Myth of Arrival

Federico Garcia Lorca states in his essay The Theory and Function of the Duende/«Teoria y Juego del Duende»:

"En cambio, el duende no llega si no ve posibilidad de muerte, si no sabe que ha de rondar su casa, si no tiene seguridad de que ha de mecer esas ramas que todos llevamos y que no tienen, que no tendrán consuelo."/ "The duende does not come at all unless it sees that death is possible. The duende must know beforehand that it will be allowed to serenade death's house and shake the branches of pain we all wear, branches that do not have and will never have, any form of comfort."

Of all the poetry Federico wrote none, to me at least, sums up his concept of the duende more than his poem Romance sonámbulo; literally, "Ballad of the Somnambulist" or Sleepwalker. With its opening lines famous throughout much of the Spanish speaking world, its surreal imagery and violent eroticism, I have been more than a little hesitant in translating it. In fact, last year as I was working my way through his collection, Romancero gitano/ Gypsy Ballads I purposely avoided translated the poem since I did not feel I could do it justice. Perhaps I am still not doing justice by it; however, as with all my translations, the errors you find are mine and I apologize for them ahead of time. Poetry should delight and nothing ruins a poem more than clunky translations. Federico, mi amor, forgive me.

Green, how I love you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship upon the sea
the horse on the mountain.
With her waist in shadows
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, green hair,
and eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I love you green.
Beneath the gypsy moon,
things are watching her
things she cannot see.

Green, how I love you green.
Great stars of frost
arrive with prophetic fish
that open up the road to dawn.
The fig tree rubs at the wind
with sandpaper branches,
and the mountain, a tricksy cat,
bristles with bitter cacti.
But who will come? And on what road …?
She remains on the balcony
dreaming of the bitter sea,
green flesh, green hair.

“Compadre, I want to trade
this saddle for your mirror,
this horse for your house,
this knife for your blanket.
Compadre, I come bleeding
from the mountain pass at Cabra.”
“If only I could, mocito,
I'd help you with your desire.
But I am no longer I,
and this house is no longer mine.”
“Compadre, I wish to die
properly in my bed
on sheets of fine linen.
On an iron bed, if I could.
Do you not see this wound of mine
from my chest up to my throat?”
“Three hundred dark roses
cover your white shirt.
Your blood oozes and reeks
around your hips and your sash.
But I am no longer I,
and this house is no longer mine.”
“Let me at least climb up
to the high balcony;
Let me climb up! I beg you,
up to the green balcony.
Up to the moonlit railing where
I can hear the water murmuring.”

The two compadres now climb up
to that green balcony.
One leaving a trail of blood.
One leaving a trail of tears.
On the rooftop little lanterns
of tin trembled and
a thousand glass tambourines
wound the first light of dawn.

Green, how I love you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two compadres climbed up.
Resentment, mint and basil; the wind
leaves a strange taste in their mouths,
“Compadre, where is she? Tell me!
where is your bitter girl?”
“How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you;
her cool, fresh face, her long, black hair,
up here on this green balcony!”
Over the maw of the water tank
the gypsy girl hung,
green flesh, green hair,
and eyes of cold silver.
She swayed, an icicle from the moon,
over the still water.
The night closed in
like a small town plaza.
Drunken Civil Guards
were hammering on the door.
Green, how I love you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship upon the sea
the horse on the mountain.

Romance sonámbulo

Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.

Verde que te quiero verde.
Grandes estrellas de escarcha
vienen con el pez de sombra
que abre el camino del alba.
La higuera frota su viento
con la lija de sus ramas,
y el monte, gato garduño,
eriza sus pitas agrias.
¿Pero quién vendra? ¿Y por dónde…?
Ella sigue en su baranda,
Verde came, pelo verde,
soñando en la mar amarga.

–Compadre, quiero cambiar
mi caballo por su casa,
mi montura por su espejo,
mi cuchillo per su manta.
Compadre, vengo sangrando,
desde los puertos de Cabra.
–Si yo pudiera, mocito,
este trato se cerraba.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
–Compadre, quiero morir
decentemente en mi cama.
De acero, si puede ser,
con las sábanas de holanda.
¿No ves la herida que tengo
desde el pecho a la garganta?
–Trescientas rosas morenas
lleva tu pechera blanca.
Tu sangre rezuma y huele
alrededor de tu faja.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
–Dejadme subir al menos
hasta las altas barandas;
¡dejadme subir!, dejadme,
hasta las verdes barandas.
Barandales de la luna
por donde retumba el agua.

Ya suben los dos compadres
hacia las altas barandas.
Dejando un rastro de sangre.
Dejando un rastro de lágrimas.
Temblaban en los tejados
farolillos de hojalata.
Mil panderos de cristal
herían la madrugada.

Verde que te quiero verde,
verde viento, verdes ramas.
Los dos compadres subieron.
El largo viento dejaba
en la boca un raro gusto
de hiel, de menta y de albahaca.
¡Compadre! ¿Donde está, díme?
¿Donde está tu niña amarga?
¡Cuántas veces te esperó!
¡Cuántas veces te esperara,
cara fresca, negro pelo,
en esta verde baranda!
Sobre el rostro del aljibe
se mecía la gitana.
Verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Un carámbano de luna
la sostiene sobre el agua.
La noche se puso íntima
como una pequeña plaza.
Guardias civiles borrachos
en la puerta golpeaban.
Verde que te qinero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar.
Y el caballo en la montaña.

………………………………………………………………………………

Notes

Romance sonámbulo – The title lets us know from the beginning that we are not in the waking world; rather it is the world of dreams. On a rooftop balcony a gypsy girl waits for her lover to return. When he arrives, the young man, the mocito, is mortally wounded. He call upon an older man (whether the girl's father or someone else is unclear) begging him to be allowed to die properly. Unable to help the two climb up to the balcony to find the girl dead, apparently having hung herself. To try to apply logic to this narrative is pointless, since the speaker of the poem is a sleepwalker (though, whether this sleepwalker is the young man bleeding to death, the dead girl, or a third individual not yet named in the poem is not clear either).

Verde que te quiero verde – Perhaps the most famous lines in all of Spanish poetry and no two translators seem to agree on the meaning. Loughhran (1994) renders it, “Green, for I'll have you green.” Havard's (1990) version is “Green how I want you green.” Ramsden's (1988) is “For it's green that I want you, green.” Cobbs (1983) takes the biggest liberty and translates it as, “Green grows my love, my love grows green” (which sounds like a bad Robert Burns riff to me). Of the four I liked Harvard's the best (it is a more literal translation of the Spanish) but I thought that “love” had a more poetic immediacy to it than simply wanting.

Cobb notes, “The poet Juan Ramon Jiménez pointed out that Lorca's initial line is actually taken from a folk poem or song that begins, 'Verde que te quiero verde/ de color de aceituna.' This would literally translate as, 'Green, how much I love [or want] you green, the color of ripe olives.'” In Federico's poetry green is associated with violent sexual urges, such as in his ballad, “Preciosa y el aire,” with the lines: “¡Preciosa, corre, Preciosa,/ que te coge el viento verde!” which I translated as, “Hurry, Preciosa, hurry!/ Or the dirty, green wind will get you.” Green can also be an omen of death, such as in the ballad, “Muerte de de Antoñito el Camborio” where Antonio Torres Heredia appears green skinned under the moon right before he is murdered. Green is also the color of unripe fruit and combined with the image of the gypsy girl swinging over the surface of the water at the end of the poem, green is a sinister and dangerous color.

Verde carne, pelo verde,/ con ojos de fría plata – The gypsy girl, while spoken about, does nothing more in this poem than wait by the railing above the water tank until the moment she is found dead. Like Antonio, she too is fated to die and appears green with flashing silver eyes, but in the beginning of the poem at least green seems an image of erotic lust instead of conjuring up rotting flesh and putrefaction that we find at the end of the poem. The lines, “las cosas la están mirando/ y ella no puede mirarlas” suggests she is blind (or at least in a trance, thus the title of the poem), watched by creatures all around her in the dark.

Compadre – As Cobb (1983) points out, it is a “word which provides Lorca a subtle ambiguity. In its root, compadre has 'father,' but it means 'godfather.' Spanish critics have, with a bit of hypocrisy, generally found this compadre to be the father” of the gypsy girl. Literally, though, “compadre” means buddy or pal, words I feel that do not belong in this poem. Likewise, “'mocito' … means 'little fellow,' with a suggestion of endearment” Cobb tells us. Neither term felt right translated so I left them untranslated and hope the new words did not confuse anyone.

Cabra – A famous mountain pass in the province of Cordoba, up in Sierra Morena mountains. All commentators agree that it was an area best known for its bandits and smugglers.

De hiel, de menta y de albahaca – Unable to get the older man to trade the things the younger man deems worthy of a “proper” death, the two climb up to the roof to find the gypsy girl. Everywhere is foreshadowing of doom, from the tin lanterns trembling at what they will find to strange tastes of (literally) gall, mint and basil riding the wind. Again the refrain for green is heard but there is a note of frustration and sorrow that accompanies it now.

Sobre el rostro del aljibe/ se mecía la gitana – The literal translation of this line is “over the face of the rain tank the gypsy rocked herself.” What exactly does “rocked herself” mean? Havard (1990) translates it as, “On the face of the water tank/ the gypsy girl was rocking,” though Loughran (1994) uses the term “swayed.” It is a line that does not need to be as vague and obscure as the translators make it. She is dead. She is swinging on the end of a rope. Some critics claim she has drowned, that she literally is “on” the face of the water; however, if we consider the image of her green skin and hair (the image of lust now an image of death) as well as the superimposed “carámbano de luna,” an icicle dangling from the moon, for me the terrible image of a lynching is what comes to mind. As I worked on finding the right word I could not help but think of Billie Holiday's song “Strange Fruit,” with the lines, “Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,/ strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.”

Guardias civiles – Throughout Federico's poetry the Civil Guards are shown as brutal thugs, a police force originally set up to fight smugglers (gypsies), who then turned to murder and rape the civilian population. In his ballad, “Romance de la guardia civil española” he states, “Con el alma de charol/ vienen por la carretera./ Jorobados y nocturnos …” which I rendered as, “They ride the highways/ with patent leather souls./ Hunchbacked and nocturnal …” evil creatures, creatures of darkness. Later in the poem the Civil Guard attacks the City of Gypsies, setting it on fire, killing and raping not only the inhabitance who cannot get away but the Virgin Mary and Saint Joseph as well. Ironically, the real Civil Guards would later become General Franco's fascist army, were the ones responsible for the assassination of Garcia Lorca in 1936.

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Works Cited

Allen, Rubert. “An Analysis of Narrative and Symbol in Lorca's 'Romance sonámbulo.'” Hispanic Review 36 (1968)

Chartkoff, Zachary. A Blazon of Sand and Moon: The Gypsy Ballads of Federico Garcia Lorca. Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press (2006)

Cobb, Carl W. Lorca's Romancero gitano: a ballad translation and critical study. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi. (1983)

Havard, Robert G. Gypsy ballads/ Romancero gitano. Warminster, England: Aris & Phillips (1990)

Loughran, David K. Gypsy ballads, songs/ Romancero gitano, canciones. Hanover, NH: Ediciones del Norte (1994)

Ramsden, H. (ed) Romancero gitano/ Federico García Lorca. Manchester [England]; New York: Manchester University Press; New York, NY, USA: Distributed exclusively in the U.S.A. and Canada by St. Martin's Press. (1988)

The era of classic women blues singers spanned roughly from 1920 to 1930 and was dominated by such giants Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Ethel Waters, Sippie Wallace and Alberta Hunter, to name just a few. Without a doubt, my favorite singer of that era is Ida Cox; a fiercely lyrical and independent woman who penned such classic blues songs as "Wild Woman Don't Have the Blues;" as well as making famous one of the greatest songs of all times, "One Hour Mama."

"I'm a one hour Mama/ so no one minute Papa/ ain't the kind of man for me …"

(Of the many covers of this song I adore, Lavay Smith & Her Red Hot Skillet Lickers, do a fabulous job).

Between these four lips and this kiss. Between
these toes and the rain. Between wild sumac
and the grapevine. Between the clear morphine
drip and the radio I would come back
as Ms. Ida Cox. Spreading blue dog booze
on “My Mean Man Blues,” “St. Louis Blues,” “Black
Crepe Blues” and “Wild Woman Don't Have the Blues.”
To make laughter sigh. To make a wisecrack
out of death and loss and love. I say, get
up. I say, get up. I say, sing “Gypsy
Glass Blues.” I say, rise from the dead, shadow
sigh “no more, no more.” You are alive, wet
with song, Ida. Scat, burn, sing. You carry
the scent of the grave everywhere you go.

Ms. Ida Cox

This is a shout out to my friend, The Absinthe Review Network, a fellow Michigan resident who probably knows more about the French poet Charles Baudelaire and his love affair with absinthe than I do. However, my first exposure to Baudelaire was via Liam Clancy (of Clancy Brothers fame), when he read Charles' famous prose poem during a live performance on In Concert by Makem & Clancy. It did what Emily Dickinson said good poetry should do, blow the top of your head off … at least it to so with me. I was thirteen at the time and let's just say I was easily impressionable.

The translation here is my own (though I must admit it is hard to not hear Liam's voice in my head as I worked on it) so any errors you might find here — my French is worse than my Spanish — are all mine. Enjoy:

One should always be drunk. That is all that matters; that is our great urgent need. So as not to feel Time's horrid burden that breaks your shoulders and grinds you down, you must get drunk without resting.

But on what? On wine or poetry or virtue as you please, but get drunk!

And if, at some time, on steps of a palace, or in the green grass of a ditch, or in the bleak loneliness of your room, as you wake and find your drunkenness already dying away, ask the wind, ask the waves, ask the stars, ask the clock — all that which runs, all that which groans, all that which rolls, all that which sings, all that which speaks — ask them, what time is it? and the wind, the waves, the stars, the birds, and the clock, will all reply: “It's time to get drunk! So that you may not be the martyred slaves of Time, get drunk, get drunk and never pause for rest on wine or poetry or virtue as you please.”

Il faut être toujours ivre, tout est là ; c'est l'unique question. Pour ne pas sentir l'horrible fardeau du temps qui brise vos épaules et vous penche vers la terre, il faut vous enivrer sans trêve.

Mais de quoi? De vin, de poésie, ou de vertu à votre guise, mais enivrez-vous!

Et si quelquefois, sur les marches d'un palais, sur l'herbe verte d'un fossé, vous vous réveillez, l'ivresse déjà diminuée ou disparue, demandez au vent, à la vague, à l'étoile, à l'oiseau, à l'horloge; à tout ce qui fuit, à tout ce qui gémit, à tout ce qui roule, à tout ce qui chante, à tout ce qui parle, demandez quelle heure il est. Et le vent, la vague, l'étoile, l'oiseau, l'horloge, vous répondront, il est l'heure de s'enivrer ; pour ne pas être les esclaves martyrisés du temps, enivrez-vous, enivrez-vous sans cesse de vin, de poésie, de vertu, à votre guise.

I tried recording this poem in several locations, none of them really getting the energy I was hoping for. In one my cat Haiku began chirping in the background and in another the dehumidifier kicked in, drowning out half the poem. However, on this hot and humid day, being downstairs in my basement was a treat (though it does look a lot like an abattoir). Maybe I could do a series of poems in friends' basements? If you have a really dire and dreary looking basement drop me a line … it might be worth the road trip.

Listen. I'll be sober. In time. But not
today. No. Not today. I'll be – listen!
Sober, but not today. Often I thought
to be. Yes. Often. Listen. I often
thought to be. With the buckle and the boot.
With the whip and cutouts. All this passion
means so little sober. Listen. This brute
does not forgive. This lush life – this drunken
brute and painted raw silk and my brutal
henna hands – passion gobbling away
like silk, muslin, silk. Often silk is sour
to my tongue. And sober? inedible.
I'll be sober. In time. But not today.
No. Not today. In time. I'll be sober.

Green Baudelaire

[continued from part 2]

The heads that Zurbaran painted, all frozen like the moon; El Greco's butter yellow and lightning yellow; Father Sigüenza's narratives; all the work of Goya; the apse in the church of the Escorial; all poly-chromed sculpture; the crypt in the house of the Duke of Oscuna; “Death with a guitar” in the Chapel of the Benaventes at Medina de Rioseco — culturally all these mean the same as the holy processions of San Andres de Teixido where the dead play a role and the requiems sung by Asturian women with burning torches on that November night and the chants and dancing of the Sibyl in the cathedrals of Mallorca and Toledo and Tortosa's dark “In Recort” and the innumerable rites of Good Friday which, along with the supremely civilized festival of the bullfight, are the popular triumph of Spanish death. In all the world, only Mexico can compare with my country.

Las cabezas heladas por la luna que pintó Zurbarán, el amarillo manteca con el amarillo relámpago del Greco, el relate del padre Sigüenza, la obra íntegra de Goya, el ábside de la iglesia de El Escorial, toda la escultura policromada, la cripta de la casa ducal de Osuna, la muerte con la guitarra de la capilla de los Benavente en Medina de Rioseco, equivalen en lo culto a las romerías de San Andrés de Teixido, donde los muertos llevan sitio en la procesión, a los cantos de difuntos que cantan las mujeres de Asturias con faroles llenos de llamas en la noche de noviembre, al canto y danza de la sibila en las catedrales de Mallorca y Toledo, al oscuro In Recort tortosino y a los innumerables ritos del Viernes Santo, que con la cultísima fiesta de los toros forman el triunfo popular de la muerte española. En el mundo, solamente Méjico puede cogerse de la mano con mi país.

When the muse sees death it closes the door or raises a pedestal or fancies up an urn and writes an epitaph with a wax-like hand, but soon it is watering its laurel again in a silence that wavers between two distant winds. Beneath the broken arch of the ode, the muse joins with funereal atmosphere and the transparent flowers of fifteenth-century Italian painters, and asks Lucretius' trusty cock to frighten away unforeseen shadows.

Cuando la musa ve llegar a la muerte cierra la puerta o levanta un plinto o pasea una urna y escribe un epitafio con mano de cera, pero en seguida vuelve a rasgar su laurel con un silencio que vacila entre dos brisas. Bajo el arco truncado de la oda, ella junta con sentido fúnebre las flores exactas que pintaron los italianos del xv y llama al seguro gallo de Lucrecio para que espante sombras imprevistas.

When the angel sees death, it flies in slow circles and weaves, from tears of ice and narcissus, the elegy we have seen tremble in the hands of Keats, Villasandino, Herrera, Bécquer, and Juan Ramón Jiménez. But how it terrifies the angel to feel even the smallest spider tread on its tender, rosy foot!

Cuando ve llegar a la muerte, el ángel vuela en círculos lentos y teje con lágrimas de hielo y narciso la elegía que hemos visto temblar en las manos de Keats, y en las de Villasandino, y en las de Herrera, y en las de Bécquer y en las de Juan Ramón Jiménez. Pero. ¡Qué horror el del ángel si siente una araña, por diminuta que sea, sobre su tierno pie rosado!

But the duende? The duende does not come at all unless it sees that death is possible. The duende must know beforehand that it will be allowed to serenade death's house and shake the branches of pain we all wear, branches that do not have and will never have, any form of comfort.

En cambio, el duende no llega si no ve posibilidad de muerte, si no sabe que ha de rondar su casa, si no tiene seguridad de que ha de mecer esas ramas que todos llevamos y que no tienen, que no tendrán consuelo.

With idea, with sound, or with gesture, the duende enjoys fighting the its creator on the very rim of the abyss. The angel and the muse escape within the violin and the compass. The duende must inflict wounds so that in the healing of that wound, which never fully closes, lies the invented, strange qualities of our work.

Con idea, con sonido o con gesto, el duende gusta de los bordes del pozo en franca lucha con el creador. ángel y musa se escapan con violín o compás, y el duende hiere, y en la curación de esta herida, que no se cierra nunca, está lo insólito, lo inventado de la obra de un hombre.

The magical property of a poem is to remain possessed by duende that can baptize in dark water all who look at it, for with duende it is easier to love and understand, and one can be sure of being loved and understood. In poetry this struggle for expression and the communication of expression is sometimes fatal.

La virtud mágica del poema consiste en estar siempre enduendado para bautizar con agua oscura a todos los que lo miran, porque con duende es más fácil amar, comprender, y es seguro ser amado, ser comprendido, y esta lucha por la expresión y por la comunicación de la expresion adquiere a veces, en poesia, caracteres mortales.

Recall back to the case of Saint Theresa, possessed with both flamenco and the duende. She was flamenco-driven not because she caught a bull with three magnificent passes — which she did! — and not because she flaunted her lovely body in front of Fray Juan de Miseria, and not because she slapped the Papal Nuncio, but because she was one of the few creatures whose duende — never an angel, for the angel never attacks anyone — pierced her heart with an arrow and wanted to kill her for having stolen its deepest secret, that subtle bridge that unites our fives senses with the raw wound, that living cloud, that stormy ocean of Love freed from all Time.

Recordad el caso de la flamenquísima y enduendada Santa Teresa, flamenca no por atar un toro furioso y darle tres pases magníficos, que lo hizo; no por presumir de guapa delante de fray Juan de la Miseria ni por darle una bofetada al Nuncio de Su Santidad, sino por ser una de las pocas criaturas cuyo duende (no cuyo ángel, porque el ángel no ataca nunca) la traspasa con un dardo, queriendo matarla por haberle quitado su último secreto, el puente sutil que une los cinco sentidos con ese centro en carne viva, en nube viva, en mar viva, del Amor libertado del Tiempo.

This valiant conqueror of the duende, she was the very opposite of Felipe of Austria, who pined away after the muse and the angel in theology and was finally imprisoned by the fierce wintry duende in the palace of the Escorial, where geometry borders on a dream and the duende wears the mask of the muse to the everlasting punishment of that great king.

Valentísima vencedora del duende, y caso contrario al de Felipe de Austria, que, ansiando buscar musa y ángel en la teología, se vio aprisionado por el duende de los ardores fríos en esa obra de El Escorial, donde la geometría limita con el sueño y donde el duende se pone careta de musa para eterno castigo del gran rey.

We have said that the duende loves the abyss and the wound and that it dwells near places where forms fuse together into a yearning greater than any visible expression.

Hemos dicho que el duende ama el borde, la herida, y se acerca a los sitios donde las formas se funden en un anhelo superior a sus expresiones visibles.

In Spain, as among Eastern people, where the dance is also religious expression, the duende has unlimited range over the bodies of the dancers of Cádiz, praised by Martial, in the breasts of our singers, praised by Juvenal, and in the liturgy of the bull, an authentic religious drama where, as in the Mass, a God is worshiped and destroyed.

En España, como en los pueblos de Oriente, donde la danza es expresión religiosa) tiene el duende un campo sin límites sobre los cuerpos de las bailarinas de Cádiz, elogiadas por Marcial, sobre los pechos de los que cantan, elogiados por Juvenal, y en toda la liturgia de los toros, auténtico drama religioso donde, de la misma manera que en la misa, se adora y se sacrifica a un Dios.

It is as if the duende of the ancient world has been crowded into this perfect festival, an exponent of that culture, of the sensitivity of those people who discovered their best anger, bitterness and weeping. Neither in Spanish dance nor in our bullfight does anyone ever enjoy themselves. The duende takes it upon itself to make us suffer by means of a drama crafted from those living forms, and clears the stairs for an escape from the surrounding reality.

Parece como si todo el duende del mundo clásico se agolpara en esta fiesta perfecta, exponente de la cultura y de la gran sensibilidad de un pueblo que descubre en el hombre sus mejores iras, sus mejores bilis y su mejor llanto. Ni en el baile español ni en los toros se divierte nadie; el duende se encarga de hacer sufrir por medio del drama, sobre formas vivas, y prepara las escaleras para un evasión de la realidad que circunda.

The duende manipulates the body of the dancer just as the wind manipulates the sand. With magical powers it transforms a moonstruck girl, or fills and old man begging in front of a wine shop with childlike blushes, it gives the comet its tail, the promise of nocturnal refuge and always manipulates the arms of a dancer into the expressions of the mother of all dancers of all times.

El duende opera sobre el cuerpo de la bailarina como el aire sobre la arena. Convierte con mágico poder una muchacha en paralítica de la luna, o llena de rubores adolescentes a un viejo roto que pide limosna por las tiendas de vino, da con una cabellera olor de puerto nocturno, y en todo momento opera sobre los brazos con expresiones que son madres de la danza de todos los tiempos.

However, it is impossible for the duende to repeat itself. This is important to emphasize: the duende does not repeat itself any more than do the waves of the sea during a tempest.

Pero imposible repetirse nunca, esto es muy interesante de subrayar. El duende no se repite, como no se repiten las formas del mar en la borrasca.

The duende is at its most impressive in the bullring, for it must fight death on one hand, which will destroy it, and geometry with all its measurements. This is the very foundation of the festival.

En los toros adquiere sus acentos más impresionantes, porque tiene que luchar, por un lado, con la muerte, que puede destruirlo, y por otro lado, con la geometría, con la medida, base fundamental de la fiesta.

The bull has his orbit and the bullfighter has his, and between these orbits is a point of danger, the intersection of this terrible drama.

El toro tiene su órbita; el torero, la suya, y entre órbita y órbita un punto de peligro donde está el vértice del terrible juego.

One might have the guidance of the muse with the muleta and the angel with the banderillas and still appear to be a good bullfighter, but in the tricks of capework, before the bull is wounded, and at the moment of the kill, you need the duende's help to achieve artistic truth.

Se puede tener musa con la muleta y ángel con las banderillas y pasar por buen torero, pero en la faena de capa, con el toro limpio todavía de heridas, y en el momento de matar, se necesita la ayuda del duende para dar en el clavo de la verdad artística.

The torero who frightens the spectators with his cunning is not really bullfighting, but has ludicrously lowered himself down to doing what anyone can do — gamble for his life. But the torero who is bitten by the duende gives a lesson in Pythagorean music and makes us forget he is always tossing his heart over the horns of the bull.

El torero que asusta al público en la plaza con su temeridad no torea, sino que está en ese piano ridículo, al alcance de cualquier hombre, de jugarse la vida; en cambio, el torero mordido por el duende da una lección de música pitagórica y hace olvidar que tira constantemente el corazón sobre los cuernos.

Lagartijo with his Roman duende; Joselito with his Jewish duende; Belmonte with his baroque duende; and Cagancho with his Gypsy duende; from the twilight of the bullring, all show poets, painters, musicians, and composers the four great paths of Spanish tradition.

Lagartijo con su duende romano, Joselito con su duende judío, Belmonte con su duende barroco y Cagancho con su duende gitano, enseñan, desde el crepúsculo del anillo, a poetas, pintores y músicos, cuatro grandes caminos de la tradición española.

Spain is the only country where death is a national spectacle, where death plays long trumpet blasts with the coming of spring, and Spanish art is always ruled by the calculating duende who makes it different and inventive each time.

España es el único país donde la muerte es el espectáculo nacional, donde la muerte toca largos clarines a la llegada de las primaveras, y su arte está siempre regido por un duende agudo que le ha dado su diferencia y su salidad de invención.

The duende who smears blood on the cheeks of the saints of Maestro Mateo de Compostela for the first time in the Sculptures is the same duende that makes Saint John of the Cross weep or burns naked nymphs in the holy sonnets of Lope de Vega.

El duende que llena de sangre, por vez primera en la escultura, las mejillas de los santos del maestro Mateo de Compostela, es el mismo que hace gemir a San Juan de la Cruz o quema ninfas desnudas por los sonetos religiosos de Lope de Vega.

The duende which raises the tower of Sahagún or bakes hot bricks in Calatayud or Teruel is the same duende who breaks the clouds for El Greco and kicks Quevedo's constables and Goya's wild dreams and sending them all flying.

El duende que levanta la torre de Sahagún o trabaja calientes ladrillos en Calatayud o Teruel es el mismo que rompe las nubes del Greco y echa a rodar a puntapiés alguaciles de Quevedo y quimeras de Goya.

When it rains, it brings duende-haunted Velázquez out from behind the monarchical grays where he hides. When it snows, the deunde makes Herrera take off his clothes to show that the cold does not kill. When it burns, the deunde shoves Berruguete into the flames and makes him invent a new space for sculpture.

Cuando llueve saca a Velázquez enduendado, en secreto, detrás de sus grises monárquicos; cuando nieva hace salir a Herrera desnudo para demostrar que el frío no mata; cuando arde, mete en sus llamas a Berruguete y le hace inventar un nuevo espacio para la escultura.

The muse of Góngora and Garcilaso's angel must let go of their laurel wreaths when the duende of Saint John of the Cross goes by, when, “the wounded stag/ crosses the hill.”

La musa de Góngora y el ángel de Garcilaso ban de soltar la guirnalda de laurel cuando pasa el duende de San Juan de la Cruz, cuando: «el ciervo vulnerado/ por el otero asoma.»

Gonzalo de Berceo's muse and the angel of the Arcipreste de Hita must fall back to make way for Jorge Manrique, mortally wounded, at the gates of the castle of Belmonte. The muse of Gregorio Hernández and the angel of José de Mora must give way to the duende crying tears of blood over Pedro de Mena and Martínez Montañez's duende with the head of an Assyrian bull; just as the melancholy muse of Cataloña and the dripping angel of Galicia must look with love and wonder at the duende of Castile, so far removed from their warm bread and gentle cow.

La musa de Gonzalo de Berceo y el ángel del Arcipreste de Hita se han de apartar para dejar paso a Jorge Manrique cuando llega herido de muerte a las puertas del castillo de Belmonte. La musa de Gregorio Hernández y el ángel de José de Mora han de alejarse para que cruce el duende que llora lágrimas de sangre de mena y el duende con cabeza de toro asirio. La melancólica musa de Cataluña y el ángel mojado de Galicia han de mirar, con amoroso asombro, al duende de Castilla, tan lejos del pan caliente y de la dulcisima vaca que pasta con normas de cielo barrido y tierra seca.

The duende of Quevedo and the duende of Cervantes, one with green phosphorous anemones and the other with blossoms of Ruidera gypsum, crown the tableau of the duende of Spain.

Duende de Quevedo y duende de Cervantes, con verdes anémonas de fósforo el uno, y flores de yeso de Ruidera el otro, coronan el retablo del duende de España.

Each art has a duende different in form and style, but all their roots meet in the place where the black sounds of Manuel Torre come from, from that essence, that common base, that irrepressible, trembling found in wood, sound, canvas, and word.
Behind those black sounds, tenderly and intimately, dwell volcanoes, zephyrs, ants, and the huge night, straining its hips against the Milky Way.

Cada arte tiene, como es natural, un duende de modo y forma distinta, pero todos unen raíces en un punto de donde manan los sonidos negros de Manuel Torres, materia última y fondo común incontrolable y estremecido de leño, son, tela y vocable. Sonidos negros detrás de los cuales están ya en tierna intimidad los volcanes, las hormigas, los céfiros y la gran noche apretándos la cintura con la Via láctea.

Ladies and gentlemen: I have raised three arches and with clumsy hand have placed in them the angel, the muse, and the duende.
The muse will remain still; it can have a tunic folded in small pleats or cow eyes like the ones that stare out at us in Pompeii or the huge, four-faced nose our great friend Picasso has given it. The angel can shake the hair of Antonello da Messina, Lippi's tunic, and Masolino or Rousseau's violin.

Señoras y señores: He levantado tres arcos y con mano torpe he puesto en ellos a la musa, al ángel y al duende. La musa permanece quieta; puede tener la túnica de pequeños pliegues o los ojos de vaca que miran en Pompeya a la narizota de cuatro caras con que su gran amigo Picasso la ha pintado. El ángel puede agitar cabellos de Antonello de Mesina, túnica de Lippi y violín de Massolino o de Rousseau.

But the duende … where is the duende? Through the empty arch enters a wind, a mental wind blowing relentlessly over the heads of the dead, in search of new landscapes and unknown accents; a wind that smells of baby's breath, crushed grass, the medusa's veil, glorifying the constant baptism of new things suddenly born.

El duende … ¿Donde esta el duende? Por el arco vacio entra un aire mental que sopla con insistencia sobre las cabezas de los muertos, en busca de nuevos paisajes y acentos ignorados; un aire con olor de saliva de niño, de hierba machacada y velo de medusa que anuncia el constante bautizo de las cosas recién creadas.

[continued from part 1]

The angel guides and gives gifts like Saint Rafael, defends and avoids like Saint Michael, speaks and forewarns like Saint Gabriel. The angel dazzles. He flies high over our heads shedding grace. It is then we realize effortlessly our work or harmony or dance. The angel that was on the road to Damascus, or the one that came through the little balcony's fissure at Assisi, or the one who followed Enrique Susson are all ordering us. It is useless to resist their lights for they beat their steel wings in the path of those who whose fates are sealed.

El ángel guia y regala como San Rafael, defiende y evita como San Miguel, y previene como San Gabriel. El ángel deslumbra, pero vuela sobre la cabeza del hombre, está por encima, derrama su gracia, y el hombre, sin ningún esfuerzo, realiza su obra o su simpatia o su danza. El ángel del camino de Damasco y el que entró por las rendijas del balconcillo de Asís, o el que sigue los pasos de Enrique Susson, ordena y no hay modo de oponerse a sus luces, porque agita sus alas de acero en el ambiente del predestinado.

The muse dictates and sometimes inspires. It can do relatively little, though, for it is distant and so exhausted (I have only seen one twice) that I had to give it half a marble heart. Poets who listen to muses hear voices but have no idea where the voices originate from. They come from those muses that inspire them and sometimes gobble them up. Apollinaire, the great poet destroyed by that horrible muse the divine and angelic Rousseau once painted with, suffered this fate.

La musa dicta, y, en algunas ocasiones, sopla. Puede relativamente poco, porque ya está lejana y tan cansada (yo la he visto dos veces), que tuve que ponerle medio corazón de mármol. Los poetas de musa oyen voces y no saben dónde, pero son de la musa que los alienta y a veces se los merienda. Como en el caso de Apollinaire, gran poeta destruido por la horrible musa con que lo pintó el divino angélico Rousseau.

The muse awakens the intelligence, brings with it a false taste of laurels and columned landscapes. But intelligence is often the enemy of poetry, it imitates too much, and it elevates the poet up onto a razor-edged throne where they forget that ants could eat them or that a great arsenic lobster could crash down on their heads. It is against such things that the muse that live in monocles and in the lukewarm lacquered roses of small salons is quite helpless to prevent.

La musa despierta la inteligencia, trae paisaje de columnas y falso sabor de laureles, y la inteligencia es muchas veces la enemiga de la poesía, porque imita demasiado, porque eleva al poeta en un trono de agudas aristas y le hace olvidar que de pronto se lo pueden comer las hormigas o le puede caer en la cabeza una gran langosta de arsénico, contra la cual no pueden las musas que hay en los monóculos o en la rosa de tibia laca del pequeño salón.

The angel and muse come from outside; the angel gives lights, the muse gives shapes (Hesiod learned from the muses). Golden loaves or tunic folds: poets receive standards in their laurel groves. The duende, however, must be awakened from the most inaccessible halls of the blood.

Ángel y musa vienen de fuera; el ángel da luces y la musa da formas (Hesíodo aprendió de ellas). Pan de oro o pliegue de túnicas, el poeta recibe normas en su bosquecillo de laureles. En cambio, al duende hay que despertarlo en las últimas habitaciones de la sangre.

We must reject the angel and kick out the muse and conquer our fear of the smell of violets exhaled by eighteenth-century poetry and of the great telescope in whose lens the muse, already sickened by limits, falls sleeping.

Y rechazar al ángel y dar un puntapié a la musa, y perder el miedo a la fragancia de violetas que exhala la poesia del siglo XVIII y al gran telescopic en cuyos cristales se duerme la musa enferma de límites.

The real fight is with the duende.

La verdadera lucha es con el duende.

The roads where we can search for God are known, from the savage ways of hermits to the subtle ones of the mystic. To the tower of Saint Theresa to the three paths of Saint John of the Cross. And though we may have to cry out with the voice of Isaiah, “Truly you are a hidden God,” in the end God sends his first fiery thorns to all who seek them.

Se saben los caminos para buscar a Dios, desde el modo bárbaro del eremita al modo sutil del místico. Con una torre como Santa Teresa, o con tres caminos como San Juan de la Cruz. Y aunque tengamos que clamar con voz de Isaías: «Verdaderamente tú eres Dios escondido», al fin y al cabo Dios manda al que lo busca sus primeras espinas de fuego.

There are no maps or methods, however, to help us find the duende. All we know is that it burns the blood like a medical dressing of broken glass, that it exhausts, that it rejects all of the sweet geometry we have ever learned, that it crushes styles and makes Goya (a master of grays, silvers and pinks of the very best of English painting) work with his fists and knees in tones of deepest black. It strips Mossén Cinto Verdaguer in the cold of the Pyrenees or takes Jorge Manrique to watch for death in the wilderness of Ocaña, or dresses delicate Rimbaud up in the green jestter's suit or puts the eyes of a dead fish on the Comte de Lautréamont of the boulevard in the early morning.

Para buscar al duende no hay mapa ni ejercicio. Sólo se sabe que quema la sangre como un tópico de vidrios, que agota, que rechaza toda la dulce geometría aprendida, que rompe los estilos, que hace que Goya, maestro en los grises, en los platas y en los rosas de la mejor pintura inglesa, pinte con las rodillas y los puños con horribles negros de betún; o que desnuda a Mosén Cinto Verdaquer con el frío de los Pirineos, o lleva a Jorge Manrique a esperar a la muerte en el páramo de Ocaña, o viste con un traje verde de saltimbanqui el cuerpo delicado de Rimbaud, o pone ojos de pez muerto al conde Lautréamont en la madrugada del boulevard.

The great artists of the south of Spain, be it gypsy or flamenco, whether singing, dancing or playing, know that no emotion is possible without the duende. They might be able to fool people, the way authors, painters and literary critics do so every day, into thinking they have duende. But if we only pay attention and are not indifferent, we will discover the frauds and chase away their clumsy ruse.

Los grandes artistas del sur de España, gitanos o flamencos, ya canten, ya bailen, ya toquen, saben que no es posible ninguna emoción sin la llegada del duende. Ellos engañan a la gente y pueden dar sensación de duende sin haberlo, como os engañan todos los días autores o pintores o modistas literarios sin duende; pero basta fijarse un poco, y no dejarse llevar por la indiferencia, para descubrir la trampa y hacerle huir con su burdo artificio.

Once, the Andalusian singer Pastora Pavón, “La Niña de los Peines,” a dark genius whose powers of fantasy are equal to that of Goya or Rafael el Gallo, was singing in a little tavern in Cádiz. She played with her voice of shadow, of melted tin, her musk-covered voice, tangling it up into her hair or soaking it in wine or letting it wander away to the farthest, darkest patches of bramble. But it was no use. Nothing happened and the audience remained silent.

Una vez, la «cantaora» andaluza Pastora Pavón, La Niña de los Peines, sombrío genio hispánico, equivalente en capacidad de fantasía a Goya o a Rafael el Gallo, cantaba en una tabernilla de Cádiz. Jugaba con su voz de sombra, con su voz de estaño fundido, con su voz cubierta de musgo, y se la enredaba en la cabellera o la mojaba en manzanilla o la perdía por unos jarales oscuros y lejanísimos. Pero nada; era inútil. Los oyentes permanecían callados.

In the same room was Ignacio Espeleta, as handsome as a Roman turtle, who had once been asked, “How come you don't work?” and had answered with a smile worthy of Argantonius, “How can I work? I'm from Cádiz!”

Allí estaba Ignacio Espeleta, hermoso como una tortuga romana, a quien preguntaron una vez: «¿Cómo no trabajas?»; y él, con una sonrisa digna de Argantonió, respondio: «¿Cómo voy a trabajar, si soy de Cádiz?»

Eloísa, the burning aristocratic of Seville, was there too, the direct descendant of Soledad Vargas, who in 1930 refused to marry a Rothschild because he was not her equal in blood. And the Floridas, whom the people take to be butchers but who are really age-old priests who still sacrifice their bulls to Gerión. And as well, in one corner the formidable cattleman Don Pablo Murube sat with the air of a Cretan mask. When Pastora Pavón finished singing there was only total silence until a tiny man, one of those dancing puppets that rise suddenly from brandy bottles, disdainfully murmured: “¡Viva Paris!” It was as if to say: “Here we care nothing about a person's ability or technique or skill. Here we are searching for something else.”

Allí estaba Eloísa, la caliente aristócrata, ramera de Sevilla, descendiente directa de Soledad Vargas, que en el treinta no se quiso casar con un Rothschild porque no la igualaba en sangre. Allí estaban los Floridas, que la gerite cree carniceros, pero que en realidad son sacerdotes milenarios que siguen sacrificando toros a Gerión, y en un ángulo, el imponente ganadero don Pablo Murube, con aire de máscara cretense. Pastora Pavón terminó de cantar en medio del silencio. Solo, y con sarcasmo, un hombre pequeñito, de esos hombrecillos bailarines que salen, de pronto, de las botellas de aguardiente, dijo con voz muy baja: «¡Viva París!», como diciendo: «Aquí no nos importan las facultades, ni la técnica, ni la maestría. Nos importa otra cosa.»

La Nina de los Peines rose as if crazy. She bent forward, a medieval lamenter, tossed back a glass of fiery cazalla, began to sing with a scorched throat. Without accompaniment, without breath or color, but with duende. She destroyed the structure of the song and left way for a furious, blazing duende, friend of the sandstorm, who made the listeners rend their clothes with the same rhythm as do the West Indians of the Antilles when they writhe before the statue of Santa Barbara.

Entonces La Niña de los Peines se levantó como una loca, tronchada igual que una llorona medieval, y se bebió de un trago un gran vaso de cazalla como fuego, y se sentó a cantar sin voz, sin aliento, sin matices, con la garganta abrasada, pero … con duende. Había logrado matar todo el andamiaje de la canción para dejar paso a un duende furioso y abrasador, amigo de vientos cargados de arena, que hacía que los oyentes se rasgaran los trajes casi con el mismo ritmo con que se los rompen los negros antillanos del rito, apelotonados ante la imagen de Santa Bárbara.

La Nina de los Peines had to wrench her voice because she knew she had an exquisite audience, one which demanded not just form but the very inner marrow of form, the raw music without a single body to hold it in the air. She had to sabotage her own skill and safety, cast out her muse and become helpless, so that her duende might arrive and condescend to fight her, hand to hand, mortal combat. And how she sang! Her voice was no longer a plaything, it was a jet of blood completely worthy of all her pain and gravity. It opened like a ten-fingered hand around the stormy but nailed feet of a Christ by Juan de Juni.

La Niña de los Peines tuvo que desgarrar su voz porque sabía que la estaba oyendo gente exquisita que no pedía formas, sino tuétano de formas, música pura con el cuerpo sucinto para poder mantenerse en el aire. Se tuvo que empobrecer de facultades y de seguridades; es decir, tuvo que alejar a su musa y quedarse desamparada, que su duende viniera y se dignara luchar a brazo partido. «¡Y cómo cantó! Su voz ya no jugaba, su voz era un chorro de sangre digna por su dolor y su sinceridad, y se abría como una mano de diez dedos por los pies clavados, pero llenos de borrasca, de un Cristo de Juan de Juni.

The arrival of the duende always means a radical change in forms. It brings to the old planes unknown feelings of freshness, with the concept of something newly created, like a miracle. It brings about an almost religious fervor.

La llegada del duende presupone siempre un cambio radical en todas las formas sobre pianos viejos, da sensaciones de frescura totalmente inéditas, con una calidad de rosa recién creada, de milagro, que llega a producir un entusiasmo casi religiose.

In all of Arabic music, dance, song, or elegy, the duende's arrival is greeted with energetic cries of “Allah! Allah!,” “Dios! Dios!,” which is so close to the “Olé! Olé!” of bullfights that who knows if it is not one and the same? And in all the songs of southern Spain the duende is greeted with sincere cries of “¡Viva Dios!” — a deep and tender outcry of communication with God through the five senses, all thanks to the duende, who shakes the body, the voice of the dancer, a real and poetic flight from this world, as raw as that of the strange seventeenth-century poet Pedro Soto de Rojas' seven gardens, or Juan Climacus and his quavering ladder of lamentation.

En toda la musica árabe, danza, canción o elegía, la llegada del duende es saludada con energicos «¡Alá, Alá!», «¡Dios, Dios!», tan cerca del «¡Olé!» de los toros, que quién sabe si será lo mismo; y en todos los cantos del sur de España la aparición del duende es seguida por sinceros gritos de «¡Viva Dios!», profundo, humano, tierno grito de una communicación con Dios por medio de los cinco sentidos, gracias al duende que agita la voz y el cuerpo de la bailarina, evasión real y poética de este mundo, tan pura como la conseguida por el rarísimo poeta del XVII Pedro Soto de Rojas a través de siete jardines, o la de Juan Clímaco por una temblorosa escala de llanto.

Naturally, when this flight from the world succeeds, everyone feels its effects; both the enlightened, who see how mere style can conquer such poor material, and the unenlightened, who feel they are part of some sort of authentic emotion. Many years ago an eighty-year-old woman won first prize at a dance contest in Jerez de la Frontera. She competed against beautiful women and young girls with waists like lithe water, but all she did was raise her arms, throw back her head, and stamp one foot on the floor. Amid that gathering of muses and angels, all those beautiful forms and beautiful smiles, who could have won but her ancient and dying duende, sweeping across the ground with wings of rusty knives.

Naturalmente, cuando esa evasión está lograda, todos sienten sus efectos: el iniciado, viendo cómo el estilo vence a una materia pobre, y el ignorante, en el no sé qué de una auténtica emoción. Hace años, en un concurso de baile de Jerez de la Frontera se llevó el premio una vieja de ochenta años contra hermosas mujeres y muchachas con la cintura de agua, por el solo hecho de levantar los brazos, erguir la cabeza y dar un golpe con el pie sobre el tabladillo; pero en la reunión de musas y de ángeles que había allí, bellezas de forma y bellezas de sonrisa, tenia que ganar y ganó aquel duende moribund o que arrastraba por el suelo sus alas de cuchillos oxidados.

All arts are capable of the duende; but it finds its greatest range, naturally, in music, dance, and spoken poetry. These are the arts that require a living body to interpret them, they are forms that are born and die and open their contours in the exact present.

Todas las artes son capaces de duende, pero donde encuentra más campo, como es natural, es en la música, en la danza y en la poesía hablada, ya que estas necesitan un cuerpo vivo que intérprete, porque son formas que nacen y mueren de modo perpetuo y alzan sus contornos sobre un presente exacto.

Many times the duende of the composer passes into the duende of the interpreter, and at other times, especially when a composer or poet is bland, it is the interpreter's duende — and this is interesting — that creates a marvelous new version that looks like, but is not, of the original form. This was the case of the duende-driven Eleanora Duse, who looked about for plays that had failed only so she could make them triumph thanks to her own innovations. This is true in the case of Paganini as well, as explained by Goethe, who made a person hear tragic melodies in common pettiness. And in the case of a charming little girl I once heard in Port Saint Marys singing and dancing that atrocious, foolish Italian song “O Marí!” but with such rhythm, with such silences and intention, that she turned the Italian trash into a hard serpent of raised gold. All three of them have found something totally new and unprecedented that could now give lifeblood and art to old bodies devoid of expression.

Muchas veces el duende del músico pasa al duende del intérprete, y otras veces, cuando el músico o el poeta no son tales, el duende del interprete, y esto es intèéresante, crea una nueva maravilla que tiene en la apariencia, nada más, la forma primitiva. Tal es el caso de la enduendada Eleonora Duse, que buscaba obras fracasadas para hacerlas triunfar, gracias a lo que ella inventaba, o el caso de Paganini, explicado por Goethe, que hacía oír melodías profundas de verdaderas vulgaridades, o el caso de una deliciosa muchacha del Puerto de Santa María, a quien yo le vi cantar y bailar el horroroso cuplé italiano O Mari!, con unos ritmos, unos silencios y una intención que hacían de la pacotilla italiana una dura serpiente de oro levantado. Lo que pasaba era que, efectivamente, encontraban alguna cosa nueva que nada tenía que ver con lo anterior, que ponían sangre viva y ciencia sobre cuerpos vacios de expresión.

Every sort of art, and in fact every country, is capable of the duende, the angel, and the muse. So just as Germany has, with a few exceptions, the muse, and Italy shall always have its angel, so in all our ages Spain has moved by the duende; for we are a country of ancient music and dance where the duende squeezes the lemons of dawn — a land of death. We are a land open to death.

Todas las artes, y aun los países, tienen capacidad de duende, de ángel y de musa; y asi como Alemania tiene, con excepciones, musa, e Italia tiene permanentemente ángel, España está en todos tiempos movida por el duende, como país de música y danza milenaria, donde el duende exprime limones de madrugada, y como país de muerte, como país abierto a la muerte.

Everywhere else, death is an ending point. Death arrives and they draw the curtains shut. But not in Spain. In Spain we fling them open. Many Spaniards live between four walls until the day they die and are then brought out into the sunlight. The dead in Spain is more alive dead than anywhere else on earth. Their profiles wound like the edge of a barber's razor blade. The joke about death and its silent contemplation are familiar to Spaniards. From Quevedo's “Dream of the Skulls” to Valdés Leal's “Putrescent Archbishop,” from seventeenth-century Marbella, dying while in childbirth in the middle of the road, cried:

The blood of my entrails
is covering the horse;
the horse's hooves
kick up black fire.

En todos los países la muerte es un fin. Llega y se corren las cortinas. En España, no. En España se levantan. Muchas gentes viven alii entre muros hasta el dia en que mueren y los sacan al sol. Un muerto en España está más vivo como muerto que en ningún sitio del mundo: hiere su perfil como el filo de una navaja barbera. El chiste sobre la muerte y su contemplación silenciosa son familiares a los españoles. Desde El sueño de las calaveras, de Quevedo, hasta el Obispo podrido, de Valdés Leal, y desde la Marbella del siglo XVII, muerta de parto en mitad del camino, que dice:

La sangre de mis entrañas
cubriendo el caballo está.
Las patas de tit caballo
echan fuego de alquitrán …

All the way, recently, to the youth of Salamanca, gored by a bull, moaning:

Friends, I am dying.
Friends, it is very bad.
Three handkerchiefs pressed in me
and this makes a fourth …

al reciente mozo de Salamanca, muerto por el toro, que clama:

Amigos, que yo me muero;
amigos, yo estoy muy malo.
Tres pañuelos tengo dentro
y este que meto son cuatro …

… there is a barrier of saltpeter flowers where the Spanish people go to ponder death. On one side are the verses of Jeremiah n their roughest form, and on the other side the more lyrical, a fragrant cypress. It is a land throughout where everything finds its final, metallic value in death.

… hay una barandilla de flores de salitre, donde se asoma un pueblo de contempladores de la muerte, con versículos de Jeremías por el lado más áspero, o con ciprés fragante por el lado más lírico; pero un país donde lo más importante de todo tiene un último valor metálico de muerte.

The shack and the barber's razor and the cart's wheel and the shepherds' scratchy beards and the stark moon and the horsefly and dank pantry shelves and torn-down buildings and lace-covered saints and lime and the wounding outline that the eaves and balconies all possess, in Spain, are the fine weeds of death. They are the allusions and murmurings — perceptible to any spirit alert enough to listen — that must fill our memories with the dust-covered air of our own passing. It is no mischance that Spanish art is tied to the land, to all its terminal thistles and stones. The dances of Maestro Josef Maria de Valdivielso, the lamentation of Pleberio, are not isolated examples, and it is hardly a matter of chance that this beloved Spanish ballad stands apart from all others found throughout Europe:

— If you are my pretty friend
why won't you look at me?
— The eyes I once looked at you with
I have given away to the dark.
— If you are my pretty friend,
why won't you kiss me?
— The lips I once kissed you with
I have given away to the earth.
— If you are my pretty friend
why won't you hold me tight?
— The arms that I once hugged you with
I have covered with worms.

La cuchilla y la rueda del carro, y la navaja y las barbas pinchonsas de los pastores, y la luna pelada, y la mosca, y las alacenas húmedas, y los derribos, y los santos cubiertos de encaje, y la cal, y la línea hiriente de aleros y miradores tienen en España diminutas hierbas de muerte, alusiones y voces perceptibles para un espíritu alerta, que nos llama la memoria con el aire yerto de nuestro propio tránsito. No es casualidad todo el arte español ligado con nuestra tierra, lleno de cardos y piedras definitivas, no es un ejemplo aislado la lamentación de Plebesio o las danzas del maestro Josef María de Valdivielas, no es un azar el que de toda la balada europea se destaque esta amada española:

— Si tú eres mi linda amiga,
¿cómo no me miras, di?
— Ojos con que te miraba
a la sombra se los di.
— Si tú eres mi linda amiga,
¿cómo no me besas, di?
—Labios con que te besaba
a la tierra se los di.
—Si tú eres mi linda amiga,
¿cómo no me abrazas, di?
—Brazos con que te abrazaba,
de gusanos los cubrí.

Nor is it strange to find this song among our very ancient lyric poetry:

In the garden
I will die.
In the rosebush
they shall kill me.
I was going, my mother,
to pick roses,
to find death
in the garden.
I was going, my mother,
to cut roses,
to find death
in the rosebush.
In the garden
I will die.
In the rosebush
they shall kill me.

Ni es extraño que en los albores de nuestra lírica suene esta canción:

Dentro del vergel
moriré,
dentro del rosal
matar me han.
Yo me iba, mi madre,
las rosas coger,
hallara la muerte
dentro del vergel.
Yo me iba, madre,
las rosas cortar,
hallara la muerte
dentro del rosal.
Dentro del vergel
moriré,
dentro del rosal
matar me han.

[continued at part 3]