Fields of Castile/Campos de Castilla

A Dual-Language Book

Antonio Machado, Stanley Appelbaum, Stanley Appelbaum

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• ISBN:
  9780486120614
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Spanish Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Master poet Antonio Machado y Ruiz is widely regarded as one of the twentieth-century’s greatest Spanish writers. His collection of poems celebrating the region of Castile made him one of the primary voices of the Generation of 1898 — a brilliant group of writers dedicated to Spain's moral and cultural rebirth after the Spanish-American War. Machado's lyrical Campos poems, tinged with nostalgic melancholy, are powerfully introspective and meditative, revealing an evolution away from his previously ornate, Modernist style. With these magnificent poems, Machado moved toward a simpler, more authentic approach that would later distinguish all of his works.
This unabridged edition of Machado's landmark Campos de Castilla is presented in a dual-language format which features an excellent new translation on pages facing the Spanish original. A fully informative introduction and comprehensive notes by the translator are also included.

Eulogies

To Don Francisco Giner de los Ríos

After the master departed,
this morning’s light
told me: “For three days now
my brother Francisco hasn’t been working.”
Is he dead? All that we know is
that he departed from us on a clear path,
telling us: “Make me
a funeral consisting of work and hope.
Be good, that’s all, be what I have been
among you: soul.
Live, life goes on,
the dead die and the shadows pass;
he who leaves something behind takes something with him,¹⁵ and he who has
lived lives.
Anvils, resound; bells, be mute!”

Y hacia otra luz más pura
partió el hermano de la luz del alba,
del sol de los talleres,
el viejo alegre de la vida santa.
... Oh, sí, llevad, amigos,
su cuerpo a la montaña,
a los azules montes
del ancho Guadarrama.
Allí hay barrancos hondos
de pinos verdes donde el viento canta.
Su corazón repose
bajo una encina casta,
en tierra de tomillos, donde juegan
mariposas doradas . . .
Allí el maestro un día
soñaba un nuevo florecer de España.

Baeza, 21 febrero, 1915.

Al joven meditador José Ortega y Gasset

A ti laurel y yedra
corónente, dilecto
de Sofía, arquitecto.
Cincel, martillo y piedra
y masones te sirvan; las montañas
de Guadarrama frío
te brinden el azul de sus entrañas,
meditador de otro Escorial sombrío.
Y que Felipe austero,
al borde de su regia sepultura,
asome a ver la nueva arquitectura,
y bendiga la prole de Lutero.

A Xavier Valcarce

... En el intermedio de la primavera.

Valcarce, dulce amigo, si tuviera
la voz que tuve antaño, cantaría

And toward another, purer light
departed the brother of the light of dawn,
of the sun of the workshops,
the cheerful old man of hallowed life.
... Oh, yes, friends, bear
his body to the mountain,
to the blue hills
of the broad Guadarrama.
There, there are deep ravines
of green pines in which the wind sings.
Let his heart repose
beneath a chaste ilex,
in a land of thyme, where gilded
butterflies play . . .
There, one day, the master
dreamt of a new blossoming for Spain.

Baeza, February 21, 1915.

To the Young Thinker José Orega y Gasset

May laurel and ivy
crown you, beloved
of Wisdom, architect.
May chisel, hammer, and stone,
and masons serve you; may the mountains
of cold Guadarrama
offer you the blue of their entrails,
thinker of a new, somber Escorial.
And may austere Philip,
by the side of his royal tomb,
arise to see the new architecture
and bless the offspring of Luther.

To Xavier Valcarce

... In the interlude of spring.

Valcarce, dear friend, if I had
the voice I used to have, I’d sing
el intermedio de tu primavera
—porque aprendiz he sido de ruiseñor un día—,
y el rumor de tu huerto—entre las flores
el agua oculta corre, pasa y suena
por acequias, regatos y atanores—,
y el inquieto bullir de tu colmena,
y esa doliente juventud que tiene
ardores de faunalias,
y que pisando viene
la huella a mis sandalias.

Mas hoy . . . ¿será porque el enigma grave
me tentó en la desierta galería,
y abrí con una diminuta llave
el ventanal del fondo que da a la mar sombría?
¿Será porque se ha ido
quien asentó mis pasos en la tierra,
y en este nuevo ejido
sin rubia mies, la soledad me aterra?

No sé, Valcarce, mas cantar no puedo;
se ha dormido la voz en mi garganta,
y tiene el corazón un salmo quedo.
Ya sólo reza el corazón, no canta.

Mas hoy, Valcarce, como un fraile viejo
puedo hacer confesión, que es dar consejo.

En este día claro, en que descansa
tu carne de quimeras y amoríos
—así en amplio silencio se remansa
el agua bullidora de los ríos—,
no guardes en tu cofre la galana
veste dominical, el limpio traje,
para llenar de lágrimas mañana
la mustia seda y el marchito encaje,
sino viste, Valcarce, dulce amigo,
gala de fiesta para andar contigo.

Y cíñete la espada rutilante,
y lleva tu armadura,
the interlude of your springtime—
because I was once an apprentice to the nightingale—
and the sounds of your garden—amid the flowers
the hidden water flows, passes, and resounds
through irrigation ditches, streams, and pipes—
and the restless swarming in your beehive,
and that sorrowful youth which has
the fervor of Faunalia,
and which comes to tread
the prints of my sandals.

But today . . . is it because the grave enigma
tempted me in the deserted gallery
and I opened with a tiny key
the large window at the far end which faces the somber sea?
Is it because that person is gone
who planted my steps firmly on the earth,
and on this new commons
lacking a yellow harvest, the solitude frightens me?

I don’t know, Valcarce, but I’m unable to sing;
the voice in my throat has gone to sleep,
and my heart has a tranquil psalm.
Now my heart only prays, it doesn’t sing.

But today, Valcarce, like an old friar
I can make confession, which means giving advice.

On this bright day, when your flesh
is resting from its wild fancies and its romances—
in the same way, the seething water
of the rivers rests in a broad, silent pool—
don’t keep in your chest your elegant
Sunday clothes, your clean suit,
in order to fill with tears tomorrow
the faded silk and worn-out lace,
but, Valcarce, may dear friend, put on
holiday finery to go about in.¹⁶

And gird on a gleaming sword,
and wear your armor,
el peto de diamante
debajo de la blanca vestidura.

¡Quién sabe! Acaso tu domingo sea
la jornada guerrera y laboriosa,
el día del Señor, que no reposa,
el claro día en que el Señor pelea.

Mariposa de la sierra

A Juan Ramón Jiménez, por su libro Platero y yo.

¿No eres tú, mariposa,
el alma de estas sierras solitarias,
de sus barrancos hondos,
y de sus cumbres agrias?
Para que tú nacieras,
con su varita mágica
a las tormentas de la piedra, un día,
mandó ...