Thinking of Lorca
For Lorca a duende wasn’t an elf or goblin, the two common English translations. Duende was a state of mind, ecstasy, a primal and wild element, an uncontrollable force. Above all, the duende is all around us. It’s struggle, pain, tragedy.
A good example is his poem Romance Sonámbulo*. I just love the way he sets the scene:
“Verde que te quiero verde./Verde viento. Verdes ramas/El barco sobre la mar/y el caballo en la montaña/Con la sombra en la cintura/ella sueña en su baranda/verde carne, pelo verde/con ojos de fría plata/Verde que te quiero verde/Bajo la luna gitana/las cosas la están mirando/y ella no puede mirarlas.”
We’re being watched but we can’t see what’s watching us.
From then on the poem becomes a tug-of-war between the themes of love and death, and the dark, and often mysterious forces that govern our innermost desires.
The atmosphere is conducive to this dream-like state. We have a wounded smuggler, a lover in despair, and a doom-heavy, unsettling mise-en-scène.
Lorca wraps up the poem in the same way he started it: with a green motif. Under the apparently placid image he presents to us there’s a turmoil of feelings and emotions. An ice-cold, silver crescent moon holds a Gipsy woman over the water. Drunken police officers bang on doors.
The duende is on the loose.
Sobre el rostro del aljibe/se mecía la gitana./Verde carne, pelo verde,/con ojos de fría plata./Un carámbano de luna/la sostiene sobre el agua./La noche se puso íntima/como una pequeña plaza./Guardias civiles borrachos
en la puerta golpeaban./Verde que te quiero verde./Verde viento. Verdes ramas./El barco sobre la mar./Y el caballo en la montaña.
...
*You will have noticed that both stanzas, as well as the poem’s title, have been left in the original Spanish. That’s on purpose. There are good translations online that readers can access. Sometimes I translate Spanish phrases, or quotes. Sometimes I don’t. This is to do with flow. If a piece calls to me and allows me to be the conduit through which it comes alive on the page, I find that translation can get in the way of flow. I hope you understand. Thanks.