Translation: Garcia Lorca’s "El Muerte de Antoñito el Camborio"

The Death of Antoñito el Camborio
By Federico García Lorca (El Muerte de Antoñito el Camborio)
Trans. Curt Hopkins

Voices of death resounded
Around the Guadalquivir.
Ancient voices surrounding
The voice of the virile carnation.
The bites of a boar
Bit through his boots.
In the struggle he leapt
As slick as a dolphin.
He bathed in his enemies’ blood,
His tie crimsoned,
But there were four daggers
And he was fated to fall.
When the stars pierced
The gray water with lances,
When the ages dream
The flourish of a wallflower cape,
The voices of death resounded
Around the Guadalquivir.

—Antonio Torres Heredia,
Coarse-maned Camborio,
Dark as a green moon,
With the voice of the virile carnation:
Who took your life
Near the Guadalquivir?
—My four Heredia cousins,
The sons of Benjemí.
That which they did not envy in others
They envied in me.
My maroon shoes,
Ivory medallion,
And this skin, kneaded
With olive and jasmin.
—Ay, Antoñito el Camborio,
Worthy of an empress!
Remember the Virgin
For your are going to die.
—Ay, Federico García,
Call the Guardia Civil!
They have broken my back
Like a stalk of corn.

Three jets of blood
And he died in profile.
A living coin that will
Never be restruck.
A cocksure angel places
His head on a cushion.
Others flushed with exhaustion
Lit a lamp.
And when the four cousins
Returned to Benjemí,
The voices of death ceased
On the Guadalquivir.

Federico_Garcia_Lorca, Lorca, poetry, translation, Gypsies, Granada, Spain

Curt Hopkins