Lorca's "The Guitar" [translated by Philip Nikolayev]

The Guitar

The guitar’s lament
breaks the silence.
The winecups of night
are shattered.
The guitar’s lament
breaks the silence.
No use trying
to quiet it down.
It’s impossible
to quiet it down.
It weeps in monotone,
like water weeping,
like the wind weeps
over fallen snow.
It’s impossible
to quiet it down.
It weeps
for faraway things.
Sand of the sun-parched south
begging for white camelias.
It weeps like an aimless arrow,
like an evening without a morning,
like the first dead bird
on the branch.
O guitar!
A heart scarred
by five swords.

La guitarra

Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Se rompen las copas
de la madrugada.
Empieza el llanto
de la guitarra.
Es inútil
callarla.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora monótona
como llora el agua,
como llora el viento
sobre la nevada.
Es imposible
callarla.
Llora por cosas
lejanas.
Arena del Sur caliente
que pide camelias blancas.
Llora flecha sin blanco,
la tarde sin mañana,
y el primer pájaro muerto
sobre la rama.
¡Oh guitarra!
Corazón malherido
por cinco espadas.

-- translated by Philip Nikolayev

Philip Nikolayev, born in 1966, is a poet living in Boston. He grew up in Moldova in the former USSR. A polyglot, he translates poetry from several languages. He holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees from Harvard and a PhD from Boston University, where he defended his thesis on Samuel Beckett under the advisorship of Christipher Ricks. Nikolayev is the author of several collections of verse, including Monkey Time (Wave Books; winner of the 2001 Verse Prize) and Letters from Aldenderry (Salt). He is coeditor-in-chief of Fulcrum: An Anthology of Poetry and Aesthetics. His volume of Pushkin translations, The Star of Dazzling Ecstasy, was published by Tiptop Street in 2021. He has lately been translating Ukrainian War Poetry.

Comments

[Rei]

Philip,
This translation is awesome. I like your rendering of "Comienza el llanto / de la guitarra" switching the order of Lorca's text: "The guitar’s lament / breaks the silence." It's not a simple task to find the right word and sequence for a text full of meaning and symbolism. You captured all of this with your translation. Thank you for sharing.

Rei