Two Translations: García Lorca’s "La guitarra" and "Pueblo"
April 9, 2005 by Curt
The Guitar
By Federico García Lorca (La guitarra)
Trans. Curt Hopkins
The cry of the guitar
Begins.
The glasses of dawn
Are shattered.
It is useless
To quiet it.
Impossible
To shut it up.
It weeps monotonously
As water weeps,
As wind weeps
In a snow storm.
It is impossible
To stop it.
It cries for far away
Things.
Sand of the hot south
That begs for white camellias.
It weeps, arrow without a target,
Evening without a morning,
And the first bird
Dead upon the branch.
Oh, guitar!
Heart gravely wounded
By five swords.
***
Village
By Federico García Lorca (Pueblo)
Trans. Curt Hopkins
Upon the bare mountain,
A Calvary.
Clear water
And centuries-old olive trees.
In the alleyways
Cloaked men,
And on the towers
Weathervanes spinning.
Eternally
Spinning.
Oh, lost village
In the Andalusia of tears!
***
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