Quote from: Stealthgrrl on March 17, 2009, 05:22:03 PM
I love Neruda. He is one of maybe a half dozen who move me every time. Poe, Blake, Christina Rossetti, Dickinson, Whitman, and...Neruda.
(((((((Tink)))))))))) 
I love him as well
. In my literature class, many moons ago, in a previous life, in a different galaxy far, far away, I used to recite his poems along with Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's and Antonio Machado's. I just wish that there were a way to translate the exact same feeling of every Spanish poem into a different/foreign language, you know?
Like the last sentence of the above poem for instance:
Quote from: Neruda's poem in Englishmy heart broke free on the open sky
Quote from: Neruda's poem in Spanishmi corazón se desató en el viento.
*sigh* I am sorry but English is such a dry language and doesn't have a vast vocabulary, and to translate
mi corazón se desató en el viento. to
my heart broke free on the open sky is just pure sacrilege...and my heart weeps
Anyway..
------------------------------------------------------------
A Dog Has Died My dog has died.
I buried him in the garden
next to a rusted old machine.
Some day I'll join him right there,
but now he's gone with his shaggy coat,
his bad manners and his cold nose,
and I, the materialist, who never believed
in any promised heaven in the sky
for any human being,
I believe in a heaven I'll never enter.
Yes, I believe in a heaven for all dogdom
where my dog waits for my arrival
waving his fan-like tail in friendship.
Ai, I'll not speak of sadness here on earth,
of having lost a companion
who was never servile.
His friendship for me, like that of a porcupine
withholding its authority,
was the friendship of a star, aloof,
with no more intimacy than was called for,
with no exaggerations:
he never climbed all over my clothes
filling me full of his hair or his mange,
he never rubbed up against my knee
like other dogs obsessed with sex.
No, my dog used to gaze at me,
paying me the attention I need,
the attention required
to make a vain person like me understand
that, being a dog, he was wasting time,
but, with those eyes so much purer than mine,
he'd keep on gazing at me
with a look that reserved for me alone
all his sweet and shaggy life,
always near me, never troubling me,
and asking nothing.
Ai, how many times have I envied his tail
as we walked together on the shores of the sea
in the lonely winter of Isla Negra
where the wintering birds filled the sky
and my hairy dog was jumping about
full of the voltage of the sea's movement:
my wandering dog, sniffing away
with his golden tail held high,
face to face with the ocean's spray.
Joyful, joyful, joyful,
as only dogs know how to be happy
with only the autonomy
of their shameless spirit.
There are no good-byes for my dog who has died,
and we don't now and never did lie to each other.
So now he's gone and I buried him,
and that's all there is to it.
**********************************************
Spanish Version
Un Perro Ha MuertoMi perro ha muerto.
Lo enterré en el jardín
junto a una vieja máquina oxidada.
Allí, no más abajo,
ni más arriba,
se juntará conmigo alguna vez.
Ahora él ya se fue con su pelaje,
su mala educación, su nariz iría.
Y yo, materialista que no cree
en el celeste cielo prometido
para ningún humano,
para este perro o para todo perro
creo en el cielo, sí, creo en un cielo
donde yo no entraré, pero él me espera
ondulando su cola de abanico
para que yo al llegar tenga amistades.
Ay no diré la tristeza en la tierra
de no tenerlo más por compañero,
que para mí jamás fue un servidor.
Tuvo hacia mí la amistad de un erizo
que conservaba su soberanía,
la amistad de una estrella independienre
sin más intimidad que la precisa,
sin exageraciones:
no se trepaba sobre mi vestuario
llenándome de pelos o de sarna,
no se frotaba contra mi rodilla
como otros perros obsesos sexuales.
No, mi perro me miraba
dándome la atención que necesito,
la atención necesaria
para hacer comprender a un vanidoso
que siendo perro él,
con esos ojos, más puros que los míos,
perdía el tiempo, pero me miraba
con la mirada que me reservó
toda su dulce, su peluda vida,
su silenciosa vida,
cerca de mí, sin molestarme nunca,
y sin pedirme nada.
Ay cuántas veces quise tener cola
andando junto a él por las orillas
del mar, en el invierno de Isla Negra,
en la gran soledad: arriba el aire
traspasado de pájaros glaciales,
y mi perro brincando, hirsuto, lleno
de voltaje marino en movimiento:
mi perro vagabundo y olfatorio
enarbolando su cola dorada
frente a frente al Océano y su espuma.
Alegre, alegre, alegre
como los perros saben ser felices,
sin nada más, con el absolutismo
de la naturaleza descarada.
No hay adiós a mi perro que se ha muerto.
Y no hay ni hubo mentira entre nosotros.
Ya se fue y lo enterré, y eso era todo.
Pablo Nerudatink
