Lope de Vega 7 Sonnets translated from the Spanish by Michael Smith

On the Death of Góngora

Awake, Betis, your sleeping silver,
and, cypress-crowned, innundate
the learnéd place of home, in Senecas
so rich. Melt all your crystal into tears.

Unique light unseconded,
repeat solitudes, and spread
your deep vein through fields of grief.
Atropos slays the polyphemic gift.

Now Góngora yields his mortal self
to time, and the cultured lyre
in a final clause locks up his voice.

He dies and yet he lives: this sacred pyre
confers such deathless honour, a Phoenix
rises where a swan expires.

 

Human Rhymes

(Versos de amor, conceptos esparcidos)

Verses of love, scattered thoughts
begotten by my soul upon my cares;
offspring of my ardent senses,
born with more pain than freedom;

exposed to the world in which, lost,
you went so shattered and battered
that only where you were begotten
would they know you of their blood.

As you steal the labyrinth of Crete,
Dedalus's lofty thoughts,
the sea's fury, the flames of the abyss,

if that lovely asp does not accept you,
leave the earth, toy with the winds,
and you will have repose in your own heart's core.

*

 

(Vierte racimos la gloriosa palma)

The glorious palm tree sheds its bunches
and lovelessly dresses in barren mourning;
Daphne in her laurel fruitlessly complains,
Narcissus sheds his soul in white leaves.

Without rain, the earth is tranquil.
The parched countryside yields foul weeds;
because she never paid love's tribute,
Anaxarte's soul groans in its stone.

Love of water and sand begets gold;
as oyster shells love the dew,
they are filled with oriental pearls.

Do not disdain my love, lovely Lucinda,
for at the set of sun the lilies
lose their lustre, and our life its vitality.

 

*

 

(Ir y quedarse y con quedar partirse)

To go and stay, and staying go away,
to leave without one's soul and go with another;
to hear the sweet voice of a siren
and not be able to untie oneself from the mast;

to burn like a candle  and be consumed
building towers on the soft sand;
to fall from a sky and be a dream in torment
and never repent;

to speak in mute solitudes,
to borrow patience but in good faith
and to call what is worldly eternal;

to believe suspicions and deny truths
is what in this world they call absence:
fire in one's soul and hell in life.

 

*

 

On Europa and Jupiter

(De Europa y Júpiter)

The deceitful bull traversing the sea
turning his head, was kissing the foot
of the weeping nymph who was looking at
the lost decorum of her attire.

Amid her tears and her golden tresses
the fresh wind raised waves,
helping her with her sighing
for the loss of her poorly guarded virginal treasure.

Roses fell from Europa's skirts
as the bull spoke words of love,
and she, grieving for her garlands,

they say, her face, full of blushes,
changed her emeralds into pearls
and said: ‘Ah! sadly, I have lost my flowers.'

 

*

 

To Judith's Victory

(Al triufo de Judit)

Hanging gorily from the bed to the ground,
the right shoulder of the fierce tyrant
who futilely opposing Bethulia's wall
hurled bolts of lightning against heaven.

Wrapped up in his agony, the red veil
of his pavilion on the left side,
discloses the terrible spectacle
of his horrid trunk turned to ice.

Bacchus's spilled wine stains his strong armour,
the glasses and the disarrayed table;
his useless guards are asleep;

And on the castellated wall
of the people of Israel, the chaste Hebress
is resplendent, armed with his head.

 

*

 

To the Night

(Noche, fabricadora de embelecos)

You, night, creator of deceptions,
crazy, fantastical, chimerical,
who display to him who delights you
mountains as flat and the seas as dry.

Dweller in vacant brains,
mechanic, philosopher, alchemist,
foul accomplice, sightless lynx,
frightened by your own echoes:

let darkness, fear and evil be considered yours,
solicitant, poetess, sick, frigid,
with a braggart's hands and a fugitive's feet.

Awake or asleep, half my life is yours:
if I'm awake, I pay you with my days;
if I'm sleep, I'm not aware I'm living.

 

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