Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great,
Had they but courage equal to desire?
What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?
Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?
William Butler Yeats
Ninguna Troya segunda
¿Por qué debo culpar a ella
porque llenó mi vida con tristeza?
¿O porque hace poco les hubiera impartido
a hombres brutos vias las más violentas?
¿O porque lanzó las callecitas contra los bulevares--
si tenían ellas el coraje iqual al su deseo?
¿Qué podría haber apaciguado a ella?
Con una mente que la nobleza hizo
tan ingenua como fuego,
Con belleza como un arco armado,
que es contra naturaleza en nuestra época:
alta, solitaria, implacable,
y como tal--
¿Qué otra cosa podría ella haber hecho--
¿Había otra Troya para atravesar y incendiar?
Tr. EAC
E. A. Costa September 13, 2016 Granada, Nicaragua
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N.B.: The subject is Maud Gonne (later Maud Gonne MacBride-- Maud Nic Ghoinn Bean Mac Giolla Bhríghde), English-born actress, Irish revolutionary and suffragette to whom Yeats proposed marriage several times unsuccessfully. Note too that the title clearly bears the ironic cryptotype, “No second try”, of which Yeats, proposing at least, had several. She famously told him, when he said he was not happy without her, “Oh yes, you are, because you make beautiful poetry out of what you call your unhappiness and are happy in that. Marriage would be such dull affair. Poets should never marry. The world should thank me for not marrying you.”
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