Garcia Lorca
Five in the Afternoon
‘Y mi sangre sobre el campo
sea rosado y dulce limo
donde claven sus azadas
los cansados campesinos.’
Translated by A. S.
Kline ã2001 All Rights Reserved
This work may be freely
reproduced, stored, and transmitted, electronically or otherwise, for any
non-commercial purpose.
Contents
Ballad of the Spanish Civil Guard
Madrigal for the City of Santiago
Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
The Beloved Sleeps on the Breast of the Poet
Night-Song of the Andalusian Sailors
(From Flamenco Vignettes)
and green mirrors.
On the dark stage
Parrala holds
a dialogue
with death.
Calls her,
she won’t come,
Calls her again.
The people
swallow their sobbing.
And in the green mirrors
long trails of silk
move.
of the guitar.
The wineglass of dawn
is broken.
It begins, the lament
of the guitar.
It’s useless to silence it.
Impossible
to silence it.
It cries monotonously
as the water cries,
as the wind cries
over the snow.
Impossible
to silence it.
It cries for
distant things.
Sands of the hot South
that demand white camellias.
It cries arrows with no targets,
evening with no morning,
and the first dead bird
on the branch.
Oh, the guitar!
Heart wounded deep
by five swords.
where might they be going,
along the low horizon
of the orange grove?
They could not arrive
at Sevilla or Cordoba.
Nor at Granada, she who sighs
for the sea.
These drowsy horses
may carry them
to the labyrinth of crosses
where the singing trembles.
With seven nailed sighs,
where might they be going
the hundred Andalusian riders
of the orange-grove?
she washes baby-clothes.
Her eyes of green
and voice of violet.
Ay, love,
under the orange-tree in bloom!
The water in the ditch
flowed, filled with light,
a sparrow chirped
in the little olive-tree.
Ay, love,
under the orange-tree in bloom!
Later, when Lola
has exhausted the soap,
young bullfighters will come.
Ay, love,
under the orange-tree in bloom!
enters, and leaves,
the tavern.
Black horses
and sinister people
travel the deep roads
of the guitar.
And there’s a smell of salt
and of female blood
in the fevered tuberoses
of the shore.
Death
enters and leaves,
and leaves and enters
the death
of the tavern.
the night-wind’s sighing
opened my old hurt with its grey hand
and moved on: I was left yearning.
Wound of love that will grant my life
endless blood and pure welling light.
Cleft in which Philomel, struck dumb,
will find her grove, her grief and tender nest.
Ay, what sweet murmurs in my head!
I’ll lie down by the single flower
where your beauty floats without a soul.
And the wandering waters will turn yellow,
as my blood runs through the moist
and fragrant undergrowth of the shore.
(Homage to Lope de Vega)
the night is wetting itself
and on Lolita’s breasts
the branches die of love.
The branches die of love.
The naked night sings
over the March bridgeheads.
Lolita washes her body
with brine and tuberoses.
The branches die of love.
The night of aniseed and silver
shines on the rooftops.
Silver of streams and mirrors.
Aniseed of your white thighs.
The branches die of love.
her moon of parchment
on an amphibious path
of crystals and laurels.
The silence without stars
fleeing from the sound,
falls to the sea that pounds and sings,
its night filled with fish.
On the peaks of the sierra
the carabineers are sleeping
guarding the white turrets
where the English live.
And the gypsies of the water
build, to amuse themselves,
bowers, out of snails
and twigs of green pine.
Preciosa comes playing
her moon of parchment.
Seeing her, the wind rises,
the one that never sleeps.
Saint Christopher, naked
full of celestial tongues
gazes at the child playing
a sweet distracted piping.
- Child, let me lift your dress
so that I can see you.
Open the blue rose of your womb
with my ancient fingers.
Preciosa hurls her tambourine
and runs without stopping.
The man-in-the-wind pursues her
with a burning sword.
The sea gathers its murmurs.
The olive-trees whiten.
The flutes of the shadows sound,
and the smooth gong of the snow.
Run, Preciosa, run,
lest the green wind catch you!
Run, Preciosa, run!
See where he comes!
The satyr of pale stars
with his shining tongues.
Preciosa, full of fear,
way beyond the pines,
enters the house that belongs,
to the English Consul.
Alarmed at her cries
three carabineers come,
their black capes belted,
and their caps over their brows.
The Englishman gives the gypsy girl
a glass of lukewarm milk,
and a cup of gin that
Preciosa does not drink.
And while, with tears, she tells
those people of her ordeal,
the angry wind bites the air
above the roofs of slate.
the Albacete knives
lovely with enemy blood
shine like fishes.
A hard light of playing-cards
silhouettes on the sharp green
angry horses
and profiles of riders.
In the heart of an olive-tree
two old women grieve.
The bull of the quarrel
climbs the walls.
Black angels bring
wet snow and handkerchiefs.
Angels with vast wings
like Albacete knives.
Juan Antonio of Montilla,
dead, rolls down the slope,
his corpse covered with lilies
and a pomegranate on his brow.
Now he mounts a cross of fire
on the roadway of death.
The judge, with the civil guard,
comes through the olives.
The slippery blood moans
a mute serpent song.
‘Gentlemen of the civil guard:
here it is as always.
We have four dead Romans
and five Carthaginians.’
The afternoon delerious
with figs and heated murmurs,
fainted on the horsemens’
wounded thighs.
And black angels flew
on the west wind.
Angels with long tresses
and hearts of oil.
Mallows in slenders grasses.
The nun embroiders wallflowers
on a straw-coloured cloth.
In the chandelier, fly
seven prismatic birds.
The church grunts in the distance
like a bear belly upwards.
How she sews! With what grace!
On the straw-coloured cloth
she wants to embroider
the flowers of her fantasy.
What sunflowers! What magnolias
of sequins and ribbons!
What crocuses and moons
on the cloth over the altar!
Five grapefruit sweeten
in the nearby kitchen.
The five wounds-of-Christ
cut in Almería.
Through the eyes of the nun
two horsemen gallop.
A last quiet murmur
takes off her camisole.
And gazing at clouds and hills
in the strict distance,
her heart of sugar
and verbena breaks.
Oh what a high plain
with twenty suns above it!
What standing rivers
her fantasy sees setting!
But she goes on with her flowers,
while standing, in the breeze,
the light plays chess
high in the lattice-window.
searching for the dawn,
when down the dark hill
comes Soledad Montoya.
Her skin of yellow copper
smells of horse and shadow.
Her breasts, like smoky anvils,
howl round-songs.
‘Soledad, who do you ask for
alone, at this hour?’
‘I ask for who I ask for,
say, what is it to you?
I come seeking what I seek,
my happiness and my self.’
‘Soledad of my regrets,
the mare that runs away
meets the sea at last
and is swallowed by the waves.’
‘Don’t recall the sea to me
for black sorrow wells
in the lands of olive-trees
beneath the murmur of leaves.’
‘Soledad, what sorrow you have!
What sorrow, so pitiful!
You cry lemon juice
sour from waiting, and your lips.’
‘What sorrow, so great! I run
through my house like a madwoman,
my two braids trailing on the floor,
from the kitchen to the bedroom.
What sorrow! I show clothes
and flesh made of jet.
Ay, my linen shifts!
Ay, my thighs of poppy!
‘Soledad: bathe your body
with the skylarks’ water
and let your heart be
at peace, Soledad Montoya.’
Down below the river sings:
flight of sky and leaves.
The new light crowns itself
with pumpkin flowers.
O sorrow of the gypsies!
Sorrow, pure and always lonely.
Oh sorrow of the dark river-bed
and the far dawn!
(Sevilla)
1
wide shoulders, slim waist,
skin of nocturnal apple-trees,
sad mouth and large eyes,
with nerves of hot silver,
walks the empty street.
His shoes of leather
crush the dahlias of air,
in a double-rhythm beating out
quick celestial dirges.
On the margins of the sea
there’s no palm-tree his equal,
no crowned emperor,
no bright wandering star.
When his head bends down
over his breast of jasper,
the night seeks out the plains,
because it needs to kneel.
The guitars sound only
for Saint Gabriel the Archangel,
tamer of pale moths,
and enemy of willows.
‘Saint Gabriel: the child cries
in his mother’s womb.
Don’t forget the gypsies
gifted you your costume.’
2
Royal Annunciation,
sweetly moonlit and poorly clothed
opens the door to the starlight
that comes along the street.
The Archangel Saint Gabriel
scion of the Giralda tower,
came to pay a visit,
between a lily and a smile.
In his embroidered waistcoat
hidden crickets throbbed.
The stars of the night
turned into bells.
‘Saint Gabriel: Here am I
with three nails of joy.
Your jasmine radiance folds
around my flushed cheeks.
‘God save you, Annunciation.
Dark-haired girl of wonder.
You’ll have a child more beautiful
than the stems of the breeze.’
‘Ah, Saint Gabriel, joy of my eyes!
Little Gabriel my darling!
I dream a chair of carnations
for you to sit on.’
‘God save you, Annunciation,
sweetly moonlit and poorly clothed.
Your child will have on his breast
a mole and three scars.’
‘Ah, Saint Gabriel, how you shine!
Little Gabriel my darling!
In the depths of my breasts
warm milk already wells.’
God save you, Annunciation.
Mother of a hundred houses.
Your eyes shine with arid
landscapes of horsemen.’
In amazed Annunciation’s
womb, the child sings.
Three bunches of green almond
quiver in his little voice.
Now Saint Gabriel climbed
a ladder through the air.
The stars in the night
turned to immortelles.
(Granada)
on the mountain, mountain, mountain,
mules and mules’ shadows
weighed down with sunflowers.
Their eyes in the shadows
are dulled by immense night.
Salt-laden dawn rustles
in the corners of the breeze.
A sky of white mules
closes its reflective eyes,
granting the quiet half-light
a heart-filled ending.
And the water turns cold
so no-one touches it.
Water maddened and exposed
on the mountain, mountain, mountain.
Saint Michael, covered in lace,
shows his lovely thighs,
in his tower room,
encircled by lanterns.
The Archangel, domesticated,
in the twelve-o-clock gesture,
pretends to a sweet anger
of plumage and nightingales.
Saint Michael sings in the glass,
effeminate one, of three thousand nights,
fragrant with eau de cologne,
and far from the flowers.
The sea dances on the sands,
a poem of balconies.
The shores of the moonlight
lose reeds, gain voices.
Field-hands are coming
eating sunflower seeds,
backsides large and dark
like planets of copper.
Tall gentlemen come by
and ladies with sad deportment,
dark-haired with nostalgia
for a past of nightingales.
And the Bishop of Manila,
blind with saffron, and poor,
speaks a two-sided mass
for the women and the men.
Saint Michael is motionless
in the bedroom of his tower,
his petticoats encrusted
with spangles and brocades.
Saint Michael, king of globes,
and odd numbers,
in the Berberesque delicacy
of cries and windowed balconies.
The horseshoes are black.
Stains of ink and wax
shine on their capes.
They have leaden skulls
so they do not cry.
With souls of leather
they ride down the road.
Hunchbacked and nocturnal
wherever they move, they command
silences of dark rubber
and fears of fine sand.
They pass, if they wish to pass,
and hidden in their heads
is a vague astronomy
of indefinite pistols.
Oh city of the gypsies!
Banners on street-corners.
The moon and the pumpkin
with preserved cherries.
Oh city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember?
City of sorrow and musk,
with towers of cinnamon.
When night came near,
night that night deepened,
the gypsies at their forges
beat out suns and arrows.
A badly wounded stallion
knocked against all the doors.
Roosters of glass were crowing
through Jerez de la Frontera.
Naked the wind turns
the corner of surprise,
in the night silver-night
night the night deepened.
The Virgin and Saint Joseph
have lost their castanets,
and search for the gypsies
to see if they can find them.
The Virgin comes draped
in the mayoress’s dress,
of chocolate papers
with necklaces of almonds.
Saint Joseph swings his arms
under a cloak of silk.
Behind comes Pedro Domecq
with three sultans of Persia.
The half moon dreamed
an ecstasy of storks.
Banners and lanterns
invaded the flat roofs.
Through the mirrors wept
ballerinas without hips.
Water and shadow, shadow and water
through Jerez de la Frontera.
Oh city of the gypsies!
Banners on street-corners.
Quench your green lamps
the worthies are coming.
Oh city of the gypsies!
Who could see you and not remember?
Leave her far from the sea
without combs in her hair.
They ride two abreast
towards the festive city.
A murmur of immortelles
invades the cartridge-belts.
They ride two abreast.
A doubled nocturne of cloth.
They fancy the sky to be
a showcase for spurs.
The city, free from fear,
multiplied its doors.
Forty civil guards
enter them to plunder.
The clocks came to a halt,
and the cognac in the bottles
disguise