Canciones y poemas de amor, de John Donne

A continuación los tres poemas más destacados de este autor isabelino contemporáneo de Shakespeare incluidos en esta recopilación de Hiperión:

THE LEGACE

When I dyed last, and, Deare, I dye

As often as from thee i goe,

Though it be but an boure agoe,

And Lovers houres be full eternity,

I can remember yet, that I

Something did say, and something did bestow;

Though i be dead, which sent mee, i should be

Mine owne executor and Legacie.

I heard mee say, Tell her anon,

That my selfe, (that is you, not I)

Did kill me, and when I felt mee dye,

I bid mee send my heart, when I was gone,

But I alas could there finde none,

When I had ripp’d me,’and search’d where hearts did lye;

It kill’d mee againe, that I who still was true,

In life, in my last Will should cozen you.

Yet I found something like a heart,

But colours it, and corners had,

It was not good, it was not bad,

It was intire to none, and few had part.

As good as could be made by art,

It seem’d; and therefore for our losses sad,

I meant to send this heart in stead of mine,

But oh, no man could hold it, for twas thine.

Uno de los poemas paradójicos más conseguidos, en el que Donne retuerce la temática necrofílica -su propia muerte como metáfora de la distancia entre el sujeto omnisciente y su amada, que termina desembocando en una ensoñación de pérdida conjunta- y recurre al objeto simbólico por antonomasia: el corazón. Es una omnisciencia que  aspira a ser total y destructora, manipuladora y fatal.

Es tal la torsión lingüística -“Me oí decir: “Ve y dile que yo mismo (es decir, tú, no yo) me he dado muerte””- que roza el conflicto en la traducción a una lengua como el castellano donde la delimitación de los dos géneros diluye la pretendida sublimación de la ambigüedad en el idioma original. Esto, por tanto, hará resentir involuntariamente el resto de dicha versión, pero no arruinar la agudeza implícita del texto una vez traspasado.

Un corazón delator envuelto en una transmigración psicosomática y terrible, con la pérdida como pathos concluyente.

THE FUNERAL

Who ever comes to shroud me, do not harme

Nor question much

That subtitle wreath of haire, which crowns my arme;

The mystery; the signe you must not touch,

For ‘tis my outward Soule,

Viceroy to that, which then to heaven being gone,

Will leave this to controule,

And keepe these limbes, her Provinces, from dissoluttion.

For if the sinewie thread my braine lets fall

Through every part,

Can tye those parts, and make mee one of all;

These haires which upward grew, and strength and art

Have from a better braine,

Can better do’it; Except she meant that I

By this should know my pain,

As prisoners then are manacled, when they’are condemn’d to die-

What ere shee meant by’it, bury it with me,

For since I am

Loves martyr, it might breed idolatrie,

If into others hands these Reliques came;

As ‘twas humility

To afford to it all that a Soule can doe,

So,’tis some bravery,

That since you would save none of mee, I bury some of you

Más morbidez. Donne sustituye el objeto corazón, enhebrado casi siempre a la esencia amorosa y animista, por otro tipo de fetichismo conceptual –“porque es mi alma exterior”, aclara-, si se quiere algo más prosaico –se trata de una “guirnalda de cabello”- que desemboca en una pasión desinteresada –menos en su propia superstición-. El autor se desvive –gracias por soportar la broma- en adjudicar a este último objeto cualidades tanto sanadoras como, por si acaso –curándose en salud…-, condenatorias. Apuesta por otorgar al símbolo connotaciones no del todo determinantes con el fin de mantener así el suspense, ayudando con ello a darle un sentido equívoco que ensancha todas las posibilidades del poema.

A NOCTURNALL UPON S. LUCIES DAY, BEING THE SHORTEST DAY

‘Tis the yeares midnight, and it is the dayes,

Lucies, who scarce seaven  houres herself unmaskes,

The Sunne is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rayes;

The worlds whole sap is sunke:

The generall balme th’hydroptique earth hath drunk,

Whither; as to the beds-feet, life is shrunke,

Dead and enterr’; yet all these seeme to laugh,

Comprar’d with mee, who am their Epitaph.

Study me then, you who shall lovers bee

All the next world, that is, at the next Springs:

For I am every dead thing,

In whom love wrought new Alchimie.

For his art did expresse

A quintessence even from nothingnesse,

From dull privations, and leane emptinesse:

He ruin’d mee, and I am re-begot

Of absence, darknesse, death; things which are not.

All others, from all things, draw all that’s good,

Life, soule, forme, spirit, whence they beeing have;

I, by loves limbecke, am the grave

Of all, that¡s nothing. Oft a flood

Have wee two wept, and so

Drownd the whole world, us two; oft did we grow

To be two Chaosses, when we did show

Care to ought else; and often absences

Withdrew our soules, and made us carcasses.

But I am by her death, (which word wrongs her)

Of the first nothing, the Elixer grown;

Were I a man, that I were one,

I needs must know; I should preferre,

If I were any beast,

Some ends, some means; Yea plants, yea stones destest,

And love; All, all some properties invest;

If I an ordinary nothing were,

As shadow; a light, and body must be here.

But I am None; nor will my Sunne renew.

You lovers, for whose sake, the lesser Sunne

At this time to the Goat is runne

To fetch new lust, and give it you,

Enjoy your summer all;

Since shee enjoyes her long nights festivall,

Let mee prepare towards her, and let mee call

This houre her Vigill, and her Eve, since this

Both the yeares, and the dayes deep midnight is.

A pesar de que el criterio del traductor a la hora de ordenar todos los poemas ha sido “siguiendo los cambios [d]el punto de vista del poeta respecto al amor”, me he dado cuenta de que de una manera absolutamente involuntaria e inconsciente estos tres que son mis favoritos aparecen alejados entre sí en la secuencia –sobre todo este último, que cierra el volumen-, conformando sin embargo una pequeña trilogía mortuoria con tantos puntos en común –principalmente el temático, evidentemente- que me parecen por tanto completamente armónicos entre sí.

Aquí el sentido de la pérdida se hace más universal, dando paso a más agentes (envueltos en una alegoría generacional), con lo que la explosión sublime de sensaciones alcanza un punto más extensible. El autor echa mano de una religiosidad puntual para hacer una pequeña gran reflexión sobre la herencia vital y artística –que no es otra cosa que la aceptación de una madurez declinante dentro de la sempiterna cadena evolutiva- en un marco incomparable, para reforzar la sensación de efímera existencia. Quizás mi favorito.

Otros interesantes son "El mensaje", "La aparición", "El jardín de Twickenham", "La paradoja" (cómo no, dado que él está considerado  un maestro de dicho recurso), "Hechizo por una imagen", "El final (una despedida)" o "El cómputo".