(Untitled)

[jess_s]

Anoche cuando dormía
soñé ¡bendita ilusión!
que una colmena tenía
dentro de mi corazón;
y las doradas abejas
iban fabricando en él,
con las amarguras viejas,
blanca cera y dulce miel. Last night, as I was sleeping

Comments

[wildrrrumpus]

love this.

but where is the translation from?
i'm curious about amarguras --> failures.
Amargo = bitter, amarguras I think would be bitterness (which makes sense with the sweetness of honey contrast.)
normally i hear "failures" translated as "fracaso" (or sometimes "fallo".

both are potentially beautiful poetic intents, so i'm curious where this english version came from - the author? someone else?

[jess_s]

They came from Robert Bly. He's a translator. In fact, he translated this whole book of poetry.

http://www.amazon.com/Winged-Energy-Delight-Selected-Translations/dp/0060575867

I think of amarguras as bitterness, grief, pity, etc, all of which are nice contrasts to honey, but I sort of like the image of recycling failure into sweetness and light, more than changing grief into sweetness, but that's just my preference. It works either way, I guess. I don't know the translator's intent (or the intent of the original author - did he hit this subject a lot? i don't know, i've read like three of his poems.