B003EEN38U EBOK The Complete Poetry A Bilingual Edition nodrm
Page 9
The Miserable Supper (page 123)
kick our poor sponge Estiraremos la rodilla (literally, will we stretch our knees) is a play on estirar la pata (literally, "to stretch the foot" but in slang meaning "to kick the bucket," die). I have adjusted the English accordingly.
Muleteers (page 149)
"paca-paca" A species of lechuza (screech owl).
oxidental The Spanish oxidentales is a neologism that appears to be a fusion of occidentales (occidental) and dxido (oxide). Vallejo repeats it in Trilce LXIII.
Januneid (page 157)
Trri.E The Spanish "Enereida" is a neologism fusing enero (January) with Eneida (Aeneid). The English version matches it.
Epexegesis (page 161)
TrrLE Thought by some scholars to be a neologism, the word espergesia actually exists in Spanish. It is a rhetorical term that means "using a surplus of words for a fuller and more embellished declaration." This definition is to be found in the Diccionario de autoridades de la Real Academia Espanola, in the first edition, 1732. The word I have chosen in an attempt to match it in English is defined as follows (in Webster's New International Dictionary): "Provision of additional explanation or definition; that which is added for elucidation."
TRILCE
The earliest poems in Trilce were probably written before Vallejo's first book, Los heraldos negros, appeared. The only source for the dates of individual poems (the book is not organized chronologically, and Vallejo himself offers no information in this regard) is Juan Espejo Asturrizaga's memoir of Vallejo's Peruvian years, Cesar Vallejo: Itinerario del hombre. Americo Ferrari, Juan Larrea, and Andre Coyne have all disputed some of them, but in spite of some guesswork and certain questionable date-event associations, Espejo's dates are valuable. He was in close association with Vallejo during the years of Trilce's composition; he occasionally heard a poem read shortly after it was written, and in one case he actually watched Vallejo write a first draft. Trilce was published in lima in 1922, with a solid introduction by Antenor Orrego. As Vallejo later commented, the book immediately fell into a void-there was no public response. It is worth noting that 1922 also saw the publication of The Wasteland and Ulysses, as well as the comple tion of The Duino Elegies-in short, it was a banner year for a modernism, which in the works by Eliot, Joyce, and Vallejo was already on the cusp of postmodernism.
According to Espejo (112-14), forty-eight of the seventy-seven poems were written in E9E9. Twenty-one were written in the following years:
The remaining eight poems (I, II, XVIII, XX, XLI, L, LVIII, LXI) were supposedly written during Vallejo's incarceration in the Central Trujillo Jail, between November 7, E92o, and February 26, E92E. Espejo also mentions that while in jail, Vallejo rewrote and radically transformed poems previously written between March igi9 and April E92o (99). Thus it may be that Vallejo worked out the poetics of Trilce during his imprisonment.
I have not annotated all irregular or "difficult words." While I have commented on words I consider neologisms, I have not noted all words in which one letter is replaced with another in such a way that only the appearance (and not the sound) is slightly changed. I have simply made a corresponding change in the English word to alter its appearance but not change its sound. When the misspelling in Spanish evokes a second word, I have commented. While for the most part I have stayed clear of interpretations, preferring to let the reader deal with Trilce's complexities, when it seemed appropriate, I have attempted to let the reader in on the thought process that led to certain translational decisions. For more extensive commentary, the reader is referred to the RGV edition (or the Ferrari Coleccidn archives edition, which has a useful glossary to all of Vallejo's poetry).
For biographical tie-ins, I refer the reader to Espejo-with the warning that in spite of his clearly comradely intentions, Espejo often uses fairly simple biographical information to explain poems that to varying degrees have consumed their referentiality in their writing.
Trr1 Trilce's title is a neologism and the gate guardian of the book. This masterpiece of international modernism has its perilous, heroic predicament embedded in its title, and sewn, like filaments, into the work itself.
The story goes that Vallejo had originally called the book " Craneos de bronce" (Bronze Skulls-possibly with indigenous skin coloring in mind), and had planned to sign it with the pseudonym "Cesar Peru" (perhaps in the spirit of Anatole France). At the last minute, friends convinced him that the pseudonym was a mistake; however, the first pages had already been printed, and the author was told that the cost to reprint them would come to three libras, a small amount, but money he really didn't have. His friend Espejo Asturrizaga recalls: "[Vallejo] repeated `tres, tres, tres,' several times, with that insistence he had for repeating and deforming words, `tressss, trissss, trieesss, tril, trilssss.' He got tongue-tied, and in the process `trilsssce' came out ... `trilce? trilce?' He paused for a moment and then exclaimed: 'OK, it will carry my own name, but the book itself will be called Trilce"' (ion).
Other commentators have conjectured that the word was formed by fusing triste (sad) and dulce (sweet). While there is no reason to think that Espejo made up this story, I believe that the poems contain internal evidence attesting to the neologism's conceptual status, which involves the meaning of the book as a whole and goes considerably beyond an impulsive deformation of words. In his memoir, Espejo constantly offers anecdotes and recollections as explanations for the meaning of poems that remain utterly enigmatic, in spite of his commentary. His anecdote explaining the origin of the word trilce is an example.
A more thoughtful response to the formation of the word was made by Henry Gifford, who, with Charles Tomlinson, translated a dozen or so poems from Trilce in the early 1970s- Gifford writes: "For `trilce,' Vallejo compounded two numerals, trillon and trece, a trillion and thirteen. A truncated trillion is held prisoner by the ill-chanced and broken thirteen. Or, perhaps, like the arm of the Venus de Milo in another Trilce poem, it should be seen rather as uncreated, subject to the `perennial imperfection' of life" (Ten Versions from Trilce by Cesar Vallejo, trans. Charles Tomlinson and Henry Gifford [Cerrillos, NM: San Marcos Press, 19701, introduction).
Although Gifford does not support his numerical observation with evidence from Trilce, the confirmation is there. In an early version of XXXII, which appeared in a Lima newspaper in ig2i, the last line read:
Tres trillones y trece calories! ...
It is possible that at some stage of revising/completing the book, Vallejo spotted the potentially new word in this line, and, pulling the tril from the left side of trillones, and the ce from the right side of trece, coined trilce. And while the tri- and the tre- of the two key words signify "three," it is fascinating to notice what happens to that "three," and to the zeros, when tones and tre are shed: tril signifies a one, followed by an ambiguous number of zeros (since before it can complete the eighteen zeros found in the Spanish trillon-which in American English means "quintillion," not "trillion"-it is truncated and hooked onto ce). And by eliminating the tre from trece, Vallejo has made use of only the latter part of the word, which signifies "ten" (like the English "teen" in "thirteen"). Thus written out as a number, trilce looks something like this:
While the word evokes threeness, there is no actual three in it. Instead, we have a ghost of threeness, and a mass of indefinite zeros, with the one of trillion bounding the left, and the one of ten nearly bounding the right-a word, in effect, without interior determination.
So how might we contextualize trilce? In XVI, we find that the poet seeks to "galloon [himself] with zeros on the left" (see the note on this line for an alternative reading). Since the greatest part of the zero mass is on the "tril" (left) side of trilce, such a line suggests that Vallejo may have been aware of the title idea-if he had not already coined the word itselfwhen XVI was written (Espejo claims that this poem was written in igi9).
In XXXVIII we are informed that a mysterious crystal "has passed from animal,/and now goes off to form left
s, /the new Minuses." Again, "the new Minuses," especially of or on the "left," could very well refer to the nebulous zero mass of trilce.
The word left first appears in the book at the end of the very cryptic poem IV: "Heat. Ovary. Almost transparency. /All has been cried out. Has been completely waked/in deep left." While en plena izquierda can be translated a number of ways (in full left, in the heart of left, right in the left, at the height of left, etc.), contextual considerations back up this translation of the phrase. This is not a high or a full left, but a deep one, with an indefinite extension that is negative, of the underworld, as opposed to positive, of height or heaven.
At the end of XXXVI-Vallejo's ars poetica-readers are commanded to "Make way for the new odd number/potent with orphanhood!" Surely this new odd number is trilce itself, word and title, Vallejo's own Via Negativa, with orphanhood (suggested by the ones) stranded in a Milky Way of zeros, or, to turn the phrase slightly, trilce as an orphan is potent because it is self-conceived, belonging to the world of poetry, not to the world of numbers that we use to block out time.
I (page 167)
Who's making all that racket Espejo writes that while Vallejo was in the Trujillo jail, inmates were taken outside to use the latrines four times a day. There the guards would coarsely urge them to hurry up (123). The first two stanzas of poem L indicate that this is not gratuitous but quite pertinent information. Looking at the first stanza of this opening poem, it would seem that the racket-makers are the wardens and guards, and that the "islands" are the inmates' turds. For a study of the construction of this poem, see "A Translational Understanding of Trilce #I" in my collection of essays Companion Spider (Wesleyan University Press, 2002).
guano The dried excrement of seabirds, found mixed with bones and feathers on certain Peruvian coastal islands, was widely used as fertilizer. Guano workers visited the mainland ports and cities on their days off, and Vallejo would have been able to observe them not just in Trujillo but also in the vicinity of the jail.
fecapital Based on tesoro (treasure), the word tesdrea has provoked differing interpretations. Giovanni Meo Zilio identifies it as a neologism incorporating the latter part of estercdrea (excrement), influenced by the guano references in the stanza (as well as by the "islands" in the first).
ponk The Spanish calabrina, meaning "an intolerable, intense stench," is archaic. If I had used the word stench, the translation would reflect the common Spanish word hedor-thus the necessity, in such cases, of finding archaic English words (or expressions) for their Spanish equivalents.
muzziled The Spanish abozaleada is based on abozalada (muzzled), with an -ear infinitive ending substituted for the standard -ar ending. Meo Zilio considers the word to be a neologism.
II (page 16q)
song on With cancionan, the noun cancidn (song) is forced to function as the verb cantar (to sing).
What call all that stands our end on hAIR? In the phrase Que se llama cuanto heriza nos? heriza appears to be a fusion of two verbs: eriza (bristles) and hiere (wounds). Larrea proposes that this neologism is based on horripilar (to horripilate, to make one's hair bristle or stand on end). Since there is no way to fuse bristles and wounds, and since the rare Latinate horripilate misses the idiomatic playfulness of the Spanish, I have taken a slightly different route by playing with the notion of hair standing on end. By reversing the verb and its object, Vallejo redirects the emphasis, which my inversion attempts to pick up, as it also redirects the meaning of end. At the same time, spotting the air in hair, I lift it up, as Vallejo might have, had he seen its equivalent in Spanish. This sense of seizing words by their hair, as it were, and pulling them this way and that, is endemic to Trilce. At the beginning of the line, the replacement of Como se llama with Que se llama is regional and idiomatic.
III (page 171)
Santiago The old, blind bell ringer of Santiago de Chuco, Vallejo's birthplace and hometown.
Aguedita, Nativa, Miguel Vallejo's two youngest sisters and his youngest brother.
souls in torment The word penas used in this way is a Peruvianism.
IV (page 173)
trifurca The Spanish trifurcas is a neologism based on trifurcado (trifurcate).
embitternessed The Spanish amargurada is a neologism derived from amargura (bitterness) and amargar (to embitter).
aljid Vallejo has substituted a "j" for the "g" in algidas (algid), changing the appearance of the word but not its sound. This sort of substitution occurs regularly throughout Trilce. spiritive The word espirativa is derived from adding the suffix -iva (-ive) to espiritu (spirit).
nuthin to ddo about it The phrase que la bamos a hhazer is a sound and syntactic distortion of clue vamos a hacer con ella (nothing to do about it).
V (page 175)
rhinestoned A neologism, the Spanish avaloriados is probably based on avalorar (to value) and abalorio (glass beads, or any showy article of little value).
glise Probably based on the French glisser (to glide). An evocation ofglisse (in ballet, a glissade, or glide).
VI (page 177)
Otilian The Spanish otilinas is based on the first name of Vallejo's lover in Lima (i9i8- i9i9), Otilia Villanueva. When she became pregnant and Vallejo refused to marry her, Otilia was sent away by her family to San Mateo de Surco in the sierra, and the poet lost his position as director of the Instituto Nacional, a private school with which Otilia's family was involved.
lustred An old Spanish word, fratesadas means "to give a luster to hose after washing them," using a glass or wooden trowel-shaped object.
tawny berry of handiwork According to the 1884 Diccionario de peruanismos by Juan de Arena (republished in Biblioteca de cultura peruana, no. io [Paris: Desdee, de Brouwer, 1938]), the capuli (Prunus capuli) is a bush that yields a flower and a dark-yellow berry, much appreciated throughout the Peruvian sierra for its delicate, ornamental beauty. Americo Ferrari comments that color capuli is similar to moreno (dark complexioned, swarthy) and trigueno (olive skinned: see line 14 in the same poem). Capulin appears to be the English equivalent; Webster's, however, defines it as a Mexican tree with a red berry. In regard to the word obreria, Vallejo's usage appears to be idiomatic and to refer solely to Otilia as an obrera (worker) that is, a laundress. He implies in this line that Otilia is the fruit of her own labor.
VII (page 179)
barret The barreta is probably a miners' tool, a small straight bar with one sharpened end, used like a crowbar. Larrea wrote to Barcia that he was under the impression that the word was also Santiago de Chuco slang for "penis." Gonzalez Vigil writes that it evokes the legendary "golden staff' of Manco Capac that, on disappearing into the earth, led him to found at that very spot the city of Cuzco. The word reoccurs in "Telluric and Magnetic" in Human Poems.
VIII (page 181)
saltatory From the Greek hyphallomai, hifalto is a rare, ornithological word for birds that walk by hopping. Dr. Carlos Senar of the Zoological Museum of Barcelona, who researched this word for me, writes that "it has a taxonomic meaning and so can be used to refer to all birds of the Order Passeriformes" (personal correspondence, March 19go). The largest order of birds, Passeriformes includes over seven thousand species and subspecies. Ferrari wrote to me that he understands el hifalto poder as "the power that moves via hops," stressing the idea of discontinuity or leaps. I disagree with several critics and translators who believe that the word is a neologism based on hyo (son) and falto (lack). Saltatory, from the Latin saltare, "to leap," is defined in Webster's Second New International Dictionary as "proceeding or taking place by a leap or leaps, rather than by gradual, orderly, continuous steps or transitions." On one level, the word sounds the discontinuous, dissonant poetics of Trilce.
IX (page 183)
Espejo offers an anecdote that he considers pertinent to this poem (85). In late igi9, in lima, Vallejo was summoned to a darkened room where a mysterious young woman passionately offered herself to him. He had no idea who she was. The two met again over the course of sev
eral days, and although they conversed and shared confidences, she never revealed her identity. Espejo also explains that according to Vallejo, the substitution of "v" for "b" in several words, as well as its repetition, graphically emphasizes the word vulva. As in the case of the heriza problem in II, it was not possible to find a direct match for this variation, so I have attempted to register the sound and wordplay in a slightly different way.
all readies truth The first two words in the Spanish, todo avia verdad, play off todavia (yet, still, nevertheless), while the second word sounds like a past tense of haber (to have).
I transasfixiate Envetarse is a rare verb that has at least two meanings, both of which may be operative here with enveto. In Ecuador, it means "to dominate"; according to Eduardo NealeSilva, Vallejo uses it in this sense in a 1927 article, "El arco del triunfo" (The arch of triumph), in speaking of unfornido mozo en actitud de envetar un toro (a husky youth getting ready to subdue a bull). The use of toroso (torose, taurine) in the third stanza supports this meaning. However, in Peru the word also means "to become asphyxiated by the poisonous emanations from the veins of a mine," and given the context of "Bolivarian asperities" (rugged landscapes in which mines might very well exist), this meaning also seems pertinent (though I notice that by using the verb actively, Vallejo reverses its passive usage as a mining term).
X (page 185)
we saddleframe The noun arzon (saddle frame) forced to function as a verb in arzonamos.
and seated enpeacocks tranquil nosegays (y sentado empavona tranquilas misturas) According to the Diccionario de peruanismos, a mistura is a small bouquet of local, fragrant flowers, such as frangipani, jasmine, passion flower, gillyflower, including for additional ornamentation such berries as capuli-see note on VI. In this setting, the standard meaning of empavonar ("to blue steel," or, in Latin America, "to grease") seems most inappropriate. In Central America, empavonar can mean the same as emperifollarse (to doll oneself up), a meaning that draws on pavdn (peacock) and pavonear (to strut). I interpret the line to mean that the patient is arranging nosegays in a vain way that evokes a peacock display.