Page 25 Flashcards
Alguna vez pasó años enteros sin cruzar el umbral de su casa.
Sometimes there passed entire years without [Dickinson] crossing the threshold of her house.
En una carta escribe: “Usted pregunta por mis compañeros. Colinas, señor, la puesta del sol y un perro de mi mismo tamaño, que me compró mi padre. Valen más que seres humanos, porque saben pero no cuentan y el ruido del remanso a mediodía es más sonoro que mi piano.”
In a letter she writes: “You ask about my companions. Hills, sir, the sundown and a dog of my same size, which my father bought me. They are worth more than human beings, because they know but do not tell and the noise of the pool at noon is more sonorous than my piano.”
En otra: “No tengo retrato, pero soy menuda como un pájaro y mi pelo brilla como las castañas, y mis ojos son del color del jerez que el invitado deja en la copa.”
In another: “I have no portrait, but I am as small as a bird and my hair shines like chestnuts, and my eyes are the color of the sherry that the guest leaves in the cup.”
Pese a diferencias notorias, la obra poética de Emerson y la de Emily Dickinson son afines.
Despite notable differences, the poetic work of Emerson and that of Emily Dickinson are affinial [related].
No debemos atribuir esa afinidad a un influjo directo del primero sino al compartido ambiente puritano.
We should not attribute that affinity to a direct influence of the first [Emerson] but to the shared Puritan atmosphere.
Ambos fueron poetas intelectuales, ambos desdeñaron o descuidaron la dulzura del verso.
Both [Emerson and Dickinson] were intellectual poets, both disdained or neglected [were indifferent to] the sweetness of verse.
La inteligencia de Emerson fue más lúcida; la sensibilidad de Emily Dickinson, quizá más fina.
The intelligence of Emerson was more lucid; the sensibility of Emily Dickinson, perhaps more delicate [refined].
Los dos abundan en palabras abstractas.
The two abound in abstract words.
Una labor que abarca mil piezas y que no se escribió para la imprenta adolece fatalmente de desniveles, pero en sus mejores páginas se conjugan la pasión mística y el ingenio, como en aquellos poetas ingleses del siglo XVII que Johnson apodó metafísicos y que corresponden, de algún modo, a los conceptistas de España.
A labor [life’s work] which includes [consists of] one thousand pieces and which was not written for the printing press suffers fatally from unevenness, but in its [Dickinson’s] best pages it combines mystical passion and wit, like in those English poets of the seventeenth century whom Johnson nicknamed metaphysical and who corresponds, in some mode [fashion], to the conceptists of Spain.
Emily puede tomar un lugar común – por ejemplo, la idea de que el Hombre es polvo – y tramutarlo en delicada poesía.
Emily can take a commonplace – for example, the idea that Man is dust – and transmute it into delicate poetry.
Escribe así: This quiet dust was gentleman and ladies.
Thus she [Dickinson] writes: “This quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies.”
En otra poesía declara que solo quien ha sido derrotado conoce la victoria.
In another poem she [Dickinson] declares that only [someone] who has been defeated knows victory.
En otra, que traducimos literalmente: “Las únicas noticias que tengo son boletines que todo el día me llegan de la Inmortalidad. Los únicos espectáculos que veo mañana y hoy, tal vez la Eternidad. A nadie encuentro sino a Dios, la única calle, la existencia; cuando la haya recorrido, si otras noticias hay o algún admirable espectáculo, ya te lo contaré.”
In another, which we translate literally: “The only news that I have are bulletins that all day come to me from Immortality. The only spectacles that I see [are] tomorrow and today, perhaps Eternity. I meet nobody but God, the only street [is] existence; when I have traveled [explored it], if there is other news or some admirable spectacle, then I will tell you about it.”
Además del episodio amoroso que mencionamos, habrá habido otro, ya que escribió: “Antes de morir he muerto dos veces; falta ver si la Eternidad me depara un tercer acontecimiento, tan vasto y tan inconcebible como lo ocurrido dos veces. La despedida es todo lo que sabemos del cielo y todo lo que necesitamos del infierno.”
In addition to the amorous episode that we [already] mentioned, there must have been another, since she wrote:
“My life closed twice before its close:
It yet remains to see
If immortality unveil
A third event to me
So huge, so hopeless to conceive
As these that twice befell:
Partin is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.”
[“Before dying I will have died twice; he fails to see if Eternity brings me a third event, as vast and as inconceivable as what occurred two times. The farewell is all that we know of the sky and all that we need of hell.”]
