Monday, October 31, 2016

 

Ubi Sunt?

Jorge Manrique (1440-1479), "Coplas por la muerte de su padre," i.e. "Verses on the Death of His Father," lines 145-204, tr. J.M. Cohen, with original interspersed:
The pleasures and sweetnesses of this toilsome life that we lead, what are they but fleeting? And is not death the snare into which we fall? Without a thought for our hurts, we rush headlong and do not stop; and when we see the deceit and want to turn back, there is no time.

Los plazeres y dulçores        145
desta vida trabajada
    que tenemos,
¿qué son sino corredores,
y la muerte, la celada
    en que caemos?        150
No mirando nuestro daño,
corremos a rienda suelta
    sin parar;
desque vemos el engaño
y queremos dar la buelta,        155
    no hay lugar.

Those mighty kings that we see in the writings of the past, by sad and lamentable accidents their good fortunes were reversed. So nothing is sure, for Death treats popes, emperors, and prelates even as she does poor cow-herds.

Essos reyes poderosos
que vemos por escrituras
    ya passadas,
con casos tristes llorosos        160
fueron sus buenas venturas
    trastornadas;
assí que no hay cosa fuerte,
que a papas y emperadores
    y perlados        165
assí los trata la Muerte
como a los pobres pastores
    de ganados.

Let us leave the Trojans, since we have seen neither their disasters nor their glories; let us leave the Romans, although we hear and read their stories; let us not trouble to know about that past age and what became of it; let us come to affairs of yesterday, which are as thoroughly forgotten as the tale of Rome is.

Dexemos a los troyanos,
que sus males no los vimos,        170
    ni sus glorias;
dexemos a los romanos,
aunque oímos y leimos
    sus estorias;
no curemos de saber        175
lo de aquel siglo passado
    qué fue dello;
vengamos a lo de ayer,
que tan bien es olvidado
    como aquello.        180

What has become of the King Don Juan? The princes of Aragon, where are they? What has become of all those gallants? What has become of the many innovations they brought? The jousts and tourneys, ornaments, embroideries, and crests, were they only an imagination? What were they but the grass of the threshing-floors?

¿Qué se fizo el rey don Juan?
¿Los infantes de Aragón,
    ¿qué se fizieron?
¿Qué fue de tanto galán?
¿Qué fue de tanta invención        185
    como truxieron?
Las justas y los torneos,
paramentos, bordaduras
    y cimeras,
¿fueron sino devaneos?,        190
¿que fueron sino verduras
    de las eras?

What has become of the ladies, of their head-dresses, their robes and their scents? What has become of the flames of the fires the lovers lit? What of all that playing, and of the harmonious music that they made? What has become of that dancing, and of the beautiful dresses that they wore?

¿Qué se fizieron las damas,
sus tocados, sus vestidos,
    sus olores?        195
¿Qué se fizieron las llamas
de los fuegos encendidos
    de amadores?
¿Qué se fizo aquel trobar,
las músicas acordadas        200
    que tañían?
¿Qué se fizo aquel dançar,
aquellas ropas chapadas
    que traían?
Hat tip: Eric Thomson.



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