B003EEN38U EBOK The Complete Poetry A Bilingual Edition nodrm

by C?sar Vallejo;Stephen Hart;Efrain Kristal

  why they hit me like this so much in my soul This line was originally different, and was then followed by two lines that were crossed out after some rewriting. The original reads:

  at what hour, then, will they come with my portrait? This line originally read:

  at what hour, then, would I desire that they love me?

  At the misericordias, comrade The final stanza originally read:

  "Heat, tired Igo with my gold..." (page 437)

  C'est Septembre attiedi The four lines of French in the poem (the third line of each of the first four stanzas) reads as follows:

  Paris, and 4, and 5 The poem was written on September 4, 5937. Vallejo was forty-five years old at the time. Lines 5 and 6 originally read:

  "One pillar supporting solace ..." (page 439)

  pillarous The Spanish pilaroso appears to be a neologism, based on pilar (pillar), to which an -oso suffix has been added. It acts as an intensifier, leading us to my pillarous.

  I'm going to close my baptismal font This line and the following three originally read:

  hearterially The Spanish corazdnmente is a neologism based on corazdn (heart), with a -mente suffix, generally translated as "-ly" in English. The richness of the neologism (including mente-mind-next to heart) calls for an approximate equivalent in English.

  "Upon meditating on life..." (page 441)

  The first version of this poem, significantly different than the final version, reads:

  Such is death, with ram and all.

  "The tip of man ..." (page 447)

  stirrut In "Village Scene" (in The Black Heralds), the bell and voice context led me to a translation of dondoneo as "dronedongs." Here in a situation that is both abstract and erotic, a different version seems called for. The neologism here strongly evokes a play on contoneo (strut); so by adding an "ir" to strut, (drawing forth stir and rut), I hope to match the strangeness of the original.

  "Oh bottle without wine!..." (page 449)

  frolicful The Spanish jugarino appears to be an adjectival neologism based on jugar (to play), with the suffix -ino. The normal Spanish adjective would have been juguetdn (frolicsome). The ino gives the word an Italian flavor and also a kind of playfulness.

  "He goes running, walking..." (page 451)

  at a cassock pace The line originally read:

  at an inkwell pace, flees

  "My chest wants and does not want ..." (page 455)

  big-browed The Spanish cejon appears to be a neologism based on ceja (eyebrow). Vallejo uses this term in somewhat the same way that cabezdn (headstrong) augments cabeza (head).

  with all my zipper This line originally read

  anguish, yes, with all the nipple

  (nipple here being tetilla, a male nipple).

  "This ..." (page 457)

  This The poem originally began without this one-word line, and its first two lines read:

  It happened between two flowers or two eyelids; I trembled in my sheath, with alkali, with anger,

  of the sky Originally this phrase began a new line that, along with another one, completed the stanza:

  of the sky. (I would have dealt with other themes, but I write them unsung, without my mouth)

  arpoons Vallejo has added an "h" to arpons, leading us to eliminate it from the English word.

  in my sheeth This line originally began with "from fear of death." Vaina (sheath) appears to be intentionally misspelled as vayna.

  with sighs one builds This line and the one following it read:

  (It is said that sighs hold then regressions that do not want to go away;

  I revise my semesters The line originally read:

  the semesters revise me in their album

  "I stayed on to warm up the ink in which I drown . . . " (page 459)

  I stayed on to warm up This line originally read:

  I stayed on to listen to my elbow,

  And still, this very day, at dusk This line and the next one originally read:

  And yet, this very day I digest extremely sacred tenths,

  my happy and doctoral bacillus This line was originally:

  my Gregorian bugles,

  male earth, sun and male moon Vallejo changes the normal endings of the words tierra (earth) and tuna (moon) to make them unusual masculine nouns. The word sot is already a masculine noun in Spanish.

  tombal years, infinitary liters The last two lines went through several changes. Vallejo at first wrote:

  port years, infinitary liters, ink, pen, and pens

  He then crossed out "pens," and wrote "adobes"; then he crossed out "adobes," and wrote "bricks and spectacles," to finally cross out "spectacles" and write "forgiveness."

  "The peace, the wausp, the shoe heel, the slopes ..." (page 461)

  wausp The Spanish word avispa (wasp) appears to have been intentionally misspelled as abispa, once again a distortion that registers visually but not as sound. The point of this may be, in Vallejo's mind, to point up the arbitrariness of spelling in writing what is heard-and too, perhaps, to reinforce a feeling that language itself is highly unstable, especially in charged meditation, and may, like Dali's melting watches, give way at any moment.

  "Racked, Solomonic, decent ..." (page 463)

  decent Instead of decente, Vallejo originally wrote impelente (impelling).

  "Well? Does the pallid metalloid heal you?" (page 465)

  your soul bends passionately to see you This line and the following one were originally:

  your soul bends passionately to the bone of iron on which your temple marks time.

  "From sheer heat I am cold. . . " (page 467)

  and the voice plays its caterpillar This line originally read:

  inexistent, with its soul,

  "Confidence in glasses, not in the eye ..." (page 469)

  not Vallejo puts an accent mark over the "o" in no in lines i, 3, and 5. We have italicized the corresponding words in English.

  "Speaking of kindling..." (page 471)

  TITLE In many editions of Vallejo's poetry, this poem is entitled "Terremoto" (Earthquake). On the facsimile page of the Moncloa edition, however, "Terremoto" is handwritten a couple of lines below the poem and underlined. The RGV edition reproduces this presentation.

  Hermeregildo Hermeregildo might be a misspelling of the Visigoth Saint Hermenegildo (A.D. 564- 586), and Atanacios a misspelling of the Father of the Church Saint Atanasio (A.D. 295-373)• Given the presence of the words crown and kingdom in the poem, Luis and Isabel may be monarchs. There is more conjecture about these figures in the RGV edition, pp. 621-22.

  "Mocked, acclimated to goodness..." (page 473)

  hurent the Spanish urente appears to be intentionally misspelled as hurente. Vallejo used the word, spelled conventionally, in Trilce XVII.

  to groan with the whole ax This phrase originally read:

  or to delouse oneself

  leap from the flank This line and the following one originally read:

  leap from the margin, from the daily margin of my mule that walks;

  `Alfonso: you are looking at me ..." (page 475)

  your last act's turn on the wire The entire line originally read:

  and on the wire your last act to dawn,

  du vin, du lait, comptant les sous "wine, milk, counting the pennies."

  Alfonso Alfonso de Silva was a Peruvian musician whom Vallejo met in Paris in 1923. Along with this extraordinary elegy, Vallejo appears to have written a second poem referring to the death of Silva, "Piensan los viejos asnos" (Old Asses Thinking).

  beloved being The Spanish amado ser (beloved being) and amado estar (beloved to be) cannot be fully translated (without interpretation, which would distort the meaning of the original), since ser ("to be," as a verb) is not the same thing as estar ("to be," as a verb). If the two verbs are matched, the meaning distinction in English is more or less "to be" versus "to exist," since ser is less time-bound and temporary than estar. However, Vallejo has turned ser into a noun by placing an acce
nt over the "e," and in doing so seems to be stressing that which is or is idealized to always be, versus that which has potential to be. To translate estar here as "existence" would be to lose the noun-verb relationship clearly established in Vallejo's handling of the Spanish. Notice that the "double tomb" referred to in line 34 is merely a "tomb" with Silva's "being," but a "mahogany one" with his "to be," which emphasizes the abstractness associated with ser and the materiality associated with estar.

  boite de nuit French for "cabaret" here.

  in the opening of the double tomb This line originally read:

  in the opening of that horrible tomb without a corpse,

  Stumble between Two Stars (page 479)

  the one who clothes a door Vallejo apparently intentionally misspelled coge (closes) as coje.

  Farewell Remembering a Good-bye (page 483)

  and, a last glass of smoke This line and the following one originally read:

  and, a last glass of blood, on its dramatic role, there is, and until the end, the practical dream of the soul

  "Chances are, I'm another ..." (page 485)

  But somebody else's sweat This line originally read:

  But somebody else's sweat, but my metaphysical serum

  Wedding March (page 489)

  Trri.E This sonnet was originally called " Batallon de dioses" (Battalion of Gods). A second title, handwritten, was also rejected: "Sequito y epitalamio" (Retinue and Epithalamion).

  I will ignite, my ant will ignite The last two tercets originally read:

  I will ignite, my ant will ignite, my key will ignite, my scrape in which the uneven cry won its cause.

  Then, making from the atom a wheat spike, I will ignite my sickles at her base and the battalion will say: Go on! Let him go on!

  Intensity and Height (page 495)

  coughv The Spanish toz appears to be a neologism, combining tos (cough) with voz (voice).

  Guitar (page 497)

  and the mendacious eighth This line and the one following it (crossed out and not reworked) originally read:

  and the mendacious eighth, suffers from an algebra more mendacious, more base, more metal.

  Added by hand to this crossed-out seventh line (and then also crossed out) was:

  rope, cobra and boa.

  and to be here This entire line originally read:

  and to be here, between two treacherous days?

  pintle We have been unable to find the word pona in any Spanish dictionary. According to Barcia, the word exists in the Spanish Galician language and was perhaps used as a euphemism by Vallejo's grandfathers. Its equivalence in Spanish is pona, which literally means a "strong stick' but figuratively, and when spoken as an exclamation, is a polite euphemism for polla (cock, slang for penis). Mala pona also suggests a parallelism with common Spanish expressions like mala rona (awful mange) and mala sang (terrible hatred). For the 1978 edition of The Complete Posthumous Poetry, Barcia and I decided on "boner" as a translation, but today this strikes me as too direct and not obscure enough. So I have chosen pintle, literally, a "pivot pin," which is also obsolete and vulgar slang for penis. The speaker in this stanza seems to have been responding to sexual frustration with considerable ambivalence, so I hope that the play on "hard left" (zurdazo)-to be left with an erection as well as to be hit with a left-handed blow-in the following line will help reinforce Vallejo's meaning in English.

  crying the days and singing the months after this line, the last one in the poem, Vallejo originally wrote:

  and added to the females of the dead.

  "Hear your mass, your comet . . . " (page 499)

  Hear your mass The first two lines originally read:

  Hear your finger, listen to it: don't moan through your hand;

  in the double-quick step of a skeleton This line originally read:

  carmine being, a being in the double-quick step of a skeleton.

  "What's got into me ..." (page 501)

  sob earth and hang the horizon This line and the rest of the poem originally read:

  sob earth and excel in Physics? What's gotten into me, that I cry and do not cry, that I laugh and do not laugh? Pity for me! pity for you! pity for him!

  Anniversary (page 503)

  one Refers to the number here, not a person.

  and what a gathering of silly friends This line and the following one originally read:

  and what a Great Charmer and what a nest of tigers in the lamp!

  Two Yearning Children (page 509)

  No. Their ankles have no size Vallejo's original first stanza read:

  No. The cock's aggressive jaw has no size nor is it sharpened on its ankle; it is not its toothed spur, that jabs their two cheeks. It's just life, with robe and yoke.

  No. Their guffaw has no plural This line originally read:

  No. Their erectile exodus has no plural,

  I know it, I intuit it This entire line and the two following it originally read:

  I know it, I intuit it a Cartesian, moribund, alive, in short, magnificent. Nothing is over the capote of the inkwell,

  a hell of a tough thing A Peruvianism, based on cosa bravisima (literally, "a very wild thing"). abstract reach, fortunate, in fact This entire line and the two following it originally read:

  abstract reach, fortunate and anatomical, nevertheless, glacial and snatched away, from the flame; motor of the depth, restrainer of form.

  The Nine Monsters (page 513)

  AND The Spanish I with which the poem opens, appears to be an intentional misspelling of Y (And). The two letters are pronounced the same way in Spanish. After this line, Vallejo originally wrote the following line, then crossed it out:

  I have already said this to Dona Genoveva,

  its own mud and its own solid cloud The typewritten version ends here and is dated "3 Nov. 1937." The rest of the poem is handwritten and was added after this date (which was then crossed out).

  and this ear sounds nine strokes Beginning with this line, the number nine is repeated six times in this and the next five lines. Originally, Vallejo used seven in each place.

  arduent The Spanish ardio appears to be a metaplasm derived from ardiente (ardent) and arduo (arduous). It is possible that the word ardido (intrepid, angry) also figures into the construction. It is also possible that Vallejo meant arido (arid).

  'A man walks by with a baguette..." (page 517)

  Am I going to write, after that, about my double? This line originally read:

  Am I going to write, after that, of the deep Self?

  Will it ever be possible to allude to the deep Self? This line originally read:

  Will it ever be possible to allude to the durable Self?

  the non-self It would be possible to translate Vallejo's Yo (line io) and yd (in this line) as "Ego" and "ego." Since Vallejo criticizes psychoanalysis in line 4, I have not chosen to use these terms.

  "Today a splinter has gotten into her ..." (page 519)

  afflixion An intentional misspelling of afliccion (affliction), possibly to evoke crucifixion. This misspelling is repeated in line 32.

  the smoke of her dogma Instead of humareda (a great deal of smoke), Vallejo wrote humillo (a thin smoke or vapor) in the original version. To avoid having to write "a great deal of smoke" in English, we have translated humareda as "smoke" and salid (came out) as "poured out."

  Immensity pursues her This line originally read:

  Immensity pillages her

  "There are days, there comes to me ..." (page 521)

  to wash the cripple's foot After this line, the following one has been crossed out:

  the foot that he lacks,

  to help whoever smiles laugh After this line, the following one has been crossed out:

  to help the elderly ones chew,

  Clapping and Guitar (page 525)

  teneblearic See note on Trilce XI.

  The Soul That Suffered from Being Its Body (page 529)

  diaphanous The word diafano replaced carbon in th
e line.

  miserable ape After this line, the following two originally read:

  barefoot, ashen cock; Darwin's little man, bailiff who urinates on me, most atrocious microbe.

  you question your navel This line was originally a little different from the final version and was followed by two lines later crossed out:

  and you question your navel valiantly: where? how? and your penis; with impetuosity: for how long?

  "He who will come has just passed . . . " (page 535)

  afixion The Spanish aflixidn is an intentional misspelling of afliccion (affliction), possibly to evoke the word crucifixion.

  Has just passed without having come After this last line in the final version, Vallejo had originally written two more lines, which were crossed out:

  he will not forget me, in the past, when he returns, to remember me, in the future, when he parts.

  "Were the evil one to come . . . " (page 537)

  Were snow to be in excess This line originally read:

  Were the notion of fire to lack snow,

  Were dung to lack an excavation nearby This line originally read:

  Were two to lack eleven for thirteen,

  and the sky an atmosphere This line originally read:

  and the difficult an easy, and iron gold ...

  with what to be poor The original version of this line was corrected and the one following it crossed out:

  with what to be poor, if I have nothing? and furthermore, with whom?

  I have no mouth After this line, the last one in the final version, the poem originally ended with:

  I'm not exaggerating.

  "Let the millionaire walk naked ..." (page 539)

  stark naked In Spanish en pelo (bareback) is normally used to describe riding a horse bareback. In Peru, when used in reference to a person, it suggests stark nakedness.

  deepage The Spanish hondor is a neologism, based on hondo (deep) or hondura (depth). The 'r' appears to have been added in the same spirit that negro (black) has been transformed into negror (blackness). Since the addition of -ness to deep would not result in a neologism, I have taken a different route.

  "Contrary to the mountain birds ..." (page 543)