Edna St. Vincent Millay, Euclid Alone (Euclides es el único--traducción en español)

                                         

                                               To Gilberto Lacayo Bermúdez                                          

Euclid alone has looked on Beauty bare

Let all who prate of Beauty hold their peace,

And lay them prone upon the earth and cease

To ponder on themselves, the while they stare

At nothing, intricately drawn nowhere

In shapes of shifting lineage; let geese

Gabble and hiss, but heroes seek release

From dusty bondage into luminous air.

O blinding hour, O holy, terrible day,

When first the shaft into his vision shone

Of light anatomized! Euclid alone

Has looked on Beauty bare.Fortunate they

Who, though once only and then but far away,

Have heard her massive sandal set on stone.

Edna St. Vincent Millay

Euclides es el único....

Euclides es el único que le ha mirado a Belleza rasa.

Todos que de ella charlan—cállense!

En el suelo les tumba a ellos para que dejen de pensar

de sí mismos,

dibujados intrincablemente en ninguna parte, no viendo

nada en las formas de líneas que siempre están cambiando.

Déjalo a los gansos graznar y silbar sino a los héroes

escapar de sus cadenas polvorosas al aire luminoso.

¡Oh, hora que deslumbra!--¡Oh, día sagrado y terrible,

cuando primero el rayo de la luz anatomizada

brilló en la vista!

Euclides es el único que le ha mirado a Belleza rasa.

¡Qué afortunados ellos que aún desde lejos y una vez

han oído puesta en la piedra su sandalia maciza!

Tr. E. A. Costa 21 March, 2015 Granada, Nicaragua

Revolución (León Felipe)

Siempre habrá nieve altanera
que vista de monte de armiño
y agua humilde que trabaje
en la presa del molino.

Y siempre habrá un sol también
--un sol verdugo y amigo--
que trueque en llanto la nieve
y en nube el agua del río.

There will forever be high snow
to dress the mountain in ermine
and lowly water to work
in the miller's dam.

And there will ever be a sun as well--
a sun who is friend and hangman--
to trade snow for a flood of tears
and river's flowing water for cloud.

(tr. E. A. Costa July 2012/13)

The Fly (Adieu)

I killed a fly today with some regret.
It lies among the ashes yet,
a delicate wreckage,
as if crashed upon an alien planet.

[copyright EAC 09]

Curse Of Circe

“Prince of swine,”

(she whispers)

“lie back in lissome ease
and let me act your implicit skin,
your own hard won fleshly envelope.”


Toothsome in twilight,
bright of eye and rouge of lip,
swaying breast and hip,
she shimmers softly
as an antic antelope at dusk.


“Telemachus?”

(she whispers again)


“Send him word if you wish
and tell him:

‘Make ready for my return.
Your father outlasted Troy
and every aftermath, and surrenders
now the sweet paradise of half-life,
less than god and more than man,
to take again his throne in Ithaca
or die.”


Quietly as the waterpourer at dawn
she glides, mirroring moon and
infusing color into the lie of life.

“Your lady Penelope?”

(she finds full voice)


“That dodgy unraveling hypocrite! Listen:
I will have your own image sail to Ithaca,
carved itchy, crack-brained, and ancient,

hairy-nosed and hairy-eared,

lurking to uncover whose scent and faith
are true.

Afterward, a truer image will astound
the bitch, slay salivating suitors, and
lynch your lady’s maids,

to live unhappily with her ever after,

and so preserve your name and fame and honor
avenged and shining.”


(Odysseus laughs.)


“In the while,”

(Circe lisps)


you, truest Ulysses, most lying and wiled of all Greeks,
will have Circe of a hundred ivory thighs,
many-eyed and bowing, serve you goddess-like
day and night in this glistened palace.

(Ulysses listens.)

Stay a spell, Odysseus! Home is here where
maddest lust is!”

Cunning trinity
masking as the hinge
of many unities slowly fades away.

E.A. Costa

[copyright eac 09/88]