Having interrupted my original publishing schedule for the reason I mentioned in my previous blog, I can now revert to it. I would like first of all to do a poem dedicated by Machado to the father of Spanish cultural revival at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century. It is Machado's "A don Francisco Giner de los Rios". He advocated freedom of the human mind and after his dismissal from the University of Madrid in 1975, founded in the following year a school for free learning, the Institución Libre de Enseñanza in Madrid in 1976, emphasizing rationalism, freedom of thought and education in culture. Without him, I don't think we would have the kind of Spanish poets that we have. Giner de los Rios inspired an entire generation of Spanish writers to dig into Spanish roots, to examine what it meant to be Spanish and thereby to recover a little the glory that properly belongs to Spanish culture and to rescue it from the doldrums into which it had fallen and in which it was still languishing since the end of the so-called "Golden Age" of Spanish literature. We would certainly not have Machado, Unamuno, Ortega y Gasset, Buñuel, Salvador Dali, Guillen, Lorca and Borges etc. had he not been around, at least not those authors as we now know them. This poem is a kind of elegy or homage which Machado paid to this great master and revivor of modern Spanish culture. Without further ado, here is the poem and my translations;
A don Francisco Giner de los Rios To master Francisco Giner de los Rios 致法籣西斯高.顯那. 廸洛斯里奥斯
Como se fue el maestro, As the master is gone, 老師已去，
la luz de esta manaña the light this morning 故今晨之光
Me dijo: Van tres días tells me: three days are gone 對我說：已三天
que mi hermano Francisco no trabaja. That my brother Francisco hasn’t worked.我兄法籣西斯高沒工作。
¿Murió?... Sólo sabemos Did he die? We know only 去世？…我們只知
que se nos fue por una senda clara, that he left us for one bright path 他為明路離開我們
diciéndonos: Hacedme telling us: make me 正對我們說：給我行
un duelo de labores y esperanzas. a mourning of works and hopes. 苦工與希望之哀悼。
Sed buenos y no más, sed lo que he sido Be good and nothing else, be what I’ve been要好、沒有其他，如我以往
entre vosotros: alma. amongst you: spirit. 在你們中一樣：靈魂。
Vivid, la vida sigue, Live, life goes on, 活下去，生命仍延續下去，
los muertos mueren y las sombras pasan; the dead dies and shadows pass away; 死的死而陰影亦去；
lleva quien deja y vive el que ha vivido. He who stays will take away and he who has lived will live on 留下的得帶走而活 過 的得活下去。
¡ Yunques, sonad; enudeced, campanas! Anvils, sound your sound; bells, keep quiet! 鉆鐵們，發聲；銅鈐們，停聲！
Y hacia otra luz más pura And towards another purer light 那從工作室來之曙光
partió el hermano de la luz del alba, he left, brother of the light of dawn, 兄弟已走
del sol de los talleres, of the sun of the studios, 向一更純潔之光
el viejo alegre de la vida santa. the happy old man of the holy life. 那神聖生命的快樂老頭。
...Oh, si, llevad, amigos, . ..Oh, yes,, friends, you take .... 噢，是的，朋友，你們要把
su curerpo a la montaña, his body to the mountain, 他的軀體帶上山，
a los azules montes to the blue hills 那些在遼濶德拉馬河上之
del ancho Guardarrama of the wide Guadarrama. 藍色山丘。
Allí hay barrancos hondos Up there are deep ravines 在那兒有青松之深淵
de pinos verdes donde el viento canta. of pines where the wind sings 風在哪高歌。
Su corazón repose His heart reposes 他的心在
bajo una encina casta, under a chaste oak, 一貞潔松樹下安睡，
en tierra de tomillos, donde juegean amidst thymes on the ground, where 在百里香的土壤，在哪
mariposas doradas... play butterflies of gold … 金蝶飛舞…
Allí el maestro un día Up there, the master 在那兒老師
soñaba un nuevo florecer de España. Dreamt of a day when Spain flowers anew. 夢想有天西班牙從新開花。
Baeza 21 febrero 1915 拜爾沙 1915 ニ月サ一日
Here in this poem, we find Machado showing the kind of admiration that he has for the old master, one who is revered by all as a true teacher and whose heart is preoccupied the whole of his life with the revival of Spanish culture. Here we find that to Machado, the triumph of death may not be absolute. Even after a person dies, memories of him as he used to be, may continue to influence the living. Again in this poem, we find Machado talking of the Spanish countryside which in his view may have something of the spiritual embodied in it too. He talks of the pines being “chaste”and the wind "singing” and its golden butterflies "playing". To him, the highlands, the hills and mountains above the Quadarrama River appear as the earthly equivalent of the heavenly paradise of the Christians. He is fully conscious of his duties and the need as a Spanish intellectual to work for the revival of Spanish culture, following the example and dream left behind by his beloved master. He thought of his teacher asking him to continue to live, to work, each in his own way, according to his unique personality but in freedom, and to be faithful to what he was, as he taught them to be all his life and to be productive for the common goal of letting Spanish culture "flower" anew one day.
In this poem, we find various examples of the manner Machado twists the rules of Spanish grammar in new ways. In the line "el viejo alegre de la vida santa", the word "viejo" can be taken either in the sense of someone old, in which case, the word "alegre" will become an adjective qualifying the old man. Aternatively it is also possible to read it the other way round when we treat the word "alegre" not in the conventional way, as an adjective, but as a noun, in which case, the relationship between "viejo" and "alegre" becomes reversed, with the word "viejo" qualifying the word "alegre" used as a noun, instead of using the more usual or conventional form of the noun for "happiness" , the word "alegria". In Spanish, the adjective can be placed either before or after the noun. When it is intended to emphasize more the quality in question, it is placed before the noun, otherwise, it is placed behind the noun. By using the definitive article "el" before the words "viejo alegre", Machado suggests that one of the two words must be a noun, but by using two adjectives instead of an adjective and a noun, he makes it uncertain which is supposed to be the adjective and which the noun. He thereby achieves a very special effect ie. that it does not matter which is to be the adjective and which the noun and that for him at least, the two always go together under any cirucmstances and it matters little how we read it. Also in the last line, "el maestro un dia/soñaba un nuevo florecer de España", Machado again plays with Spanish grammar. The words "un dia" which are placed between "el maestro" and "soñaba" can be interpreted to mean that one day in the "past", the master had dreamt about the flowering of the Spain because "soñaba" is employed in the past imperfect tense (imperfecto) or alternatively, it may be taken to qualify the flowering of Spanish culture in which case, the line would mean that the master dreamt in the "past" generally or by habit that Spanish culture may flower one day in the "future". This is the sense in which I interpreted the poem. But grammatically, both interpretations are theoretically possible. Again, the word "florecer" or "to flower" is normally used as a verb but here, Machado is using it as noun because he uses the words "un nuevo" before "florecer". The indefinite article "un" usually is reserved for use with a noun, not a verb and the adjective "nuevo" also, is used with a noun, not a verb. Here, it is obvious that Machado is using it as a noun. Note that he does not use the more conventional gerund "floreciendo" to convert the verb into a noun! By using a verb instead of the more conventional noun, Machado introduces a sense of forward motion, of dynamism which would otherwise be totally lacking had he used the more ordinary, more conventional but utterly static noun. This is one of the tricks by which Machado jerks our attention to points he wishes us to concentrate on. Here the point is evidently the flowering or blossoming of Spain. To Machado, the fixed categories of nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs have no power to restrain the freedom of the poet to alter them as the poetic need for emphasis arises. They are frequently freely interchanged by him and substituted one for the other for special effects. We are told that before God and the law, everyone is theoretically equal. But as far as language is concerned, some are more equal than others. I am sure that if a high school student were to write the way Machado did, he should prepare himself for some pretty serious finger-knuckling from his teacher!
Impressionante !!!
回覆刪除I am impressed by your in-depth knowledge of the background, motivation and techniques used by Machado in composing this particular poem. Your analysis and the elaboration of the use of words and their arrangements within the poem just shows your thorough understanding and appreciation of Machado's work and the beauty of the Spanish language!
Very well done!
[版主回覆09/02/2010 11:10:00]Thanks for your compliments. I suppose you are familiar with the French language having learned it at the Alliance Française or at college level? If so, would you be interested in translating some French poems into Chinese?
Although the old master died, but his words and thoughts are still influence his followers. The living people are still living in their own way, breathe their own breathing, but all of them have a goal for their life, as the master, to rejoice the beauties of the nature, to recreate a new world for their country, to celebrate the freedom of their lives ...
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/03/2010 10:50:00]Yes, we can and should always fight for freedom: freedom from ignorance and freedom to develop our own unique capacities. We should never be deterred by the thought of death. We just carry on and do whatever it is that we can do, death or no death. And as you say, we can also savor from time to time such beauties of nature as life may throw our way. We can also savor the beauty of the creation of the human imagination. We have cause enough to celebrate life.
I'm none of knowledge in Spanish culture but have known a bit today through your blog. Different language with different character but also beautiful in poem . . . Thanks for introduce Machado and his poem.
回覆刪除[版主回覆09/04/2010 16:26:00]Language is to me a door. It is a door to a another people, to their history, to what is considered important and what is considered valuable by them. It is a window not only to the kind of society they live in but also a window upon what touches them most deeply i.e those thoughts which preoccupy them in the innermost recesses of their minds but even more, the kind of things and concerns that move their hearts, that give them nightmares, the kind of things which give them sleepless nights, that make their heart jump up and down, for fear or for joy. In short, it is a window to their souls! When you learn a language, you do not just learn certain alphabets, certain rules of their combination, certain unfamiliar sounds, certain vocabularies, certain laws of grammar. You learn what it means to be that kind of people in that kind of society faced with certain kinds of problem which may throw light on what it means to be a human being in their world! Poetry is an excellent vehicle of understanding. It enable us to gain access to the soul of a people most directly because poets are more sensitive to what touches the human heart and they are more skilful and more articulate than your man in the street to what is happening and what ought or ought not to be happening. they are thus able to reveal much more effectively what it is that touches them. That is why I like to learn new languages. That is also why I like to read poetry in new languages.
Don't think that only you are ignorant. I too am ignorant. I learn what I learned maybe just a few days or just a few hours ahead of you! I am learning too! I learn as I write. As I said previously, I make use of the blog not to display my knowledge but more as a record of my ignorance, of my learning process and as a structural device to clarify my own thinking upon the topics on which I am writing. The more I write, the more I learn because to write, you need to think, you need to organize your thoughts and consolidate what you have read! If my readers were to obtain any benefit from what I have learned, then I consider that a bonus. I shall then have repaid in part my debt to society and to those authors from whose books I derive what little that I have learned from them. In any event, I am certainly very pleased that you have found what I wrote helpful. Come and learn with me!