Rosalía, continued

My protagonist has joined an odd, perhaps even mysterious group of readers and - or are they writers - writers. She soon discovers that nothing is what it seems, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that none of the group’s members is what she or he seems. We live in such a fragmented society these days, don’t we? Perhaps it’s best if you see for yourself what I’m talking about, and then you can tell me what you think. My protagonist brings a poem to her first meeting, expecting there to be a discussion of what it means, after which she expects they might do a free-write. The following happened:

1.

Adiós, ríos; adios, fontes;

adios, regatos pequenos;

adios, vista dos meus ollos:

non sei cando nos veremos.

Miña terra, miña terra,

terra donde me eu criei,

hortiña que quero tanto,

figueiriñas que prantei,

prados, ríos, arboredas,

pinares que move o vento,

paxariños piadores,

casiña do meu contento,

muíño dos castañares,

noites craras de luar,

campaniñas trimbadoras,

da igrexiña do lugar,

amoriñas das silveiras

que eu lle daba ó meu amor,

caminiños antre o millo,

¡adios, para sempre adios!

¡Adios groria! ¡Adios contento!

¡Deixo a casa onde nacín,

deixo a aldea que conozo

por un mundo que non vin!

Deixo amigos por estraños,

deixo a veiga polo mar,

deixo, en fin, canto ben quero…

¡Quen pudera non deixar!…

Mais son probe e, ¡mal pecado!,

a miña terra n’é miña,

que hastra lle dan de prestado

a beira por que camiña

ó que naceu desdichado.

Téñovos, pois, que deixar,

hortiña que tanto amei,

fogueiriña do meu lar,

arboriños que prantei,

fontiña do cabañar.

Adios, adios, que me vou,

herbiñas do camposanto,

donde meu pai se enterrou,

herbiñas que biquei tanto,

terriña que nos criou.

[Adios Virxe da Asunción,

branca como un serafín;

lévovos no corazón:

Pedídelle a Dios por min,

miña Virxe da Asunción.]

Xa se oien lonxe, moi lonxe,

as campanas do Pomar;

para min, ¡ai!, coitadiño,

nunca máis han de tocar.

Xa se oien lonxe, máis lonxe,

Cada balada é un dolor;

voume soio, sin arrimo…

¡Miña terra, ¡adios!, ¡adios!

¡Adios tamén, queridiña!…

¡Adios por sempre quizais!…

Dígoche este adios chorando

desde a beiriña do mar.

Non me olvides, queridiña,

si morro de soidás…

tantas légoas mar adentro…

¡Miña casiña!,¡meu lar!

1.

Rosalía says:

I heard some of these lines coming from workers in the fields as I walked from the other side of Padrón as far as the Cemiterio de Adina in Escravitude. The distance wasn’t too long, maybe only four or five kilometers, maybe only three. It was June, a busy time for farmers, and there were more women than men digging and lifting, digging and lifting. Their songs were not their own, but rather they were the songs sung in the hearts of the men who had to emigrate because they were starving, the family was starving. But the song is not only a lament for human contact; it is the eternal longing for the land itself. The two hundred shades of Galician green and a hundred shadows with shapes that flit here and there. Thousands of small rivulets carrying life through lush fields. The sense of loss is abysmal, meaning it feels like an abyss. Life rushing on and through, while the one who speaks is leaving it all, the song so painful it found itself on my page, in my poem. Do I dare present this paint to the world?

2.

A Galician reader says when the book (Cantares Gallegos) was published in 1863:

Well, that’s rather amusing - book all in Galician, gallego, since it’s been centuries since it was written and people are usually embarrassed to speak it. It’s what peasants speak, it’s different. Still, there’s something so comfortable and compelling when the dialect is used, rather like an old shoe, you know? I have heard songs being sung in the fields, but pay more attention to the tunes than the words more times than not. Maybe Rosalía de Castro has heard them as well. We all have a bit of the rural in us and the writer definitely has portrayed us from the heart. I like the book, I really do.

3.

Another Galician says today:

Rosalía wrote her first book of verse, Cantares Gallegos, using songs she heard sung by peasants, although there isn’t the condition of nation of emigrants in Galicia nowadays. Major emigration, often transatlantic, is nevertheless part of our history, our collective memory. This book broke four centuries of silence. Still, while muzzled, galego was not killed. We are proud that a woman is considered the founder (perhaps not intentionally) of today’s Galician literature. Everybody reads her poetry. Children recite it in school. The publication of Cantares Gallegos on May 17, 1863 is now the annual day of Galician Letters. May 17 and the days before it and after, are full of activities. A real Renaissance! Our Rexurdimento!

4.

Lavinia* says:

I thought I should reread some of Rosalía’s poetry if I’m going to be of any help to the editor. That’s where my training as a librarian might be most helpful. Maybe I can locate some archives that have never been consulted. My work in gender studies might or might not be helpful in determining whether any of the archive materials were created by women. On the other hand, I might just be fooling myself, because there isn’t much documentation as to what sources Rosalía consulted for her writing. Maybe it was all simply intuitive? I doubt that. I think she knew she was making bold statements in her writing, even if she disguised the tone inside Galician work songs of love and separation. Of loneliness and anger at being forced to leave by an unfair system that cared nothing for the have-nothings. Of the feeling of love and loss, life and death, of feeling life has disappeared when love is its most fertile. I don’t know if I’ll be able to tear myself away from the pages of this book tonight.

*Lavinia is a character in other stories. She is a former academic in a far-away country.

5.

I the translator say in response to Lavinia:

Should I leave out a few lines to make it quicker to read? I’m serious; I know few people read poetry these days. This poem is actually pretty simple and the words just describe a reality of that time, mid-nineteenth century. I do worry that the English won’t convey the cadence and common experience of the author’s time. I ask myself if I need to include footnotes to explain so many things, but I am afraid to encumber the poem, afraid of keeping it from interacting on its own with readers of my translation… There’s a reason for not translating dead writers: One has to rely on critics and historians, or even journalists, to get answers. That might be wrong. All this, plus the gender issues that are less problematic in the original language are erased in the English version.

¡Adios tamén, queridiña!…

¡Adios por sempre quizais!…

Dígoche este adios chorando

desde a beiriña do mar.

Non me olvides, queridiña

I’m afraid to lose the -a- of that word, because ‘dear one’ in English becomes lost in the landscape of the poem. It could be the lover who is dear, but why not the land and the tiny house, all feminine in grammatical gender, all tied together to loom above the one bidding farewell, threatening to make the traveler’s heart burst. ‘Dear one’ isn’t right, either. ‘My dear’? Yes, that sounds better. But ‘a beiriña do mar’ - by the little shore of the sea’ - is about as bad as a translation can get. Darn Galician diminutive! It could take a year to get just this one poem right. The whole book would require a decade.

By the way, I’m aware that I haven’t included my English translation yet, but I’ve only done a rough draft and am not ready to show it to anyone. Everybody knows what Adiós means, though. Adeus is the more Galician way of saying it, but it’s not what the original poem says, although I wish it did. After all, there was essentially no written literary tradition before Rosalía came along.

6.

I the editor say, after hearing only part of what the translator is saying:

In my opinion, a lot of readers today aren’t going to be moved by this type of poetry. How far away the 19th century seems now, doesn’t it? Not to mention the absence of anything even remotely related to technical development. This poem is

¡Adios tamén, queridiña!…

¡Adios por sempre quizais!…

Dígoche este adios chorando

desde a beiriña do mar.

Non me olvides, queridiña

The translator already has pointed to the fusion of referents for queridiña. I just want to add a note of my own, which Lavinia might agree is appropriate, which is that the one departing might be a woman in the English translation. Women did emigrate and more of their stories should be told. How many ‘widows of the living’, as a section of another of Rosalía’s books calls them, stayed behind to work the little land they had? Work the land, raise children. Try to survive. That might contextualize these poems, which are historically based. The ‘I’ in this poem is really a ‘we’ - because so many left. Europe was starving, not just a small area.

7.

I the reader say:

I never tire of reading this poem, just as I never tire of reading many other poems by Rosalía de Castro. Maybe I’m not Galician, not a galega by birth, but conscious choice ought to count for something. I feel sorry for the translator, because I can read the original and know I’m extremely fortunate. I’ve also see the casiñas, seen the rivers and springs, have agonized over the harm my generation is doing to the two hundred greens of Galicia. It would be nice to live among them all, in a real stone house, except then I would have to live the pain of separation. Miles were so much longer in Rosalía’s time. Farewells often became forevers. However. Even seven-hour intercontinental flights can’t do away with the pain (and fear) of never coming home, or not knowing where home was after years had passed. This poem, birthed in a song, also gave birth to silence, a space that is still something a few people can feel today.

8.

I the group member say:

I’m the one who spoke first, at the very beginning, and I was supposed to be in a group of writers or readers. It doesn’t seem like a typical group, if you look at who the members are. There are eight of us, and we’re all trying to get somewhere with a poem we’ve all read many times, but it feels like we’re circling an abyss. (Someone already mentioned that, I believe.) We’re all looking at what we’re reading in a different way, so we’re writing down different thoughts. We may all be right, but what do we achieve by going in many directions? Maybe I should be able to answer this question, because I’m supposed to be the author, but if I can’t figure it out, then it’s up to you, probably.

All of you and all of them, however, may just be creations of my imagination.