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Spanish
LA SANGRE DERRAMADA
¡Que no quiero verla! Dile a la luna que venga, que no quiero ver la sangre de Ignacio sobre la arena. ¡Que no quiero verla! La luna de par en par. Caballo de nubes quietas, y la plaza gris del sueño con sauces en las barreras. ¡Que no quiero verla! Que mi recuerdo se quema. ¡Avisad a los jazmines con su blancura pequeña! ¡Que no quiero verla! La vaca del viejo mundo pasaba su triste lengua sobre un hocico de sangres derramadas en la arena, y los toros de Guisando, casi muerte y casi piedra, mugieron como dos siglos hartos de pisar la tierra. No. ¡Que no quiero verla! Por las gradas sube Ignacio con toda su muerte a cuestas. Buscaba el amanecer, y el amanecer no era. Busca su perfil seguro, y el sueño lo desorienta. Buscaba su hermoso cuerpo y encontró su sangre abierta. ¡No me digáis que la vea! No quiero sentir el chorro cada vez con menos fuerza; ese chorro que ilumina los tendidos y se vuelca sobre la pana y el cuero de muchedumbre sedienta. ¡Quién me grita que me asome! ¡No me digáis que la vea! No se cerraron sus ojos cuando vio los cuernos cerca, pero las madres terribles levantaron la cabeza. Y a través de las ganaderías, hubo un aire de voces secretas que gritaban a toros celestes mayorales de pálida niebla. No hubo príncipe en Sevilla que comparársele pueda, ni espada como su espada ni corazón tan de veras. Como un río de leones su maravillosa fuerza, y como un torso de mármol su dibujada prudencia. Aire de Roma andaluza le doraba la cabeza donde su risa era un nardo de sal y de inteligencia. ¡Qué gran torero en la plaza! ¡Qué buen serrano en la sierra! ¡Qué blando con las espigas! ¡Qué duro con las espuelas! ¡Qué tierno con el rocío! ¡Qué deslumbrante en la feria! ¡Qué tremendo con las últimas banderillas de tiniebla! Pero ya duerme sin fin. Ya los musgos y la hierba abren con dedos seguros la flor de su calavera. Y su sangre ya viene cantando: cantando por marismas y praderas, resbalando por cuernos ateridos, vacilando sin alma por la niebla, tropezando con miles de pezuñas como una larga, oscura, triste lengua, para formar un charco de agonía junto al Guadalquivir de las estrellas. ¡Oh blanco muro de España! ¡Oh negro toro de pena! ¡Oh sangre dura de Ignacio! ¡Oh ruiseñor de sus venas! No. ¡Que no quiero verla! Que no hay cáliz que la contenga, que no hay golondrinas que se la beban, no hay escarcha de luz que la enfríe, no hay canto ni diluvio de azucenas, no hay cristal que la cubra de plata. No. ¡¡Yo no quiero verla!! |
English
THE BLOOD SHED
I don’t want to see it! Tell the moon to come, that I don’t want to see the blood of Ignacio on the sand. I said I don’t want to see it! The wide moon. Horse of quiet clouds, and the grey plaza of sleep with willow along the barriers. I don’t want to see it! I hope that my memory burns. Alert the jasmine flowers, so small and white. I said I don’t want to see it! The cow from the old world passes his sad tongue over a muzzle covered in the spilled blood pooled on the sand. And Guisando’s bulls, almost dead and almost stone, mooed as if they were fed up spending two centuries walking the earth. No. I said I don’t want to see it. Ignacio climbs the stairs with Death on his back. He sought the sunrise, but sunrise it was not. He finds his stable silhouette and the dream disoriented him. He sought his beautiful body and found his spilt blood. Don’t tell me to look at it! I don’t want to feel that blow, every passing time with less force; this flash that illuminates those laying on the ground and falls over the corduroy and leather of the thirsty crowd. Who yells for me to show my face? Don’t tell me to look at the blood His eyes didn’t close when he saw the horns getting closer, while the terrible mothers lift their heads. And through the livestock there was an air of secret voices that yelled at celestial animals, the overseers of the pale fog. There was no prince in Seville with who you could compare him, nor a sword like his sword, nor a truer heart, his marvelous strength was like a river of lions, and his decorated wisdom, like a torso of marble. Air from Andalusian Rome adorned his head in gold where his smile was a block of salt and of intelligence. What a great bullfighter in the ring! What a good ham from the mountains! How dull the spikes are! How hard the spurs are! How tender the dew! How dazzling the fair! How enormous with the small flag of darkness! But already he sleeps with no end. Already the moss and the grass open up the flower that is his skull with sure fingers. And his blood already comes to me singing; singing for salt marshes and prairies, slipping on frozen horns, flickering without a sould through the fog, stumbling over thousands of hooves like a long, black, sad tongue to form a puddle of agony alongside the river Guadalquivir of the stars. Oh white wall of Spain! Oh black bull of pain! Oh harsh blood of Ignacio! No. I don’t want to see it! There is no chalice that can contain the blood, there are no swallows that will drink it, there is no frosted light that’ll make it cold, there is no song nor flood of white lilies, there is no goblet that could cover it in silver. No. I don’t want to see it. |
Ana Arriaga is a sophomore who is majoring in Spanish with a minor in linguistics. She enjoys reading Spanish literature and poetry, especially the works of her favorite poet, Federico García Lorca. Ana hopes to one day work as a translator or interpreter.
She writes of the piece, “My father is from the Basque region of Spain. This region of Spain was one of Franco’s big targets during the Spanish Civil War. García Lorca draws inspiration from the war in many of his poems and was a strong voice against Franco.”