Note: This is the second piece in Lorca’s posthumous collection ‘Sonetos del Amor Oscuro,’ the so-called ‘Dark Love Sonnets.’ The poems were written within a year of his execution by firing-squad during the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Their addressee is mysterious, but letters released in 2012 have lent general acceptance to claims advanced on behalf of Juan Ramírez de Lucas. They were first published in 1983. Lorca’s socialism and homosexuality, and official secrecy surrounding his execution, made him a controversial figure during the Dictadura Franquista.
The sonnets are Petrarchan, and built on a passionate, surreal series of metaphors which are best construed viscerally, on the basis of the immediate impressions they excite in the reader. I’ve adhered to the sonnet’s Petrarchan form (ABBAABBA CDCDCD), and my translation is fairly literal. One expression ‘lúbrica tea’ (‘lascivious torch/firebrand’) is difficult to render in English. What is a lascivious torch? What does it mean? A torch, once ignited, burns on its own - it consumes itself, like a lover in solitude. Any phallic connotation, or allusion to masturbation, is obvious, particularly when the primary definition of lúbrico (‘slippery’) is inferred.
This light and fire which devour; This gray landscape in which I’m caught; This pain for only a thought; This anguish of Heaven, world and hour! This weeping of blood, gracing a pulseless lyre! This self-consuming torch with ardors fraught; This heaviness of the sea with which I’ve fought; These scorpions, that to my breast retire... Are a love-garland, bed of a wounded man, Where sleeplessly I dream of you returning Among the ruins of my breast crushed-in. And, though I seek the summit of discerning, Your heart condemns me to an endless glenn, With hemlock – passion of bitter learning. The Original: Esta luz, este fuego que devora. Este paisaje gris que me rodea. Este dolor por una sola idea. Esta angustia de cielo, mundo y hora. Este llanto de sangre que decora lira sin pulso ya, lúbrica tea. Este peso del mar que me golpea. Este alacrán que por mi pecho mora. Son guirnalda de amor, cama de herido, donde sin sueño, sueño tu presencia entre las ruinas de mi pecho hundido. Y aunque busco la cumbre de prudencia me da tu corazón valle tendido con cicuta y pasión de amarga ciencia.
Scintillating. Original and translation.