Myth of Arrival

Federico Garcia Lorca was executed in 1936, at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War, by General Franco's Fascist guard. Shortly before he was shot he wrote a series poems based on a style of Arabic poetry called a casida. The website Andalus, based out of Tangier, Morocco, has this to say on the subject: The casida is a short, rhymed, fixed verse form in Arabic poetry. Lorca's casida's are free adaptations of the Arabic poetry written in honor of the Arabic-Grenadine poets of medieval Spain whom he knew only in translation. Translating this poem, however, posed a few problems; it is so surreal. I first discovered it in a book pf "translations," After Lorca, by the poet Jack Spicer, who had written a series of letters to Federico (who had agreed to write the introduction to the book from beyond the grave, or so claimed Jack). In the second letter he wrote, "When I translate one of your poems and I come across words I do not understand, I always guess at their meanings. I am inevitably right. A really perfect poem (no one yet has written one) could be perfectly translated by a person who did not know one word of the language it was written in. A really perfect poem has an infinitely small vocabulary." Indeed, I must agree, I know so little Spanish and yet Federioc's poetry sets me on fire every time I read one. Every time.

Casida of the Dark Doves

In the branches of the laurel
I saw two dark doves.
One was the sun,
the other the moon.
“Little neighbors,” I said to them,
“where is my grave?”
“In my tail,” said the sun.
“In my throat,” said the moon.
And I who was out walking
with the earth at my waist
saw two eagles of snow
and a naked girl.
One was the other
and the girl was neither.
“Little eagles,” I said to them,
“where is my grave?”
“In my tail,” said the sun.
“In my throat,” said the moon.
In the branches of the laurel
I saw two naked doves.
The one was the other
and both were neither.

Casida De Las Palomas Oscuras

Por las ramas del laurel
vi dos palomas oscuras.
La una era el sol,
la otra la luna.
«Vecinita», les dije,
«¿dónde está mi sepultura?»
«En mi cola», dijo el sol.
«En mi garganta», dijo la luna.
Y yo que estaba caminando
con la tierra por la cintura
vi dos águilas de nieve
y una muchacha desnuda.
La una era la otra
y la muchacha era ninguna.
«Aguilitas», les dije,
«¿dónde está mi sepultura?»
«En mi cola», dijo el sol.
«En mi garganta», dijo la luna.
Por las ramas del laurel
vi dos palomas desnudas.
La una era la otra
y las dos eran ninguna.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 31st, 2007 at 11:59 pm and is filed under 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.