Spanish Poems: How All Things Warn of Death, and Rome in Its Ruins- Translated by A Z Foreman- Poems Found in Translation

Poems Found in Translation: “Quevedo: How All Things Warn of Death (From Spanish)” plus 1 more

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Quevedo: How All Things Warn of Death (From Spanish) Posted: 22 Mar 2015 07:41 AM PDT This poem seems to draw on Seneca's twelfth epistle to Lucilius:  "Quocumque me verti, argumenta senectutis meae video. Veneram in suburbanum meum et querebar de impensis aedificii dilabentis. Ait vilicus mihi non esse neglegentiae suae vitium, omnia se facere, sed villam veterem esse. Haec villa inter manus meas crevit: quid mihi futurum est, si tam putria sunt aetatis meae saxa?" Wherever I turn, I see evidences of my advancing years. I visited lately my country-place, and protested about how much money had been spent on the dilapidated building. My bailiff insisted that the flaws were not due to his own negligence, that he was "doing everything possible, but the house was old." And this was the house which grew under my own hands! What has the future in store for me, if stones of my own age are already crumbling? How All Things Warn Of Death By Francisco de Quevedo y Villegas Translated by A.Z. Foreman Click here to hear me recite the poem in Spanish      I looked upon the walls of my old land, so strong once, and now moldering away, worn out by Time's long march, day after day, which had already sapped their will to stand.       I went out to the country, saw the sun  drink up the streams unfettered from the frost, and cattle groan how light of day was lost to woodland, with its shadows overrun.       I went into my home, but saw the crude  and rotted ruins of an agèd room; my cane gone weak and crooked in the grime.      I felt my sword surrender unto Time and nothing of the many things I viewed reminded me of anything but Doom. The Original: Enseña Cómo Todas Las Cosas Avisan de la Muerte      Miré los muros de la patria mía, si un tiempo fuertes, ya desmoronados, de la carrera de la edad cansados, por quien caduca ya su valentía.      Salíme al campo; vi que el sol bebía los arroyos del yelo desatados, y del monte quejosos los ganados, que con sombras hurtó su luz al día.      Entré en mi casa; vi que, amancillada, de anciana habitación era despojos; mi báculo, más corvo y menos fuerte.      Vencida de la edad sentí mi espada, y no hallé cosa en que poner los ojos que no fuese recuerdo de la muerte.

Francisco de Quevedo: Rome Entombed in its Ruins (From Spanish) Posted: 22 Mar 2015 07:39 AM PDT This is a poem that, fittingly, has a long history of surviving in translation and cross-linguistic imitation. Quevedo's Spanish is a paraphrase of a French poem by Du Bellay "Nouveau venu qui cherches Rome en Rome", which is in turn itself a paraphrase of Janus Vitalis Qui Romam in media quaeris novus advena Roma. Other variations on the "Rome is no more in Rome" theme proliferated over the centuries in Europe, often as translations or paraphrases of either Vitalis', Du Bellay's or Quevedo's versions, but occasionally as freer adaptations of the theme, in a number of languages including English, Russian, Polish and others. I'll be translating Du Bellay's and Vitalis' poems soon, and perhaps write a more extended discussion of the theme (and its permutations) to accompany them. Thanks are due to John Emerson who handily assembled many of these poems together in one place, including the hard-to-get-to Latin poem by Vitalis. Rome Entombed in its Ruins By Francisco De Quevedo Translated by A.Z. Foreman You look for Rome in Rome, O peregrine!      And find in Rome that Rome Herself is gone:      The walls She flaunted are a corpse of stone,      A tomb for its own self, the Aventine. Here rests, where once it reigned, the Palatine      And those medallions scoured by Time show more       Old battle damage from the constant war      Of ages, than the escutcheoned Latin sign. Only the Tiber has remained, whose flow      Watered the town's growth, weeping at its grave        A teary stream in mournful tones of woe. O Rome in beauty and greatness of Thy past      All that stood firm has fled, and nothing save      What runs in transience remains to last. The Original: A Roma Ensepultada En Sus Ruinas Buscas en Roma a Roma oh peregrino! y en Roma misma a Roma no la hallas: cadáver son las que ostentó murallas y tumba de sí proprio el Aventino. Yace donde reinaba el Palatino y limadas del tiempo, las medallas más se muestran destrozo a las batallas de las edades que Blasón Latino. Sólo el Tibre quedó, cuya corriente, si ciudad la regó, ya sepultura la llora con funesto son doliente. Oh Roma en tu grandeza, en tu hermosura, huyó lo que era firme y solamente lo fugitivo permanece y dura!