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2010年4月8日 星期四

Neruda's En Ti La Tierra





This morning, I started to read the first poem in the extracts sent me by my friend. It is a simple poem, again, on love. Here it is, with my English translation. 

 

 En Ti La Tiera                                                               The Earth in you

 

  Pequena                                                                        Little

  rosa,                                                                               rose,

  rosa pequena                                                               Little rose,

  a veces,                                                                          sometimes,

 dimunuta y desnuda,                                                   diminitive and naked,

 parece                                                                             appears to fit

 que en una mano mia                                                   in a hand of mine

cabes                                                                               

que asi voy a cerrate                                                    which I see you thus close

y llevate a mi boca                                                        and you lift to my mouth

pero                                                                                  but

de pronto                                                                         suddenly

mis pies tocan tus pies  y mi boca tus labios, has crecido 

                                                  my feet touch your feet and my mouth your lips, you have risen

suben tu hombros como dos colinas                            your shoulders are rising like two hills

tus pechos se pasean por mi pecho                              your breasts amble through my chest

mi brazo alcanza apenas  a rodear la delgada         my arm barely gets to roam the fine

linea de luna nueva que tiene tu cintura:                  line of the new moon your waist makes:

en el amor como agua de mar te has desatado:   you have become untied in love, like sea water:

mido apenas los ojos mas extensos del cielo        I can hardly measure eyes wider than the sky

y me inclino a tu boca para besar la tiera                 and I bend to your mouth to kiss the earth 

 

In this simple poem written in free verse, Neruda plays with the special grammatical rules of the Spanish language in the first two lines, "pequena rosa" and rosa pequena" both of which forms are permissible. Normally the adjective is placed after a noun but for emphasis it can be placed in front of the noun. Thus the first four lines establishes a kind of rhymic pattern which starts strongly and then trails off, as the rise and fall of emotions in love.

 

The slow ponderous and broken rhythm of the poem accelerates, starting with pthe hrase, "de pornto" or "all of a sudden/.suddenly", it builds up into a rapid succession of words start "my feet...my chest".

 

Again, you see the familiar polarities in Neruda'ss poem: the thin or narrow (delgada) contrasted with broad and wide (extenso), the sea is contrasted with the earth and the sky too with the earth, and the big with the small, and slow with the quick.

 

Throughout the poem you see a constant see-sawing of not only the rhythm but also the length of the lines, and the movement of images of high and low. The sky for example is suddenly brought down to earth in the form of the moonlight on her waist but is again elevated to the sky by comparison of the her eyes with the sky and then quickly brought down to the earth again with the last line. Thus throughout the poem, you see the rise and fall of emotion paralleled and embodied in the up and down fluctuation through its  images associated with the highs and lows in different formations, just as in love making.

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