10 LYRICS BY LORCA: 1. The Guitar

10 lyrics by Federico Garcia Lorca: 1

During covid lock-down I made English versions of a few poems by Lorca. This is not a particularly necessary task, I admit. Word by word Lorca is a relatively easy poet to understand and as a result is one of the most translated of all Spanish poets. But what the hell, he’s an extraordinary figure and there is no better way to get to know a writer than by trying to see how he, or she, might appear in another language.

Lorca’s life was cut short in 1936, just after his 38^th birthday, by a gang of falangist murderers. He was born into a wealthy Granada family and was for many years a reluctant student dragging himself towards a law degree at Granada University. His first real interest was music — he was an excellent pianist and a competent guitarist — which then turned into a passion for writing and the theatre. Abandoning the law Lorca moved to Madrid getting to know a whole generation of progressive writers in the last days of the monarchy before Spain turned, in1931, into a radical left-wing republic. Lorca was friends with many politically engaged writers, as well as modernist artists (particularly the surrealists Luis Bunuel and Salvador Dali), though he was never himself a political activist. However he was a well-known intellectual, and also homosexual — enough to make him a target for right-wingers after Franco’s armed rebellion against the republic got under way in 1936.

Lorca is well-known for his embodiment of, and engagement with, the Spanish concept of duende. His personal readings entranced audiences and he himself was clearly a magnetic personality, an effect enhanced by the surging repetitions and rhythms of his verse. “Duende is a power, not a behaviour, a struggle, not a concept”, Lorca wrote. The word means something like passionate magic, forming and expressing itself in feelings around love, death and conflict, a force flowing out from the human imagination into all of nature. You can see it in Lorca’s images, which roam at will around the landscape, especially at the times around dawn and dusk. There are storms and droughts, trees and rivers, snowfields and orange groves, bulls and horses. There is much sorrow and much weeping. This imagery, with some indebtedness to Dali, is often surreal, but it usually inhabits a distinctively Spanish ambience. Despite a happy period living in New York, Lorca was always a passionate Spaniard. 

The Guitar was published in Lorca’s second collection of verse Poema del Cante Jondo (‘Poems of Deep Song’) when he was first getting interested in the Romany culture of Spain.

Here it is in the original and my English:

La Guittara                                        The Guitar

Empieza el llanto                                        So it begins, the lament
de la guitarra.                                              of the guitar.
Se rompen las copas                                   The dawn wineglasses
de la madrugada.                                         shatter.
Empieza el llanto                                        So it begins, the lament
de la guitarra.                                              of the guitar.
Es inutil callarla.                                         To shut it up is useless.
Es imposible                                                You cannot
callarla.                                                        shut it up.
Llora monótono                                           On one note it weeps
como llora el agua                                       like weeping waters
como llora el viento                                     like weeping winds
sobre la nevada.                                           across the snowfield.
Es imposible                                                You cannot
callarla.                                                        shut it up.
Llora por cosas                                             It weeps
lejanes.                                                         for distant things.
Arena del Sur caliente                                 The sands of the warm south
que pide camelias blancas.                          that plead for white cammelias.

Llora flecha sin blanco,                               It weeps an aimless arrow,
la tarde sin mañana,                                    an evening tomorrowless,
y el primer pàjaro muerto                           and the first bird
sobre la rama.                                              to die on the branch.
¡Oh guitarra!                                               Oh, the guitar!
Corazon malherido                                      Five swords
por cinco espadas.                                       in a mortally wounded heart.