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Sonnet
by José de Espronceda (1808-1842) | translated from Spanish by Adam Sedia
Fresh, lush, pure, and perfumed luxuriantly,
The blooming garden’s flair and ornament,
Coxcomb perched on the stem’s filament,
The budding rose-bloom sets its fragrance free.
But if the burning sun stirs angrily,
Shines flaming in the dog-days’ firmament,
It loses both its color and sweet scent,
Its heat-beleaguered leaves droop languidly.
Thus for one moment’s flash my fortune burned
Borne high on love’s fair wings, at once I feigned
The beauteous clouds of glory and of mirth.
But, ah! The blessings that were mine have turned
To bitterness; now wind-blasted and drained,
My hope’s sweet flower rises in rebirth.
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Revolutions of the Globe
Lyric Fragment
by José de Espronceda (1808-1842) | translated by Adam Sedia
A thousand centuries rolled
upon the world in column-shafts of fire
and the terrified world,
in presage of its fall, saw half of this
creation out of nowhere fast expire,
drowned in the deep abyss.
The poles buckled beneath
the giant hurricane
wielding its immense hand; the wanderer
amidst volcanic bitumen in vain
already pulverizes the debris
of Etna, in the pallid ash to see
Herculaneum’s bright mosaic-plane.
Where does Atlantis lie? Go search for her
in the depths of the roiling Ocean’s main,
where ships with no North Star
that surged upon her beaches’ hidden sands,
cast their iron anchors into the sea,
and sank into Atlantis’ ruined lands,
and pierced Atlantis’ towers finally.
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Original Spanish
Soneto
Fresca, lozana, pura y olorosa,
gala y adorno del pensil florido,
gallarda puesta sobre el ramo erguido,
fragancia esparce la naciente rosa.
Mas si el ardiente sol lumbre enojosa
vibra del can en llamas encendido,
el dulce aroma y el color perdido,
sus hojas lleva el aura presurosa.
Así brilló un momento mi ventura
en alas del amor, y hermosa nube
fingí tal vez de gloria y de alegría.
Mas ¡ay! que el bien trocóse en amargura,
y deshojada por los aires sube
la dulce flor de la esperanza mía.
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Revoluciones del Globo
Fragmento Lírico
Mil siglos han rodado
en columnas de fuego sobre el mundo
y el mundo amedrentado
ha visto, presagiando su caída
de la nada en el piélago profundo
media creación hundida.
Cimbráronse los polos
bajo la inmensa mano
del gigante huracán, y el peregrino,
entre el betún volcánico, ya en vano
el escombro de Etna pulveriza
para hallar entre pálida ceniza
el mosaico fulgente del Herculano.
¿Dónde estuvo la Atlántida? – Buscadla
en el fondo del férvido Océano,
sin norte los navíos
que en sus playas recónditas surgieron,
las férreas anclas a la mar botaron
y entre escombros de Atlántida se hundieron
y en las torres de Atlántida clavaron.
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Adam Sedia (b. 1984) lives in his native Northwest Indiana and practices law as a civil and appellate litigator. In addition to the Society’s publications, his poems and prose works have appeared in The Chained Muse Review, Indiana Voice Journal, and other literary journals. He is also a composer, and his musical works may be heard on his YouTube channel.
Thank you for these beautiful translations…you make the morning glow. I loved the centuries that rolled upon the world in column-shafts of fire.
I was particularly enamoured with Revolutions of the Globe.
Thanks for the reads, Adam.
To translate the sonnet, and keep the original rhyme scheme – that’s an accomplishment!
The fragment looks difficult to translate–no regular meter, and though it has rhyme, a complex rhyme scheme. Maybe unfinished, but poets of the Romantic era could prize the effect of some lines too much to alter them. Here I think it was the final lines on the fate of ships that sunk into Atlantis. The end of the original, concluding with four heavy rhymes that sound like anchors pulling the ships down, is magnificent. Your version, Adam, does something similar. In those last four lines, the sands and lands belong to a sunken realm,
and your adjectives “hidden” and “ruined” don’t let a reader forget that as he proceeds to the final word “finally,” rhyming with “sea.” Good work rendering a challenging piece!
Thank you! The lyric fragment was indeed, challenging, but it was classic Espronceda — ebulliently romantic. It also described the Atlantis legend, which is central to the Spanish imagination (see Jacint Verdaguer’s epic for another example). I couldn’t pass up this obscure sketch, and I’m glad you thought I could do it some justice.