(no subject)

[mamculuna]

Briefly: I'm doing lots of great things, including going to The Lion King (with wonderful Julie Taymor masks and puppets) and to Howl's Moving Castle, both of which I loved. And an incredible meal at Russian Tea Time with many delicious kinds of finely chopped vegetable salads and spicy lamb, and coriander flavored vodka. And an all-weekend yoga workshop that pushed me way beyond where I ever thought I could go, in mind and body. Here's a poem I heard there:

Last Night, As I Was Sleeping

by Antonio Machado

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvellous error!--
that a spring was breaking
out in my heart
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
water of a new life
that I have never drunk?

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvellous error!--
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night, as I was sleeping,
I dreamt--marvellous error!--
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night, as I slept,
I dreamt--marvellous error!--
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

--translated by Robert Bly





Anoche cuando dormía


Anoche cuando dormía
soñé ¡bendita ilusión!
que una fontana fluía
dentro de mi corazón.
Dí: ¿por qué acequia escondida,
agua, vienes hasta mí,
manantial de nueva vida
en donde nunca bebí?

Anoche cuando dormía
soñé ¡bendita ilusión!
que una colmena tenía
dentro de mi corazón;
y las doradas abejas
iban fabricando en él,
con las amarguras viejas,
blanca cera y dulce miel.


Anoche cuando dormía
soñé ¡bendita ilusión!
que un ardiente sol lucía
dentro de mi corazón.
Era ardiente porque daba
calores de rojo hogar,
y era sol porque alumbraba
y porque hacía llorar.


Anoche cuando dormía
soñé ¡bendita ilusión!
que era Dios lo que tenía
dentro de mi corazón.



Antonio Machado

Comments

[faithhopetricks.livejournal.com]

That's a seriously lovely poem.

[altaego.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the poem.

that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

I posted just the other day in Sara's LJ that Machado was my favorite poet. That poem's beautiful, although I can't say much for Bly's translation. I don't understand why some translators go out of their way to avoid literal translations in cases when they're actually better. Why would anyone translate "bendito" as "marvelous" when it means "blessed"? And "I said" is outright wrong for "Di"; it means "Say" or "Tell"--Machado is asking the water to tell him in the poem, not saying that he did. Sorry--bit of a rant there. At least he didn't try to make it rhyme in English.

My favorite poem is Machado's "Fantasia de una noche de abril" ("Fantasy of an April night"), which is way too long to put here. It has the poet wandering the back streets of a Moorish city in Spain, slightly drunk, & fantasizing being back in Moorish times.

But he has a lot of shorter ones. One of my favorites is this one:

Dijiste media verdad?
Diran que mentiste dos veces
Si dices la otra mitad.

Did you tell a half-truth?
They'll say that you lied two times
If you tell the other half.

And BTW, hi, Jane! Belated happy birthday!

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Hmm. My previous response didn't seem to take. Essentially, what I said was that I totally agree about the translation--just didn't trust my Spanish quite enough to do my own. Wouldn't "hope" be better for "ilusión" than "error"? Anyway, thanks for the lead to the other poems--I think I'll look for a book of his poems.

Also, not sure Jane will see you message here--hope she does! But so glad you reminded me, since I wasn't around on the day.

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

"Wouldn't 'hope' be better for 'ilusion' than 'error'?"

Well, it's more of an ill-founded hope--not quite a false hope--than "hope" in general. But it also means a literal illusion (1st definition given in the dictionary).

"Anyway, thanks for the lead to the other poems--I think I'll look for a book of his poems."

Great! Hope you enjoy them! Bilingual or just Spanish? Or just English? If you look for a Spanish edition, I'd have to recommend against Espasa Calpe's 1998 edition from the Coleccion Austral. It has several serious typos (incl. "Nota" for "Noche" in the title of my favorite poem!). They may have (I hope) been corrected in a later edition.

BTW, how do you get the accent marks to come through in LJ? I know the codes for them that work on the board, but when I use those in LJ, I just get a box where the character I want to use should be, or I can't post the whole thing.

oh, and...

[anomster.livejournal.com]

"Also, not sure Jane will see you message here"

...heh, I got mixed up (new to the whole friends-page thing) & forgot whose LJ I was posting in! I'll make sure to send it where she'll be sure to see it.

Re: oh, and...

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Yeah, not like the board, where everybody sees every comment!

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

I'm looking for Spanish. I'll look for some other edition, if one exists. Or bilingual would be good, too. Thanks for that. Are you a native speaker?

Re punctuation and tildes, etc,are you using these?

Accented a (á) -> Alt+160
Accented e (é) -> Alt+130
Accented i (í) -> Alt+161
Accented o (ó) -> Alt+162
Accented u (ú) -> Alt+163
ñ -> Alt+164
Ñ -> Alt+165
¡(Inverted exclamation mark) -> Alt+0161
Opening Question Mark (¿) -> Alt+168


And then there's another set at http://home.earthlink.net/~awinkelried/keyboard_shortcuts.html

Both seem to work for me, but I have to have the number lock on and use the number pad at the right, not the top.

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

I'm not a native speaker, but I took Spanish my last 4 years of public school (the US meaning of public school) & then majored in it. I'm fairly fluent in it but a little rusty. I thought I'd've learned several more languages by now, but somehow once you're out of school you just don't have as much time.

The codes I've been using for accented letters are a different set (except that for some reason the upside-down ! code is the same). For example, the a w/acute accent is alt + 0225 (& yes, that's on the numpad). But I'll paste the list in after the one I've been using for other applications--thanks! Oh...I just used the link you posted, & it's the set I'm familiar with. And this is strange: I tried a couple of the ones from your list, & I don't get those characters in the message window, but they show up as boxes in the preview. Wonder why it works that way.

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[mamculuna.livejournal.com]

Do you use Windows XP? Maybe the OS affects it. I think the list I sent may be old. But I have XP.

Re: that's 1 of my favorite poems!

[anomster.livejournal.com]

I'm nowhere near XP, but I doubt that has anything to do w/it. If it were the OS, I'd expect it to be a generalized problem, so the codes I've been using for accents on the ATPo board wouldn't work there either.