7/21/2004: Neruda apples

[Happy Monkey]

Apples and Oranges: A Comparison.

[mmmBoy]

Well, sure, if you take apples and oranges, gently desiccate them in a convection oven at a low temperature over the course of several days, mix the dry samples with potassium bromide, ground the mixture in a small ball-bearing mill for two minutes, press the powders into a circular pellet with a diameter of 1cm and a thickness of 1mm (approximate), and use a Nicolet 740 FTIF spectrometer to compare the resulting pellets, well, sure, then I guess you CAN compare apples and oranges. Thanks, Happy Monkey, I stand corrected.

[Elspode]

Ah, the Journal of Improbable Research. I believe that this is a sister publication of the Journal of Irreproducible Results...

http://www.jir.com/

Hey...what happened to the "make your text an html link" button, anyway?

[ladysycamore]

Ah, Love the pic of the oranges. Now if it were only scratch and sniff...

[xoxoxoBruce]

After dark, when the rats come out to gnaw on that apple heart, it compliments the poem.

[lumberjim]

The original in Spanish

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.

Escribir, por ejemplo: "La noche está estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos".

El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.

En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.

Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.

Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido. Oir la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.

Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.

Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.

La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.

De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.

Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.

Porque en noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.

Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo

I'd like to take advantage of having some spanish speaking cellarites. Would one of you who really speaks spanish please read this through both ways and let me know how close the translated version is to the original quoted above?

I'm always curious to know how different languages impact the actual thoughts people have. In an extreme example, if you spoke a language that had no word for "bored", would you ever be bored?

[panenka]

Hi,
the translation is faithful. I have only found one sentence which is not exactly translated:

"Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido."
translated as
"My soul is lost without her."
which I would translate as:
My soul is not contented(?)/satisfied with her loss (or something like that)

Anyway. Neruda, chilean, is one of the greatets poets of all time in spanish and the poem you have posted is one of the most well known (and beautiful) poems in spanish. He is called the poet of love.

[dar512]

Originally Posted by ladysycamore

Ah, Love the pic of the oranges. Now if it were only scratch and sniff...

That feature requires the smell-o-rama monitor and the Microsoft scratch-and-scroll mouse.

[lumberjim]

welcome, paneka. thanks.

[Griff]

What was that poem of Pablo's that Pete Seger put to music?

[Leus]

Hm, that poem is actually called Poem XX, and is part of the book "Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair." The translation seems adequate. You should buy that book, and write some verses to your girl:

I have gone marking the atlas of your body
with crosses of fire.
My mouth went across: a spider trying to hide.
In you, behind you, timid, driven by thirst.