidrópica de viento,
Ni la que su alimento
El áspid es gitano;
No la que, en bulto comenzando humano,
Acaba en mortal fiera,
Esfinge bachillera,
Que hace hoy a Narciso
Ecos solicitar, desdeñar fuentes;
Ni la que en salvas gasta impertinentes
La pólvora del tiempo más preciso:
Ceremonia profana
Que la sinceridad burla villana
Sobre el corvo cayado.
¡Oh bienaventurado
Albergue a cualquier hora!
»Tus umbrales ignora
La adulación, Sirena
De reales palacios, cuya arena
Besó ya tanto leño:
Trofeos dulces de un canoro sueño,
No a la soberbia está aquí la mentira
Dorándole los pies, en cuanto gira
La esfera de sus plumas,
Ni de los rayos baja a las espumas
Favor de cera alado.
¡Oh bienaventurado
Albergue a cualquier hora!»

Soledad Primera- Extract from Góngora's First Solitude

Góngora's Solitudes (Las Soledades) circa 1613

Info:

'The Soledades' ' was going to be a poem in silvas, divided in four parts, corresponding each one allegorically to an age of human life and to a season of the year, and would be called: Solitude of the Country, ' ' Solitude of the Shores, ' ' Solitude of the Forests' ' and ' ' Solitude of the Desert'.

Góngora dedicated the first two poems to the Duke of Béjar and left the second one unfinished. The last 43 verses were added some time later. The stanza style was not new, but it was the first time it was applied to a so extensive poem. Its form, or non stanza-like character, gave more freedom to the poet. So it approached the free verse more and made poetic advances that would only be reached by French Symbolist Poestry in the 19th century.

The plot of the First Solitude is rather conventional, although it is inspired by an episode of The Odyssey, the one about Nausicaa: a young shipwreck arrives at a coast and is rescued by goatherds. But this plot is only a pretext for an authentic descriptive frenzy: the value of the poem is more lyrical than narrative, as indicated by Dámaso Alonso, although more recent studies vindicate the poem's narrative structure. Góngora offers a vision of natures as a new Arcadia, where everything is wonderful and where man can be happy, aesthetically purifying his vision. Which is nevertheless rigorously materialistic and epicurean (it tries to impress the senses of the body, not only the spirit), to make all ugly and the disagreeable sensations disappear.

In this manner, by means of allusion, and periphrasis the poet can soften an ugly and disagreeable word (such as cured meat which is transformed into "purple threads of fine grain" (purpúreos hilos de grana fina) and table cloths are referred to as spun snow (nieve hilada), for example).


Translation:

The country man
Making the mountain an easy plain
Attentively follows the stone,
Beautiful despite the darkness
Bright despite the stars.
An indignant tiara
If apocryphal traditions don’t lie
Of a dark animal whose forehead
Is the brilliant chariot of nocturnal day.

The young man diligently
Speeds up his pace
Measuring the thickness of the brush
With the same foot.

Fixed- despite the cold fog-
On the diamond, his needle’s True North
Or the stars are growling or the tree grove crunches

The watch dog ever vigilant
Greets the wayfarer and then departs.

And what from far off seemed like a small light
Is immense up close.
The robust oak tree lies within it
Like a moth, becoming ash in its flame.


Original:

Cual, haciendo el villano
La fragosa montaña fácil llano,
Atento sigue aquella
—Aun a pesar de las tinieblas bella,
Aun a pesar de las estrellas clara—
Piedra, indigna tïara
—Si tradición apócrifa no miente—
De animal tenebroso cuya frente
Carro es brillante de nocturno día:
Tal, diligente, el paso
El joven apresura,
Midiendo la espesura
Con igual pie que el raso,
Fijo —a despecho de la niebla fría—
En el carbunclo, Norte de su aguja,
O el Austro brame o la arboleda cruja.

El can ya, vigilante,
Convoca, despidiendo al caminante;
Y la que desviada
Luz poca pareció, tanta es vecina,
Que yace en ella la robusta encina,
Mariposa en cenizas desatada.

The love of Christ the Shepherd

Thus besides His working and loving, the tenderness and afection of his heart, and His lovely care and dedication. The fire and direction of His will with which he always directs his works of love for us, goes beyond anything that can be imagined or said. There is no one so caring, no spouse so mild, no heart so tender and overcome with love nor any kind of friendship so fine that reaches or equals it. For before we love Him He loves us. Offending and despising Him He search us out. Nor can my blindness or stubborn hardness of heart outdo the burning gentleness of His sweet mercy. He wakes up early while we sleep unaware of the dangers that threaten us. He rises early before the dawn. Rather, He neither sleeps nor rests but grasping the door knocker of our hearts He raps all hours at the door and says, as it is written in the Song of Songs: Open up, my sister, friend, and wife. Open up for my head is covered with dew, the locks of my hair are drenched with the raindrops of the night. For He who guards Israel- as David says- does not sleep or become drowsy.
Truly this is what Love is in divinity for as St. John saith: God is Love. So also in the Humanity He took on from us He is love and gentleness. Like the Sun which is the source of light, all that it ever does is shine, sending out rays of clear light form itself without ceasing. Thus also is Christ who is as a fount of love that never runs out always running over with love. This same fire is always brewing in his face and figure. And throughout His dress and person are flames which pass to our eyes. All are rays of love when He appears.
That is why when He first revealed Himself to Moses He showed him only some flames burning in a bramble as if to represent Himself and ourselves in the uncouthness of our thorns and the living, burning love of His heart. Showing in visible appearance the fierce fire he had within His breast for love of His people.

(Fray Luis de León, On the Names of Christ. Shepherd)


Así que, demás de que todo su obrar es amar, la afición y la terneza de entrañas, y la solicitud y cuidado amoroso, y el encendimiento e intensión de voluntad con que siempre hace esas mismas obras de amor que por nosotros obró, excede todo cuanto se puede imaginar y decir. No hay madre así solicita, ni esposa así blanda, ni corazón de amor así tierno y vencido, ni título ninguno de amistad así puesto en fineza, que le iguale o le llegue. Porque antes que le amemos nos ama; y, ofendiéndole y despreciándole locamente, nos busca; y no puede tanto la ceguedad de mi vista ni mi obstinada dureza, que no pueda más la blandura ardiente de su misericordia dulcísima. Madruga, durmiendo nosotros descuidados del peligro que nos amenaza. Madruga, digo: antes que amanezca se levanta; o, por decir verdad, no duerme ni reposa, sino asido siempre al aldaba de nuestro corazón, de continuo y a todas horas le hiere y le dice, como en los Cantares se escribe: «Ábreme, hermana mía, amiga mía, esposa mía, ábreme; que la cabeza traigo llena de rocío, las guedejas de mis cabellos llenas de gotas de la noche.» «No duerme, dice David, ni se adormece el que guarda a Israel.»
Que en la verdad, así como en la divinidad es amor, conforme a San Juan: «Dios es caridad», así en la Humanidad, que de nosotros tomó, es amor y blandura. Y como el sol, que de suyo es fuente de luz, todo cuanto hace perpetuamente es lucir, enviando, sin nunca cesar, rayos de claridad de sí mismo, así Cristo, como fuente viva de amor que nunca se agota, mana de continuo en amor, y en su rostro y en su figura siempre está bulliendo este fuego, y por todo su traje y persona traspasan y se nos vienen a los ojos sus llamas, y todo es rayos de amor cuanto de Él se parece.
Que por esta causa, cuando se demostró primero a Moisés, no le demostró sino unas llamas de fuego que se emprendía en una zarza: como haciendo allí figura de nosotros y de sí mismo, de las espinas de la aspereza nuestra y de los ardores vivos y amorosos de sus entrañas, y como mostrando en la apariencia visible el fiero encendimiento que le abrasaba lo secreto del pecho con amor de su pueblo.

(Fray Luis de León, De los nombres de Cristo. Pastor)

The Anatomy of Resentment

One could say that we embrace moral imperatives like a weapon meant to simplify our lives by eliminating huge portions of the world. Nietzsche with his sharp gaze had already identified forms and products of resentment in certain moral attitudes. Nothing that comes out of this can be pleasant. Resentment emanates from a conscience of inferiority. It's the imaginary elimination of he whom we can't really get rid of by our own strength. So in our imagination the person we are resentful toward takes on the livid form of a cadaver, we've already killed him and annihilated with our thoughts. And upon finding him alive and well in the real world he appears to us like an incompliant corpse who is stronger than our powers. His existence is a personified joke on us and a living disdain for our week condition.
A wiser type of this "anticipated death" that the resentful party grants his enemy consists in letting oneself be penetrated by a moral dogma. By which we inebriate ourselves via a certain idea of heroism and come to believe that our enemy has not a speck of reason, or a shred of rights.

(Ortega y Gasset, José. Meditations on Don Quixote: Prologue to the Reader. 1914)



Diríase que abrazamos el imperativo moral como un arma para simplificarnos la vida aniquilando porciones inmensas del orbe. Con aguda Mirada ya había Nietzsche descubierto en ciertas actitudes morales formas y productos de rencor. Nada que este provenga puede sernos simpático. El rencor es una emanación de la conciencia de inferioridad. Es la supresión imaginaria de quien no podemos con nuestras fuerzas realmente suprimir. Lleva en nuestra fantasía aquel por quien sentimos rencor, el aspecto lívido de un cadáver; lo hemos matado, aniquilado con la intención. Y luego al hallarlo en la realidad firme y tranquilo, nos parece un muerto indócil; más fuerte que nuestros poderes, cuya existencia significa la burla personificada, el desdén viviente hacia nuestra débil condición.
Una manera más sabia de esta muerte anticipada que da a su enemigo el rencoroso, consiste en dejarse penetrar de un dogma moral, donde alcoholizados por cierta ficción de heroísmo, lleguemos a creer que el enemigo no tiene ni un adarme de razón ni una tilde de derecho.

(Ortega y Gasset, José. Meditaciones del Quijote: Prólogo al lector. 1914)

Sigo vivo . . . . still alive

De un caminante enfermo que se enamoró
donde fue hospedado

Descaminado, enfermo, peregrino,
en tenebrosa noche, con pie incierto
la confusión pisando del desierto,
voces en vano dio, pasos sin tino.

Repetido latir, si no vecino,
distinto, oyó de can siempre despierto,
y en pastoral albergue mal cubierto,
piedad halló, si no halló camino.

Salió el Sol, y entre armiños escondida,
soñolienta beldad con dulce saña
salteó al no bien sano pasajero.

Pagará el hospedaje con la vida;
más le valiera errar en la montaña
que morir de la suerte que yo muero.


Concerning an ailing wayfarer
who fell in love where he was lodged

Misguided, suffering, itinerant
in gloomy night, with indecisive foot
the labyrinth traversing of the wilds,
he called in vain, his steps at random took.

Repeated barking, if not close at hand,
at least distinct, he heard of wakeful dog,
and in a shepherd's cottage, poorly thatched,
compassion found, if not the way he sought.

The sun rose, and beneath her ermine cloak,
a sleepy beauty with sweet savagery
ambushed the traveler so beset with ills.

His lodging he will pay for with his life;
he'd have been better off roaming the hills
than dying in the manner that I die.

(©Alix Ingber, 1995)