Flamenco guitar, after all, is a poetry of desire, and the Spanish adore both Lorca and Antonio Machado, who both write somehow in “cante jondo” (deep song). At the moment I think they prefer Machado, and one difference between them is what happens to the desire-energy. Machado wanted much too, but he didn’t get it. His desire-energy drove straight ahead into a stone wall, his young wife died, he ended up teaching French to high-school students who didn’t want to learn it, Spain he found to be a nation where “lies are sacred,” the Republic he worked for and in was smashed by the right wing. Some adult spirituality prevents him from interpreting these disasters with self-pity. He found all the things that happened to him to be fair. Machado’s poetry, from early on, involves not only pleasure, but what Freud called the reality principle. The Spanish respect that. In Lorca you see desire still flying, hurtling through the air, like a tornado, putting new leaves on every tree it touches, writing as if he belonged to Cretan civilization—on whose murals there are no brutal kings, only bluebirds and winged griffins—a desire for
intensity as immense as Dickens’s characters’ desire for food, a psyche so alive it doesn’t like or dislike walls but flies over them.
What Garcia Lorca’s poetry would have been after Franco’s victory we don’t know. After all, Lorca died when he was only thirty-seven, shot by an impromptu firing squad, as he was just beginning, in his Ghazals and Casidas, to notice some darkness as he flew about the planet. Interestingly, he adopted old Arab poetic forms to help entangle that union of desire and darkness, which the ancient Arabs loved so much.
II
In 1929, when Lorca was thirty, he grew restless, and came to the United States, where he lived for ten months or so, mostly in a room in John Jay Hall at Columbia. Out of that visit came The Poet in New York, which I think is still the greatest book ever written about New York. If we continue the metaphor adopted above, we would have to say that his desire-energy, while still very much alive in the United States, could not find any resonating chambers. It hangs in the air, halfway between his body and the skyscrapers, astounded. In Andalusia his desires were able to finish their arc; they slipped out into the countryside and into people like notes into the wood of a cello, into olive groves on a windy day, deaf children, unmarried women at mass, fruit being eaten in the full moon, gypsies fighting with knives that flashed like fishes . . . in some way these events allowed his energy to return to him. But in New York, Lorca found not stone, but concrete. He found jagged buildings climbing like barren stairs, cowed plants, men working at jobs without possibility of grace, science insulting, men and women in the suburbs staggering around like people after a shipwreck, as if a ship had gone down in their veins. His desire-energy becomes
bottled up, grows desperate, and bursts out in wild images, poems of desperate power and compassion:
In the graveyard far off there is a corpse
who has moaned for three years
because of a dry countryside in his knee;
and that boy they buried this morning cried so much
it was necessary to call out the dogs to keep him quiet.
The poems do not exclude the social, even though the suffering is deeply internal, but show what is blocking the desire-energy, in others as well as in himself, with images of great precision:
There is a wire stretched from the Sphinx to the safety deposit box
that passes through the heart of all poor children.
The Spanish do not know what to make of The Poet in New York, and some critics consider it an aberration, or say flatly that it is exaggerated, or mad. Spain being still largely unindustrialized, they do not realize that it is an understatement. I think it is a marvelous understatement, and what we need above all are clear translations of the whole book.
III
Some children in one of Lorca’s early poems ask him why he is leaving the square where they all are playing, and he says, “I want to find magicians and princesses!” They ask him then, if, having come upon “the path of the poets,” he will go far away from their square, and far away from the sea and the earth. He answers:
My heart of silk
is filled with lights,
with lost bells,
with lilies and bees.
I will go very far,
farther than those mountains,
farther than the oceans,
way up near the stars,
to ask the Christ the Lord
to give back to me
the soul I had as a child,
matured by fairy tales,
with its hat of feathers
and its wooden sword.
There is no other poet like him in the history of poetry. Everyone who reads a poem of Lorca’s falls in love with him, and has a secret friend. All the rest of his life, whenever he thinks of Lorca, he notices a red ray of sunlight hit the ground a few inches from his feet.
from
Early Poems
Libro de Poemas (1921)
Poema del Cante Jondo (1921)
Canciones (1924)
PREGUNTAS
Un pleno de cigarras tiene el campo.
—¿ Qué dices, Marco Aurelio,
de estas viejas filósofas del llano?
i Pobre es tu pensamiento!
Corre el agua del río mansamente.
—! Oh Sócrates! ¿ Qué ves
en el agua que va a la amarga muerte?
¡ Pobre y triste es tu fe!
Se deshojan las rosas en el lodo.
—¡ Oh dulce Juan de Dios!
¿ Qué ves en estos pétalos gloriosos?
¡ Chico es tu corazón!
QUESTIONS
A parliament of grasshoppers is in the field.
What do you say, Marcus Aurelius,
about these old philosophers of the prairie?
Your thought is so full of poverty!
The waters of the river move slowly.
Oh Socrates! What do you see
in the water moving toward its bitter death?
Your faith is full of poverty and sad!
The leaves of the roses fall in the mud.
Oh sweet John of God!
What do you see in these magnificent petals?
Your heart is tiny!
EL NINO MUDO
El niño busca su voz.
(La tenía el rey de los grillos.)
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.
No la quiero para hablar;
me haré con ella un anillo
que llevará mi silencio
en su dedo pequeñito.
En una gota de agua
buscaba su voz el niño.
(La voz cautiva, a lo lejos,
se ponía un traje de grillo.)
THE BOY UNABLE TO SPEAK
The small boy is looking for his voice.
(The King of the Crickets had it.)
The boy was looking
in a drop of water for his voice.
I don’t want the voice to speak with;
I will make a ring from it
that my silence will wear
on its little finger.
The small boy was looking
in a drop of water for his voice.
(Far away the captured voice
was getting dressed up like a cricket.)
JUAN RAMON JIMENEZ
En el blanco infinito,
nieve, nardo y salina,
El color blanco, anda,
sobre una muda alfombra
de plumas de paloma.
Sin ojos ni ademán
inmóvil sufre un sueño.
Pero tiembla por dentro.
En el blanco infinito,
¡ qué pura y larga herida
dejó su fantasía!
En el blanco infinito.
Nieve. Nardo. Salina.
JUAN RAMON JIMENEZ
Into the infinite white,
snow, spice-p
lants, and salt he took
his imagination, and left it.
The color white is walking
over a silent carpet
made of the feathers of a dove.
With no eyes or gestures
it takes in a dream without moving.
But it trembles inside.
In the infinite white
his imagination left
such a pure and deep wound!
In the infinite white.
Snow. Spice-plants. Salt.
MALAGUENA
La muerte
entra y sale
de la taberna.
Pasan caballos negros
y gente siniestra
por los hondos caminos
de la guitarra.
Y hay un olor a sal
y a sangre de hembra,
en los nardos febriles
de la marina.
La muerte
entra y sale,
y sale y entra
la muerte
de la taberna.
MALAGUENA
Death
is coming in and leaving
the tavern.
Black horses and sinister
people are riding
over the deep roads
of the guitar.
There is an odor of salt
and the blood of women
in the feverish spice-plants
by the sea.
Death
is coming in and leaving
the tavern,
death
leaving and coming in.
CANCION DE JINETE
Córdoba.
Lejana y sola.
Jaca negra, luna grande,
y aceitunas en mi alforja.
Aunque sepa los caminos
yo nunca llegaré a Córdoba.
Por el llano, por el viento,
jaca negra, luna roja.
La muerte me está mirando
desde las torres de Córdoba.
¡ Ay qué camino tan largo!
¡ Ay mi jaca valerosa!
¡ Ay que la muerte me espera,
antes de llegar a Córdoba!
Córdoba.
Lejana y sola.
SONG OF THE RIDER
Córdoba.
Distant and alone.
Black pony, full moon,
and olives inside my saddlebag.
Though I know the roads well,
I will never arrive at Córdoba.
Over the low plains, over the winds,
black pony, red moon.
Death is looking down at me
from the towers of Córdoba.
What a long road this is!
What a brave horse I have!
Death is looking for me
before I get to Córdoba!
Córdoba.
Distant and alone.
LA GUITARRA
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Se rompen las copas
de la madrugada.
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Es inútil callarla.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora monótona
como llora el agua,
como llora el viento
sobre la nevada.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora por cosas
lejanas.
Arena del Sur caliente
que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco,
la tarde sin mañana,
y el primer pájaro muerto
sobre la rama.
¡ Oh guitarra!
Corazón malherido
por cinco espadas.
THE GUITAR
The crying of the guitar
starts.
The goblets
of the dawn break.
The crying of the guitar
starts.
No use to stop it.
It is impossible
to stop it.
It cries repeating itself
as the water cries,
as the wind cries
over the snow.
It is impossible
to stop it.
It is crying for things
far off.
The warm sand of the South
that asks for white camellias.
For the arrow with nothing to hit,
the evening with no dawn coming,
and the first bird of all dead
on the branch.
Guitar!
Heart wounded, gravely,
by five swords.
LA SOLTERA EN MISA
Bajo el Moisés del incienso,
adormecida.
Ojos de toro te miraban.
Tu rosario llovía.
Con ese traje de profunda seda,
no te muevas, Virginia.
Da los negros melones de tus pechos
al rumor de la misa.
THE UNMARRIED WOMAN AT MASS
Beneath the Moses of the incense,
asleep.
Eyes of bulls were looking at you.
Your rosary was raining.
In that dress of deep silk,
do not move, Virginia.
Give the black melons of your breasts
to the whispers of the mass.
LA LUNA ASOMA
Cuando sale la luna
se pierden las campanas
y aparecen las sendas
impenetrables.
Cuando sale la luna,
el mar cubre la tierra
y el corazón se siente
isla en el infinito.
Nadie come naranjas
bajo la luna llena.
Es preciso comer
fruta verde y helada.
Cuando sale la luna
de cien rostros iguales,
la moneda de plata
solloza en el bolsillo.
THE MOON SAILS OUT
When the moon sails out
the church bells die away
and the paths overgrown
with brush appear.
When the moon sails out
the waters cover the earth
and the heart feels it is
a little island in the infinite.
No one eats oranges
under the full moon.
The right things are fruits
green and chilled.
When the moon sails out
with a hundred faces all the same,
the coins made of silver
break out in sobs in the pocket.
from
Romancero Gitano
1927
REYERTA
A Rafael Méndez
En la mitad del barranco
las navajas de Albacete,
bellas de sangre contraria,
relucen como los peces.
Una dura luz de naipe
recorta en el agrio verde,
caballos enfurecidos
y perfiles de jinetes.
En la copa de un olivo
lloran dos viejas mujeres.
El toro de la reyerta
se sube por las paredes.
Angeles negros traían
pañuelos y agua de nieve.
Angeles con grandes alas
de navajas de Albacete.
Juan Antonio el de Montilla
rueda muerto la pendiente,
su cuerpo lleno de lirios
y una granada en las sienes.
Ahora monta cruz de fuego,
carretera de la muerte.
El juez, con guardia civil,
por los olivares viene.
THE QUARREL
For Rafael Méndez
The Albacete knives, magnificent
with stranger-blood,
flash like fishes
on the gully slope.
Light crisp as a playing
card snips
out of bitter
green the profiles of riders
and maddened horses.
Two old women in an olive
tree are sobbing.
The bull of the quarrel
is rising up the walls.
Black angels arrived
with handkerchiefs and snow water.
Angels with immense wings
like Albacete knives.
Juan Antonio from Montilla
rolls dead down the hill,
his body covered with lilies,
a pomegranate on his temples.
He is riding now on the cross of fire,
on the highway of death.
The State Police and the judge
come along through the olive grove.
Sangre resbalada gime
muda canción de serpiente.
“Señores guardias civiles:
aquí pasó lo de siempre.
Han muerto cuatro romanos
y cinco cartagineses.”
La tarde loca de higueras
y de rumores calientes
cae desmayada en los muslos
heridos de los jinetes.
Y ángeles negros volaban
por el aire de poniente.
Angeles de largas trenzas
y corazones de aceite.
From the earth loosed blood moans
the silent folksong of the snake.
“Well, your honor, you see,
it’s the same old business—