A don Miguel de Unamuno 致米高 烏納穆諾先生

Yesterday, I introduced Machado's homage to Giner de los Rios, whom some call the father of 20th century Spanish cultural revival. Today, I shall introduce another contemporary of Machado. Machado reveres him as teacher. But he is also one of Machado's closest friends with whom he corresponded frequently. He is Miguel de Unamuno y Jugo (1964-1936), a great essayist, novelist, poet, playwright and philosopher. He came from a special region in the north of Spain called the Basque country. The Basque originally came from northern western Europe. Its people has its own language, different from Spanish. It also has its own cultural traditions. The people of Basque are fiercely proud of its own ancestry and even now, there are still radicals who want nothing more than to be independent from the Spanish central Government. They are called Basque separatists. Even at the time of Machado, shortly before General Franco and his Falangists came into power after the Spanish Civil War of 1936, they were already advocating separation from Spain and ironically, it was precisely because of their call for independence that struck fear into the hearts of the conservative forces in Spain and which indirectly spurred further support for Franco by the nationalist forces.  

A don Miguel de Unamuno        To don Miguel Unamuno                致米高 烏納穆諾先生

Este donqujotesco                       This donquixotesque                                     這唐德柯吉人     

don Miguel de Unamuno, fuerte vasco,   don Miguel de Unamuno, a strong Basque,米高烏納穆諾先生,

                                                                                                                     一堅强巴斯克人 

lleva el arnés grotesco         carrying the grotesque harness          配上那荒唐的童裝韁繩     

y el irrisorio casco                and a ridiculous helmet                       與那優良曼查鎮民的可笑頭盔。

del buen manchego. Don Miguel camina,  of good Manchian. Don Miguel is afoot  米高先生正上路，,

jinete de quimérica montura,         rider with chimerical saddle    喀邁拉式馬鞍上的策馬者

metiendo espuela de oro a su locura, driving his golden spur into his madness,正以金靴刺向其瘋狂

           刺去

sin miedo de la lengua que maisia.  without fear of the slandering tongue. 無懼詆毀的舌頭。

 

A un pueblo de arrieros,             To a country town of muleteers,                 他正向滿是驢夫，投機者，

Lechuzos y tahúres y logreros    speculators, gamblers and innkeepers    賭徒，客棧店東的鄉鎮  

dicta lecciones de Caballeria.   he is dictating lessons in horsemanship.逐句講解馬術課文。           

Y el alma desalmada de su raza,  And the heartless soul of his race,          他族裔冷漠無情的靈魂，

que bajo el golpe de su férrea maza  which under the blow of its iron hammer   在鐵樁錘的打擊下

Aún durme, peude que depierte un dia. is still slumbering, can wake up one day. 雖仍熟睡，總有一天

會醒過來

 

Quiere enseñar el ceño de la duda,    He wants to teach the scowl of doubt,           他欲教策騎者

antes de que cablgue, el caballero;    before the horseman rides;                    在策騎前疑惑的雛眉蹙額；        

Cual neuvo Hamlet, a mirar desnuda Such a new Hamlet, to see nakedly,        猶若一新哈姆雷特，看清

cerca del corazón la hoja de acero.    close to the heart, the blade of steel. 心房邊赤裸的精鋼刀片。

 

Tiene el aliento de una estirpe fuerte  He breathes of a strong stock            他擁有那堅强血統的呼吸

que soño más allá de sus hogares,    which dreams beyond their homes,     他夢想遠超他們的家園      

y que el oro buscó tras de los mares.  which the gold met beneath the seas.在海洋下黃金曾與它碰頭。

Quiere ser foundor, y dice: Creo; He wants to be the founder and say: I believe; 他欲作奠基者而說：我信

Dios y adelanate el anima española.   God and the spirit of Spain advance ...神，西班牙精神，前進。  

Y es tan bueno y mejor que fue Loyola: And it’s so good, better than Loylola was這多好，比羅耀拉

更好

Sabe a Jesús y escuple al fariseo.  He understands Jesus and cough out the pharisees. 他了解耶穌而

                                                                                                     咳出法利塞人。

In this poem, which Machado included in one of his poetry collections called Campos de Castille (1907-1917), he pays homage to his mentor and friend. Unamuno is one of the most perceptive Spanish thinkers and poets. He understood the Spanish spirit like no other. One of his most famous works is a book of essays called Del Sentimiento Trágico de la Vida (The Tragic Sense of Life) which anaylzed the spirit of paradox in the deepest part of the Spanish soul. The Spaniards are very principled but at the same time, they are filled with passion for life. However, they have never really satisfactorily resolved the conflict between their reason and their feelings, their ideal and the need to accomodate their ideal with the reality of having to deal with the trivialities of daily living. Hence they were able to produce such a classic as the massive episodic novel of adventures called Don Quixote by Cervantes.  Don Quixote's adventures are entertaining. But they are also ridiculous. Nonetheless we cannot but feel that somehow, in some small corner of our heart, that he is quite noble. Even as we laugh at the foibles of the knight errant charging forth in the real world against the windwills whom he thought to be monsters of the romantic tales he read whilst he was young and fighting his duels with chimerical monsters, the code of honour to which he adhered has already gone out of fashion by the time he decided to become a modern day knight errant and to fight in defence and in the hope of winning the heart of his dream lady Dulcinea, who in reality is no more than the humble and in no way remarkable daughter of a drab Spanish country innkeeper! His ideal and the values he champions exist nowhere except in the mind of its protagonist, an old decrepit gentleman of no particular talent but with an unusually active imagination. Yet his humdrum life has been completely transformed by the magic of his mind. Even the pragmatic and cynical Sancho Panza was touched sufficiently to follow him half willingly. That in part is the Spanish spirit, a stubborn refusal to bow to reality. And that too is part of its eternal appeal. Don Quixote is Spain itself. His tragi-comedy is the tragi-comedy of Spain. So is the absurdity of its outmoded ideals. Yet somehow we cannot but feel a wee bit of sympathy for the foibles of this man no longer in tune with the spirit of his own age. If he is an old fool, he is a lovable old fool!

In this poem, Machado compares Unamuno to Don Quixote, the spirit of Spain. Unamuno supported ideals of freedom and the defeated Republican cause. All his life, like Don Quixote supporting the lost cause of knightly honour, he ceaselessly tried to teach the Spaniards the great lesson they could and should learn from the past and never to forget that tragic sense of life, in his philosophical writings, in his novels and in his poetry. Mochado thinks that there are the two types of horse riders, those who know how to ride and those who don't.  He wants to teach the people how to ride their  horses along the path of their lives. Unamuno cautions doubt and skepticism for the horse riders: whether they be those in power and those not. He wants to bring the spirit of Don Quixote down to earth, back to reality, like a good Sancho Panza. But he is preaching to illiterates, speculators, gamblers, suffering under the policies of General Franco who promised to restore the former dynastic glory of Spain: the hammer that he was talking about in the poem who neither had the time nor the interest to listen to him. He warns them of the sharp edge of the blade close to the people's hearts. In a way, Unamnuno is another Don Quixote: he still thinks that it is possible for Spain to wake up!

The gold that Machado says is hidden under the seas in the poem is not the gold of Franco's false promises, but the gold of rationality, sense of proportion, caution and a healthy dose of skepticism! He wants Spain not just to listen to the counsel of its oppressive political, military and religious leaders but to listen to the voice of rationalism and of freedom. But this ironically seems just another Quixotic dream!

Not only does he make use of the national symbol of Don Quixote, Mochado also makes use of the image of Jesus whom everyone in Spain knows intimately. Yet the Jesus that he is talking about is talked about in ambivalent terms. On the one hand, he knew what was good for the people but on the other hand, Jesus was surrounded by pharisees who eventually took his life. The Loyala that he talked about in the poem is the founder of the Jesuit order who fought militantly against the Protestants in the counter Reformation and which instead of continuing to be a progressive and reforming force, has deteriorated into a force against progress. Have they become the pharisees that he was talking about?