Tuesday, February 2, 2016

Federico García Lorca: Casida de la rosa/ Casida Of The Rose (English Translation)


La rosa 
no buscaba la aurora:
Casi eterna en su ramo
buscaba otra cosa.

La rosa
no buscaba ni ciencia ni sombra:
Confín de carne y sueño
buscaba otra cosa.

La rosa
no buscaba la rosa:
Inmóvil por el cielo
¡buscaba otra cosa!

Federico García Lorca


Casida Of The Rose

                             ¿Qué busca? ¿Qué busca?

Rose
sought not sunrise:
near timeless on her stem
she was stalking other items.

Rose
sought not enlightenment nor darkness:
the outer limit of dream and flesh
she was out on other business.

Rose
sought not rose:
motionless in paradise
she was after other merchandise!

(tr. EAC)

E. A. Costa 2 February, 2016 Granada, Nicaragua
__________________________________________________________
*¿Qué busca?--”What a you looking for?", the common and near universal query of vendors
 in the classic Spanish and Latin American open air mercados, which, appropriate to the
 loose form of the Arabic Qasida adopted by Lorca, remind also of bazaar and suq. The
 exclamation mark at the end of the poem in Spanish is particularly subtle and pregnant,
 Rose, flower and beautiful woman, in silence and self-possession answers the hawkers
 with her own unspoken cry.

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