Rate-a-Poem: Gacela of the Dark Death by Lorca

[ddgryphon]

Gacela of the Dark Death
by Federico García Lorca (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/163)
Translated by Robert Bly (http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/280)


I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,

I want to get far away from the busyness of the cemeteries.

I want to sleep the sleep of that child

who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.


I don't want them to tell me again how the corpse keeps all its blood,

how the decaying mouth goes on begging for water.

I'd rather not hear about the torture sessions the grass arranges for

nor about how the moon does all its work before dawn

with its snakelike nose.


I want to sleep for half a second,

a second, a minute, a century,

but I want everyone to know that I am still alive,

that I have a golden manger inside my lips,

that I am the little friend of the west wind,

that I am the elephantine shadow of my own tears.


When it's dawn just throw some sort of cloth over me

because I know dawn will toss fistfuls of ants at me,

and pour a little hard water over my shoes

so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off.


Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples,

and learn a mournful song that will clean all earth away from me,

because I want to live with that shadowy child

who longed to cut his heart open far out at sea.

[poetinahat]

I love this poem. I love the oblique references (e.g. sleep of the apples, moon with its snakelike nose, fistfuls of ants). I don't entirely get it, which appeals to me greatly, but I love the mood. It gives me something to puzzle over and just to ponder about.

The sentences seem prosaic to me, which would bother me on other occasions, but here the bizarre beauty of the images overcomes my misgiving. I can't help but wonder, with translated works, how much of the beauty and meaning doesn't make it through the translation process.

[saleri]

wow, it's that type of style I've been trying to depict for ages.
well done!

[ddgryphon]

wow, it's that type of style I've been trying to depict for ages.
well done!

Read all of the Lorca you can get hold of then--I'm told the Bly translations are very good--though translating poetry is the most difficult work anyone can do. Bly understood poetry, so, hopefully these are as good as said.

To me, the imagry is what grabs me and sets such an incredible mood--the last verse leaves me with chills. Lorca, in general, is able to do that more than most. His command of imagry is some of the most fearsome I've ever encountered.

[poetinahat]

Read all of the Lorca you can get hold of then--I'm told the Bly translations are very good--though translating poetry is the most difficult work anyone can do. Bly understood poetry, so, hopefully these are as good as said.

Good to hear -- I received a Bly-edited anthology for Christmas (actually only got it in March), and I'm getting stuck into it now.

[P.H.Delarran]

Lovely. I can't quite articulate my thoughts on this, as it speaks to an unspeakable anxiety over death and the unknown. I wish I could read it in the original language.
I'll be reading more Lorca, thank you Dirk.

[kborsden]

There is a bombardment of imagery in this, but however vivid those images are, they didn't move me. Maybe something is lost in translation.

I write poems in both English and Dutch and at times when I do a translation from one to the other, I find it doesn't work in both languages. What power the devices and imagery carry in one language is diminished in another, some things you just can't translate, like assonance and alliteration and simpler sonics, when you adhere to meter aswell, well, it fucks up big time and becomes a shamble. Now, when I write something in one language I leave it in that language, better not to mess around with such things.

[louiscypher]

Because I want to sleep the sleep of the apples?

Something seems a little wayward in the translation holistically, I suspect. Reading the bio, one finds the author to be a country boy. And we all know apples rot/ferment to make potent cider. That being said, lines such as "that I have a golden manger inside my lips" take on a whole new meaning as apple cider is golden of colour.... interesting!

"so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will slip off" ... could this be translated as "so that the scorpion claws of the dawn will sip/slide/seep away (possibly a/of way/whey)?

Tis quiet a punch-drunk and enchanting piece of literature this!

enjoyed

J

[ddgryphon]

Found it in the original:

GACELA DE LA MUERTE OSCURA

Quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas
alejarme del tumulto de los cementerios.
Quiero dormir el sueño de aquel niño
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.

No quiero que me repitan que los muertos no pierden la sangre;
que la boca podrida sigue pidiendo agua.
No quiero enterarme de los martirios que da la hierba,
ni de la luna con boca de serpiente
que trabaja antes del amanecer.

Quiero dormir un rato,
un rato, un minuto, un siglo;
pero que todos sepan que no he muerto;
que haya un establo de oro en mis labios;
que soy un pequeño amigo del viento Oeste;
que soy la sombra inmensa de mis lágrimas.

Cúbreme por la aurora con un velo,
porque me arrojará puñados de hormigas,
y moja con agua dura mis zapatos
para que resbale la pinza de su alacrán.

Porque quiero dormir el sueño de las manzanas
para aprender un llanto que me limpie de tierra;
porque quiero vivir con aquel niño oscuro
que quería cortarse el corazón en alta mar.


*********************
I don't know if this actually helps anyone here, but it's lovely to read in the original, even if you don't fully understand it--you get a sense of the rhythm and pulse of the poem.

[rubarbb]

I thought we were all a "little insane."

[JRH]

Not to be "irreverant" but isn't "sleeping the sleep of apples" what Rip Van Winkle did?

JRH

[kdnxdr]

I know nothing of Lorca or his work. Sorry.

"the sleep of apples" could as well be the dormant stage of the seed, buried in solitude in the dark soil, combusting with life, only to spring from death into seedling.