Traducción de Miguel Sáenz |
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MUSÉE DES BEAUX ARTS |
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About suffering they were never wrong,
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
The old Masters: how well they understood
Its human position: how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along;
How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting
For the miraculous birth, there always must be
Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating
On a pond at the edge of the wood:
They never forgot
That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course
Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot
Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse
Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
In Breughel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water, and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
5
10
15
20
MUSÉE DES BEAUX ARTS |
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Del sufrimiento siempre supieron
los Maestros antiguos, de su acaecer
humano, de cómo ocurre
mientras otros comen, abren ventanas o indolentes se fueron;
de cómo, cuando hay viejos que aguardan reverentes, con pasión,
el parto milagroso y verdadero,
hay niños que patinan -no prestan atención-
sobre el lago del bosque al atardecer.
Nunca olvidaron
que hasta el martirio ha de mostrar su horror
en un rincón que todos ensuciaron,
en donde perros viven perramente y el caballo del torturador
se rasca contra un árbol el trasero.
El Ícaro de Brueghel, por ejemplo: todo se aleja
pausadamente del desastre; el labriego con su reja
pudo oír el chapuzón, el grito desolado,
pero para él no era importante; el sol brillaba
sobre unas piernas blancas que se hundían
en agua verde, y desde el costoso barco delicado veían
lo prodigioso: un chico del cielo defenestrado;
pero el barco seguía su rumbo y con calma navegaba.
los Maestros antiguos, de su acaecer
humano, de cómo ocurre
mientras otros comen, abren ventanas o indolentes se fueron;
de cómo, cuando hay viejos que aguardan reverentes, con pasión,
el parto milagroso y verdadero,
hay niños que patinan -no prestan atención-
sobre el lago del bosque al atardecer.
Nunca olvidaron
que hasta el martirio ha de mostrar su horror
en un rincón que todos ensuciaron,
en donde perros viven perramente y el caballo del torturador
se rasca contra un árbol el trasero.
El Ícaro de Brueghel, por ejemplo: todo se aleja
pausadamente del desastre; el labriego con su reja
pudo oír el chapuzón, el grito desolado,
pero para él no era importante; el sol brillaba
sobre unas piernas blancas que se hundían
en agua verde, y desde el costoso barco delicado veían
lo prodigioso: un chico del cielo defenestrado;
pero el barco seguía su rumbo y con calma navegaba.
5
10
15
20
Paisaje con la caída de Ícaro, c. 1558 Pieter Bruegel el Viejo Musées Royaux des Beaux-Arts, Bruselas |
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§ Pulse la imagen para ampliarla |
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(Or) W. H. AUDEN, Another Time, London: Faber & Faber, 1940. |
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OTRO POEMA EN INGLÉS ALUSIVO A LA CAÍDA DE ÍCARO DE BRUEGEL | OTHER ENGLISH POEM ALLUDING TO BRUEGHEL'S FALL OF ICARUS |
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Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, William Carlos Williams. The Academy of American Poets Site. |
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