I did it. I finished my translation of Frederico Garcia Lorca's Romance Sonambulo. What I mainly learned from the experience was that it is really hard to write line after line with feminine endings in English. I also learned that most people who translate Lorca (and they are legion) must not be trying very hard to even aproximate the sound of the original. It can be done, to some extent. Here is the original beautiful Spanish. The thing about Lorca is that he is not as surreal as he seems. He uses very bizarre but illuminating metaphores, and he is very rooted in his homeland of Andalucia. I just wish I knew Spanish better... I must buy Roy Campbell's study of Lorca. It was so good.

Romance Sonambulo
by Frederico Garcia Lorca


Green oh how I love you green.
Green the wind. Green the branches.
The ship on the flowing sea
and the horse on the side of the mountain.
Submerged to the waist in shadow
she dreams on her veranda,
green her flesh and green her hair,
with eyes of frozen silver.
Green oh how I love you green.
Under the gypsy moonlight,
Each thing turns its gaze to her
and she cannot return them.

Green oh how I love you green.
Stars of frost unfolding
come out with the fish of shadow
that opens the road of the morning.
The fig tree chafes at the wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the mountain, a cat creeping,
bristles its bitter hackles.
But who will come? And from where...?
She lingers on her veranda,
green her flesh and green her hair,
the bitter sea all her dreaming.

- Compadre, I want to exchange
my packhorse for your house,
my saddle for your mirror,
my knife for your warm blanket.
Compadre, I come bleeding
from the mountain gates of Cabra.
- If only I could, young man,
I would do it; have no doubt.
But now I am no more I,
nor is my house my house.
- Compadre, I want to die
in my own bed, decently.
My bed with its frame of iron,
covered with linen sheets.
Do you not see the wound I have
from my throat to where my heart beats?
- Three hundred darkening roses
are on your white shirt.
Your blood and the scent of it thicken
rounding your sash about.
But now I am no more I
nor is my house my house.
- Then let me go up, at least,
up to the high verandas.
Let me climb there! let me rise
up to the green verandas.
Balconies of the moon
whence the water rumbles and dances.

Now the two friends are climbing
up to the high verandas.
Leaving a trail of blood.
Leaving a trail of tears.
Trembling on the rooftops
were little tinleaf lanterns.
And wounding the new day dawning,
a thousand crystal tambours.

Green oh how I love you green,
green the wind and green the branches.
The two friends finished climbing.
The long wind went by, leaving
in one's mouth the strangest savor
of gall, mint, and sweet basil.
Compadre! Where is she, tell me,
where is your bitter girl?
How many times she awaited you!
How many times did she wait for you here,
cool her face and black her hair,
on this green veranda!

Over the face of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swaying.
Green her flesh and green her hair,
with eyes of frozen silver.
An icicle of moonlight
sustained her upon the water.
The night became as intimate
as a little village plaza.
Drunks from the Guardia Civil
were at the door, knocking, knocking.

Green oh how I love you green.
Green the wind. Green the branches.
The ship on the flowing sea.
And the horse on the side of the mountain.

I have always loved this poem for its cadences and its strange images that seem to come straight from the uncertain hours before dawn. Reading it, I feel as though I am keeping a vigil and falling in and out of sleep.

In regard to this poem, Lorca said "If you ask me why I wrote 'A thousand tambourines of crystal wounded the dawn,' I will tell you that I saw them in the hands of trees and angels, but I cannot say more: I cannot explain their meaning. And that is how it should be. Through poetry a man more quickly reaches the cutting edge that the philosopher and the mathematician silently turn away from."

I have read several explanations of it - some of them far-fetched - but it describes what could be a real situation. Basically it's about a gypsy smuggler of the sort that haunted a certain region of Andalucia. His girlfriend waits for him every night on her balcony, and one night he is late. He has gotten into an altercation with the Guardia Civil, and he is mortally wounded. He comes back to the house of a friend. The girl, meanwhile, has heard the commotion in the hills. She thinks he's dead, and throws herself into the cistern in despair. A bunch of drunken Civil Guards show up at her house, thinking they will find the smuggler there... It's a kind of gypsy "Romeo and Juliet." Lorca's poem is a twist on an established tradition of ballads about these bandits. He knew the traditional themes, images and meters of his country well, which is one source of his poetic greatness.

This is an insightful post about the Romance Sonambulo and Lorca in general.

I am still not happy about the word veranda, because it means "porch" more than it means "balcony;" but it had the right sound. Very similar to baranda. Tambour is also a little too unnatural - it should be tambourine, but I couldn't let go of it because it fulfilled the meter and the assonance nicely. I really tore my hair out over "Leaving behind a trail of blood. / Leaving a trail of tears." In Spanish it is the beautiful and rhythmic

Dejando un rastro de sangre.
Dejando un rastro de lágrimas.

But I couldn't find anything that worked better. Leaving manta, "blanket," to chime with "Cabra" was also pretty desperate. Oh well. At any rate, I think my version worked out. I especially like the second section, and the lines

An icicle of moonlight
sustained her upon the water.
The night became as intimate
as a little village plaza.

Does anyone else like Lorca?