Myth of Arrival

The windflower, Garcia Lorca's anemonas, takes us into a land of sleep and dream. The notes from Collected poems tell us: "[the windflower] is the flower of Morpheus" (page 946).¹ According to Encyclopedia Mythica, Morpheus is the Greek god of dreams:

[He] lies on a ebony bed in a dim-lit cave, surrounded by poppy. He appears to humans in … dreams in the shape of a man. He is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams … His name means "he who forms, or molds" (from the Greek morphe), and is mentioned as the son of Hypnos, the god of sleep.

The poem certainly has an other world quality to it, placing love in a destructive, nightmare state. In that, the notes continue: "Anderson (Lorca's Late Poetry, 311) explains a web of allusion to the myth of Venus and Adonis" (ibid.); this being a common myth where the male partner dies and is reborn by the goddess. I do not know if I see all this within the poem; however, the fact that the dying vegetation god is a popular myth is evident at how fast it spread across Europe, North Africa, the Near East, finding root (as it were) in today's Christ-figure and many other similar newfashioned religions.

While the Armenian translation was worked out yesterday between myself and my tutor, I worked off of the Spanish/ English translations of Willis Barnstone from Six Masters of the Spanish sonnet² and Angela Jaffray from Collected poems.

Soneto de la Guirnalda de Rosas
Federico Garcia Lorca

¡Esa guirnalda! ¡pronto! ¡que me muero!
¡Teje deprisa! ¡canta! ¡gime! ¡canta!
que la sombra me enturbia la garganta
y otra vez viene a mi la luz de enero.

Entre lo que me quieres y te quiero,
aire de estrellas y temblor de planta,
espesura de anemonas levanta
con oscuro gemir un ano entero.

Goza el fresco paisaje de mi herida,
quiebra juncos y arroyos delicados.
Bebe en muslo de miel sangre vertida.

Pero, ¡pronto!, que unidos, enlazados,
boca rota de amor y alma mordida,
el tiempo nos encuentre destrozados.

Sonnet of the Wreathe of Roses
Translated by ZJC

That wreathe! Hurry! I am about to die!
Weave and twine quicker! Sing and moan and sing!
For this shadow in my throat moves, clouding
the light from an endless January sky.

Between my love for you, your love for me,
the quake of plants, stars filling the air,
a windflower's thicket is constructed, where
a year long sigh is moaning obscurely.

Love this, my wound's morning landscape, resigned
to break open this wild reed, this river;
and from my honeyed thigh, my poured blood's void,

drink. Quick! We, so bound together, entwined
as one, bite my soul, break my mouth, lover;
time will see that we are wholly destroyed.

Վարդաինջի Սոնետը

Այդ ծաղկեփուոջը: Շտապեք: Քանզի ես մեռնում եմ:
Հյուսեք արագ: Երգեք: Ողբացեք: Երգեք:
Քանզի խավարն է ծածկել կոկորդս և կրկին,
գալիս է լույսը հունվարի

միմյանց հանդպ իմ սիրո և քո սիրո միջև՝
աստղերի զեփյուռն ու բույսերի սառսուրը,
անեմոնների թփուտն է բարձրանում
ամբողջ տարվա գաղտնի հոգոցով:

Վայելեք իմ վերքի թարմ վերքի թարմ բնապատկերը,
կոտրեք եղեգները և նուրբ վտակները,
պեք մեղրահամ ազդրին թափված արյունը:

Բայց շտապեք: Այնքան համերաշխ, միահյուսված,
սիրով կոտված բերանը և խայթված հոգին,
ժամանակը կգտնի մեզ կործանված:

1. Collected poems of Federico García Lorca. Revised edition, with an introduction and notes by Christopher Maurer, New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2002) [back]
2. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press (1993) [back]

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 13th, 2005 at 10:50 am and is filed under Scantily Clad Info Dump, Translations, Armenian Translations, Spanish Translations, Federico Garcia Lorca. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.