The Spanish Golden Age Sonnet

John Rutherford, John Rutherford

• Éditeur: University of Wales Press
• Année: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781783168989
• Édition: 1
• Sujet: Filología
• Sous-sujet: Traducción e interpretación

The sonnets written during the Spanish Golden Age of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries are among the finest poems written in the Spanish language. This book presents over one hundred of the best and most representative sonnets of that period, together with translations into English sonnets and detailed critical commentaries. Garcilaso de la Vega, Góngora and Quevedo receive particular attention, but other poets such as Aldana, Lope de Vega and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz are also well represented. A substantial introduction provides accounts of the sonnet genre, of the historical and literary background, and of the problems faced by the translator of sonnets. The aim of this volume is to provide semantically accurate translations that bring the original sonnets to life in modern English as true sonnets: not just aids to the comprehension of the originals but also lively and enjoyable poems in their own right.

Francisco Gómez de Quevedo y Villegas
(1580–1645)

Francisco de Quevedo was born in Madrid of parents employed in important positions at the Royal Palace. He obtained a good degree at the University of Alcalá, where he learned classical and modern languages, philosophy, theology, civil law and economics. He took up an appointment at court and became involved in the intrigues that were rife there. He led a turbulent life in politics, being imprisoned four times. His final imprisonment, from 1639 until 1643, broke his health and he retired to his estate in New Castile to die.

A man of immense erudition, he had a detailed knowledge of Latin and Italian literatures. His writings cover a wide range of subjects and genres: as well as poetry of many different kinds, he wrote the famous picaresque novel La vida del Buscón (The Life of the Swindler), a volume of satirical short prose pieces called Los sueños (The Dreams), and many philosophical, political and religious treatises. His thought was informed by neo-Stoic moral philosophy and his style by conceptismo. Many of his sonnets have achieved canonical status, and a profusion of wise words have been written about them.

The first edition of Quevedo’s poetry was published in 1648 by his friend José Antonio González de Salas, and entitled El Parnaso español (The Spanish Parnassus). It was Quevedo’s idea to organise his poems in nine sections corresponding to the nine muses, and this volume contains the first six: Clio, the muse of history; Polyhymni (sacred poetry); Melpomene (tragedy); Erato (song and elegiac poetry); Terpsichore (dancing); and Thalia (comedy). Book IV (Erato) is divided into two sections, the first containing love poems about various women, the second with the self-explanatory title ‘Canta sola a Lisi’ (‘He Sings to Lisi Alone’). Much time and effort has been wasted on the attempt to identify Lisi with a real woman. The results of all this toil are at best speculative, and do nothing to enrich appreciation of the writing, because Quevedo’s subject in his lyric poetry is not individual women but womankind. González de Salas says that he, not Quevedo, composed the poems’ epigraphs. He died before he could finish publishing Quevedo’s poems, and the task passed to Quevedo’s nephew, Pedro Aldrete, who produced in 1670 Las tres Musas últimas castellanas (The Last Three Castilian Muses): Euterpe (lyrical poetry), Calliope (epic poetry) and Urania (astronomy). I follow the ordering of González de Salas and Aldrete. There are textual problems with Quevedo’s poetry, because many manuscript versions and unauthorised early editions exist. Blecua brought order to this chaos, and his editions are the standard ones. The book edited by Sobejano (Francisco de Quevedo), contains several excellent essays. The books by Smith (Quevedo on Parnassus: Allusive Content and Literary Theory in the Love-Lyric [London: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1987]) and Walters (Francisco de Quevedo, Love Poet [Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 1985]) are also of great interest.

El Parnaso español, I, iii

A Roma sepultada en sus ruinas

Buscas a Roma en Roma, ¡oh peregrino!,
y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas.
Cadáver son las que ostentó murallas,
y tumba de sí proprio el Aventino.
Yace donde reinaba el Palatino
y, limadas del tiempo, las medallas
más se muestran destrozo a las batallas
de las edades que blasón latino.
Solo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente,
si ciudad la regó, ya sepoltura,
la llora con funesto son doliente.
¡Oh Roma, en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura,
huyó lo que era firme, y solamente
lo fugitivo permanece y dura!

The Spanish Parnassus, I, iii

To Rome buried in its ruins

You look for Rome in Rome, and yet you see
in Rome herself no Rome, O wayfarer:
a corpse her walls, once flaunted haughtily,
the Aventine its own sad sepulchre.
The Palatine lies dead where it held sway:
each roundel, worn away by time, appears
less like a shield of proud Latin display
than rubble of the battles of the years.
Tiber alone remains, and if his flow
watered a city, now, a charnel site,
he mourns for her in tones of plaintive woe.
O Rome, of all your beauty, all your might,
what once was solid is for ever gone,
and only what is fleeting still lives on!

El Parnaso español, II, xxvi

Represéntase la brevedad de lo que se vive, y cuán nada parece lo que se vivió

‘¡Ah de la vida! ¿Nadie me responde?
¡Aquí de los antaños que he vivido!’
La Fortuna mis tiempos ha mordido,
las Horas mi locura las esconde.
¡Que sin poderse ver cómo ni adónde
la salud y la edad se hayan huído!
Falta la vida, asiste lo vivido,
y no hay calamidad que no me ronde.
Ayer se fue, mañana no ha llegado,
hoy se está yendo sin parar un punto:
soy un fue y un será y un es cansado.
En el hoy y mañana y ayer junto
pañales y mortaja, y he quedado
presentes sucesiones de difunto.

The Spanish Parnassus, II, xxvi

Representing the brevity of life and how little one seems to have lived

‘Hey, life! There’s no reply at this address?
You yesteryears that I have lived through, hey!’
The Hours are hidden by my foolishness,
Fortune has nibbled other times away.
To think, without my seeing where or how,
that health and years have cut and run from me!
Life’s absent, all I’ve lived I have here now,
I’m dogged by every known calamity.
Yesterday’s gone, tomorrow hasn’t come,
without a pause today is vanishing:
I am a weary was, will be and is.
Today, tomorrow, yesterday: I bring
together swaddling clothes and shroud. In sum,
I am a dead man’s present sequences.

El Parnaso español, II, xxxii

Burla de los que con dones quieren granjear del cielo pretensiones injustas

Para comprar los hados más propicios,
como si la deidad vendible fuera,
con el mejor toro de la ribera
ofreces cautalosos sacrificios.
Pides felicidades a tus vicios,
para tu nave rica y usurera
viento tasado y onda lisonjera,
mereciéndole al golfo precipicios.
Porque exceda a la cuenta tu tesoro,
a tu ambición, no a Júpiter, engañas,
que él cargó las montañas sobre el oro.
Y cuando el ara en sangre humosa bañas,
tú miras las entrañas de tu toro,
y Dios está mirando tus entrañas.

The Spanish Parnassus, II, xxxii

Mockery of those who try with gifts to gain from heaven satisfaction of unjust pretensions

Resolved to buy the most propitious fate,
as if the very gods, too, had their price,
the best bull on your riverside estate
you diplomatically sacrifice.
For vices you request prosperity,
for your rich ship that profiteers for you
a steady wind and favourable sea
when oceanic chasms are its due.
Determined to acquire riches untold,
you cheat not Jupiter, but your own dreams,
for Jupiter raised mountains over gold.
Bathing the altar in that blood that steams,
you probe what in your bull’s entrails is shown,
while God is busy probing in your own.

El Parnaso español, II, xlvi

Que la vida es siempre breve y fugitiva

Todo tras sí lo lleva el año breve
de la vida mortal, burlando el brío
al acero valiente, al mármol frío
que contra el tiempo su dureza atreve.
Antes que sepa andar el pie, se mueve
camino de la muerte, donde envío
mi vida oscura, pobre y turbio río
que negro mar con altas ondas bebe.
Todo corto momento es paso largo
que doy a mi pesar en tal jornada,
pues parado y durmiendo siempre aguijo.
Breve suspiro, y último, y amargo
es la muerte, forzosa y heredada;
mas si es ley y no pena, ¿qué me aflijo?

The Spanish Parnassus, II, xlvi

Life is always brief and transient

The fleeting year of mortal living drags
all with it, scoffing at the potency
of brave steel armour and cold marble flags
that challenge Time with their solidity.
Before the foot can walk it starts to go
along the road to death, where I remit
my life of darkness, feeble, turbid flow
to black sea’s massive waves that swallow it.
Each tiny instant is a lengthy stride
I take along that road of my regret,
for even still and sleeping, on I hurry.
A legacy that cannot be denied,
death is a final bitter sob; and yet
if it’s the rule, not punishment – why worry?

El Parnaso español, II, xlix

Conoce las fuerzas del tiempo y el ser ejecutivo cobrador de la muerte

¡Cómo de entre mis manos te resbalas!
¡Oh cómo te deslizas, edad mía!
¡Qué mudos pasos traes, oh muerte fría,
pues con callado pie todo lo igualas!
Feroz, de tierra el débil muro escalas
en quien lozana juventud se fía,
mas ya mi corazón del postrer día
atiende el vuelo, sin mirar las alas.
¡Oh condición mortal! ¡Oh dura suerte!
¡Que no puedo querer vivir mañana
sin la pensión de procurar mi muerte!
Cualquier instante de la vida humana
es nueva ejecución, con que me advierte
cuán frágil es, cuán mísera, cuán vana.

The Spanish Parnassus, II, xlix

He recognises the power of time, and that it is death’s enforcer

How from between my hands you slip and slide!
O life of mine, how you escape from me!
O cold, cold death, how silently you glide
and with soft foot impose equality!
In wrath you climb the feeble wall of clay
on which robust and lusty youth relies,
and yet my heart awaits that final day
when, heedless of its lack of wings, it flies.
Oh mortal lot! Oh fateful human plight!
For one more day I cannot hope to live
and fail to pay the price: to expedite
my death! Life’s every instant comes to give
a new enforcement, warning me again
how frail it is, how wretched and how vain.

El Parnaso español, II, liii

Conveniencia de no usar de los ojos, de los oídos y de la lengua

‘Oír, ver y callar’ remedio fuera
en tiempo que la vista y el oído
y la lengua pudieran ser sentido
y no delito que ofender pudiera.
Hoy, sordos los remeros con la cera,
golfo navegaré que (encanecido
de huesos, no de espumas) con bramido
sepulta a quien oyó voz lisonjera.
Sin ser oído y sin oír, ociosos
ojos y orejas, viviré olvidado
del ceño de los hombres poderosos.
Si es delito saber quién ha pecado,
los vicios escudriñen los curiosos
y viva yo ignorante e ignorado.

The Spanish Parnassus, II, liii

Advisability of not using the eyes, the ears, or the tongue

‘Hear, see; say nowt’ could be a valid plan
during those times when ears and tongues and eyes
were organs of the senses rather than
transgressions that can shock and scandalise.
But now, with deafened rowers at the oars,
I’ll sail across the gulf, which (white with bones
and not with sea-foam) buries, as it roars,
those who have heard sweetly alluring tones.
Unheeded and unheeding, I will, then,
with idle eyes and ears, live unafraid
of angry scowls of influential men.
I’ll leave, if it’s a crime to know who’s strayed,
exploring sins to the inquisitive:
unknowing and unknown I mean to live.

El Parnaso español, II, lxviii

Enseña como todas las cosas avisan de la muerte

Miré los muros de la patria mía,
si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados:
de la carrera de la edad cansados
por quien caduca ya su valentía.
Salíme al campo, vi que el sol bebía
los arroyos de hielo desatados,
y del monte quejosos los ganados
que con sombras hurtó su luz al día.
Entré en mi casa, vi que, amancillada,
de anciana habitación era despojos,
mi báculo más corvo y menos fuerte.
Vencida de la edad sentí mi espada,
y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos
que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.

The Spanish Parnassus, II, lxviii

He shows how...