The hidden letters of Juan Ramón and Zenobia

letter from the poet to his wife
(source: El País)
no copyright infringement intended

He could look like a sad man with a single dowry: his poetic genius. She revealed herself as a woman ahead of her time: cheerful, flirty, polyglot, car lover, sparkling for business and irresistibly attracted by him.

Él podía parecer un triste empecinado con una única dote: su genialidad poética. Ellas se revelaba como una mujer adelantada a su tiempo: alegre, coqueta, políglota, amante de los coches, con chispa para los negocios y atraída irresistiblemente por él (El País).

Reveladas las cartas escondidas de Juan Ramón y Zenobia https://t.co/pwUdvAIWZe via @el_pais

— Pierre Radulescu (@pierreradulescu) May 27, 2017

(Juan Ramón Jiménez)

Juan Ramón Jiménez - Full Consciousness

You are carrying me, full consciousness, god that has desires,
all through the world.
Here, in the third sea,
I almost hear your voice: your voice, the wind,
filling entirely all movements;
eternal colors and eternal lights,
sea colors and sea lights.

Your voice of white fire
in the universe of water, the ship, the sky,
marking out the roads with delight,
engraving for me with a blazing light my firm orbit:
a black body
with the glowing diamond in its center.

Deplina asumare a sinelui, zeu incarcat de dorinte,
Ma porti prin intreaga lume,
Aici, purtat in a treia mare,
Aproape ca iti aud vocea: vocea ta, vantul,
Umpland de-a intregul toate miscarile;
Culori vesnice si lumini vesnice,
Culori ale marii si lumini ale marii.

Glasul tau de foc alb
Rasunand in universul apelor, corabiei, cerului,
Insemnand drumurile cu desfatare,
Incrustandu-mi cu o lumina arzanda orbita mea ferma:
Un corp negru
Avand in centru un diamant de jar.

This time I give up: I cannot try a reverse translation in Spanish, it would be too difficult. If someone knows the original, please let me know!

Lucian Blaga: Soul, gravel of sins, You are nothing, and You are everything.

This image of the man carried to the third sea reminds me of great lines from sacred books: Apocalypse, Koran.


(Juan Ramón Jiménez)

La Luna Llena - Trying Reverse Translation Again

I found this image in the blog of María Jesús Lamora: Amantes en la Luz de Luna, by Chagall. I was looking for the original of a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez: La Luna Llena.

I had started from the English version (Full Moon):

The door is open,
the cricket is singing.
Are you going around naked
in the fields?

Like an immortal water,
going in and out of everything.
Are you going around naked
in the air?

The basil is not asleep,
the ant is busy.
Are you going around naked
in the house?

I tried firstly a translation into Romanian:

Usa-i deschisa,
greierul taraie vesel,
Nu vrei sa te preumbli despuiat
peste campuri?

Ca o apa fara de moarte,
intrand si iesind din orice.
Nu vrei sa te preumbli despuiat
prin aer?

Libelula nu a adormit,
furnica trebaluieste de zor.
Nu vrei sa te preumbli despuiat
prin casa?

And here is what I got through reverse translation. If you know the original, please correct me!

La puerta está abierta,
el grillo está cantando.
¿Está usted desnudo
en los campos?

Como un agua inmortal,
yendo dentro y fuera todo.
¿Está usted desnudo
en el aire?

La albahaca no está dormida,
la hormiga está ocupada.
¿Está usted desnudo
en la casa?

The eroticism of the verses of Juan Ramón Jiménez is so genuine, it reminds me Forough Farokhzad:

O green from head to foot
place your hands like a burning memory
in my loving hands
give your lips to the caresses
of my loving lips
like the warm perception of being
the wind will take us
the wind will take us.

(Juan Ramón Jiménez)

Océanos - Trying a Reverse Translation

Oceans, a poem by Juan Ramón Jiménez. I found only the English version:

I have a feeling that my boat
has struck, down there in the depths,
against a great thing.
And nothing
happens! Nothing...Silence...Waves...

--Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?

Here is a Romanian version (rather an attempt);

Corabia mea, simt,
s-a lovit, acolo in adancuri,
de ceva monstruos de mare.
Si nimic
nu se intampla! Nimic... Liniste... Valuri...

--Nimic nu se intampla? Sau... totul,
iar noi de-acum, in liniste, suntem in noua viata?

I think I begin to understand the special beauty of his poetry: essential questions expressed in the purity of nude words.

I'm trying here a reverse translation. If someone knows the original, please, correct me!

Tengo una sensación que mi barco
ha pegado, abajo allí con las profundidades,
contra una gran cosa.
Y nada
¡sucede! Nada… silencio… agita…

--¿Nada sucede? ¿O todo ha sucedido,
y ahora nos estamos colocando, reservado, en la nueva vida?

(Juan Ramón Jiménez)

Yo No Soy Yo

Rodney Smith - Twin Sin Tree

Soy este
que va a mi lado sin yo verlo;
que, a veces, voy a ver,
y que, a veces, olvido.
El que calla, sereno, cuando hablo,
el que perdona, dulce, cuando odio,
el que pasea por donde no estoy,
el que quedará en pié cuando yo muera.

I am this one
walking beside me whom I do not see,
whom at times I manage to visit,
and whom at other times I forget.
The one who remains silent while I talk,
the one who forgives, sweet, when I hate,
the one who takes a walk when I am indoors,
the one who will remain standing when I die.
(English Version by Robert Bly)

Sunt acela
pasind alaturi de mine fara sa-l vad,
pe care uneori ajung sa il vizitez,
iar alteori il uit.
Cel ce ramane tacut cand vorbesc
cel ce iarta cu blandete cand urasc,
cel ce face o plimbare cand raman inchis in casa,
cel ce va ramane in picioare cand voi muri.

(Juan Ramón Jiménez)

Juan Ramón Jiménez

Juan Ramón Jiménez
portrait by Joaquin Sorolla y Bastida

• El Poema Más Breve de Juan Ramón Jiménez
• Yo No Soy Yo
• Océanos - Trying a Reverse Translation
• La Luna Llena - Trying Reverse Translation Again
• Full Consciousness
• The hidden letters of Juan Ramón and Zenobia

(Una Vida Entre Libros)

El Poema Más Breve de Juan Ramón Jiménez

I heard the poem firstly in Japanese, recited by HANAFUBUKI (Yoko Shibata), whose videos are extraordinary.

(video by HANAFUBUKI)

Naturally, I was intrigued by the brevity of the poem, and I looked for the Spanish original. I found it on the blog of Gabriel Laguna from Córdoba.

Let's try a translation into English:

stop touching it,
the rose is as it is!

Gabriel Laguna says that it is El poema más breve de Juan Ramón Jiménez, and makes an interesting comparison with one of the odes of Horace (Oda I 38):

Persicos odi, puer, apparatus,
displicent nexae philyra coronae;
mitte sectari, rosa quo locorum
sera moretur.

simplici myrto nihil allabores
sedulus, curo: neque te ministrum
dedecet myrtus neque me sub arta
uite bibentem.

As Latin could be not our forte nowadays, here is an English translation made by William Cowper:

Boy, I hate their empty shows,
Persian garlands I detest,
Bring not me the late-bloom rose
Lingering after all the rest:

Plainer myrtle pleases me
Thus outstretched beneath my vine,
Myrtle more becoming thee,
Waiting with thy master's wine.

(Of course, Gabriel Laguna gives us also a translation in Castilian, here you go:

Muchacho: detesto el boato persa,
me desagradan las guirnaldas trenzadas sobre corteza de tilo;
deja de indagar dónde la rosa
crece, tardía.

Deseo que no te esfuerces, afanoso, por mejorar
el mirto: no cuadra mal contigo, esclavo,
el mirto, ni conmigo, mientras bebo
bajo la espesa fronda de la parra.)

There are three resemblances between the poems of Juan Ramón Jiménez and Horace, and they are obvious: the mention of a rose, the elusiveness in addressing the interlocutor, and the praise of simplicity.

For me, this short poem, heard firstly in the tongue of Yoko Shibata, speaks also of the beauty of the ephemeral (a great theme in the Japanese art), and calls in mind some verses that I love so much:

Mais elle était du monde,
où les plus belles choses.
Ont le pire destin ;
Et rose elle a vécu
ce que vivent les roses,
L'espace d'un matin.

(François de Malherbe: Consolation a Duperier, in Le Livre d'heures de Jeanne de Malherbe)

(The Thousand faces of HANAFUBUKI)

(Juan Ramón Jiménez)