Patrias

NANA DE SEVILLA

Federico García Lorca

 

 

This precious little baby has no mother

Left in the street, alone and rejected…

 

 

 

 

EVOCACION

 

He loved the secret gardens of Granada. He loved the wind, the olive trees…

He had said: “If I die, leave my balcony wide open…”

He had said: “I don’t want to see it…The spilled blood…I don’t want to see it!!”

He had said: “I am and will always be with those who go hungry…”

 

 

 “Being from Granada helps me lean towards understanding the persecuted: the Gypsy, the Black, the Jew… the Moor, that we all, around here, carry inside ourselves.”

 

“ The fall of Granada in 1492, to Ferdinand and Isabella, was a disastrous event, even if in the schools they say the opposite. An admirable civilisation, wonderful art, poetry, architecture and delicacy unique in the world – all were lost, to give way to an impoverished, cowed town, a wasteland populated by the worst bourgeoisie in Spain today…”

 

“I am totally Spanish, and it would be impossible for me to live outside my geographical limits. But, equally, I have no time for he who is Spanish just because he was born a Spaniard. I am a brother to all men, and vehemently reject the person who sacrifices himself for an abstract, nationalist ideal because he loves his country with a blindfold over his eyes. In truth a good Chinaman is closer to me than a bad Spaniard. I express Spain in my work and feel her in the very marrow of my bones; but before that I am cosmopolitan, and a brother to all. I don’t believe in political frontiers.”

                                                                                                          Federico García Lorca

 

 

 

SONETO

 

O love of my heart, living death,
in vain I await your written word,
and think, with the withered flower:

if I must live without myself, I wish to lose you.

Air is immortal. The lifeless stone
can neither know the shadow nor avoid it.
And the inner heart doesn't need
the frozen honey flowing from the moon.

But I suffered you, tore open my veins,
tiger and dove on your waist,
caught in a duel of lilies and bites.

Fill, then, with words my madness,
or let me live in the serene,
eternal dark night of the soul.

 

(FGL)

 

 

BULERIA

Anda Jaleo

 

I climed a green pine tree

In the hope of seeing my love,

I only saw the cloud of dust

Raised by the car taking him away

 

 

 

TANGUILLOS PART I

Los Mozos de Monleón 

 

 

The four young men

Went early to their morning work

So as to have the hour later

To go and fight the bull at the afternoon ‘corrida’

 

The foreman warned them

“Boys, beware that bull,

a fierce and wicked beast

I know… as the milk he suckled

Was fed to him by my own hand”

 

 

 

SEMBLANZA

 

Beautifully sensitive, deep-thinking artist, Lorca was also a person of great charm, grace, youth in his character and even naivety.

“Everyone saw him differently… No one could define him…” said his friend Vicente Aleixandre… “Federico has been compared to a child, an angel, a rock, or pure water… He walked magically through life, seemingly without leaning on anything… passing in front of his friend’s vision like a kind of winged genius dispensing graces, making happy a moment, then disappearing like a flash of light; you could see in Federico the all-powerful conjuror, destroyer of sadness, wizard of happiness, conjuror of the goodness of life, commander of the shadows that he simply banned from his surroundings.”

“I have never seen” said Pablo Neruda, “gathered as they were in him, grace, genius, a winged-heart and a limpid waterfall… He was a multiplier of beautifulness.”

 

 

 

 

TANGUILLOS PART II

Las Tres Hojas

 

My lover is held

Under the leaf of the vervain;

Today he is suffering…

Alas, what a shame

 

                       

ALZAMIENTO NACIONAL!

 

… when you defend Spain as  Falangists, Requetés and soldiers defend Spain, there is a race and a people! … we have to build, and maintain a long road, and to continue to support it on all the shoulders of Spaniards; the legendary and traditional empire which the Spanish youth will forge, and they will do so, because they swear to it through their prodigal blood, because they say it in the fields of Spain, and because that is in the hearts of all Spaniards who shout "Up Spain! "

 

Francisco Franco

 

"Our brave and soldiers and regulars have shown those red cowards what real men are, and in turn their wives. This is entirely justified because these communists and anarchists preach free love. At least now they know what true men are and not faggot militiamen. They will not be spared no matter how much they kick and scream. "

Colonel Queipo De Llano

 

 

 

Himnos Nacionalistas

 

 

FARRUCA

Novio de la Muerte

 

Himnos Republicanos

 

 

BULERIA

Ay Carmela

 

LIVIANA

La Fuente Grande

Inspired by the poem El crimen fue en Granada by Antonio Machado

 

 

He was seen walking between the rifles

down a long street

out into the cold fields,

while stars were still shining at dawn.

They killed Federico

when day was breaking.

The squad of executioners

could not look him in the face.

They closed their eyes,

saying: even God can’t save you!

Federico fell,

blood on his forehead and lead in his heart.

…All should know that the crime occurred

in Granada—poor Granada!—in his Granada…

 

 

He was seen walking alone with Her,

unafraid of her scythe.

Sunlight shone on the towers; hammers

pounded on anvil after anvil in the forges.

Federico was speaking

flattering words to Death. She was listening.

“Dear friend, since yesterday in my poems

the clapping of your dry palms was heard,

and you gave ice to my song, and the blade

of your silver scythe to my tragedy,

I will sing of the flesh you don’t possess,

of your missing eyes,

your wind-blown hair,

the red lips where they kissed you…

Just like yesterday, gypsy, my Death,

how nice to be alone with you

in these breezes of Granada, my Granada!”

 

He was seen walking…

Friends, for the poet

erect a monument of stone and dream

in the Alhambra,

over a fountain where the water weeps

and repeats eternally:

the crime occurred in Granada, in his Granada!

 

(Antonio Machado)

 

 

 

LA GUERRA

Mundo de Fieras y Héroes

 

 

 

la Patria

 

UNAMUNO  |  ‘Razón y derecho’

 

Miguel de Unamuno: “You await my words. You know me well, and know that I am incapable of remaining silent. Sometimes, saying nothing amounts to lying, because silence can be interpreted as acquiescence.”

“ But I’ve just heard the necrophile, senseless cry “Long live Death!” and I, who have spent my life penning paradoxes which have angered certain individuals who did not understand them, must say to you that I find this ridiculous paradox repulsive. General Millán-Astray is an invalid. This must be stated clearly. He is an invalid of war. So too was Cervantes. Unfortunately in Spain there are currently so many wounded.  And, if God does not helps us, there will soon be many more. It torments me to think that General Millán-Astray could dictate the basis of the collective psychology. A wounded man who does not possess the spiritual greatness of Cervantes is likely to find a terrible satisfaction in seeing how the number of wounded around him multiplies.

 

Millán-Astray (shouts angrily): "Death to traitorous intellectuality” “Long live Death”

 

Unamuno (without wavering, continues): “This is the temple of intelligence, and I am its highest priest. You are desecrating this sacred terrain. You will conquer, because you possess the necessary brute force. But you will not convince. To convince you must persuade, and to persuade you will need something you lack: the cause and the rights in this fight. I feel it is pointless to ask you to think of Spain. I have spoken.”

 

Salamanca 1936

 

 

GRITOS!

 

You will ask: And where are the lilacs?

And the metaphysical blanket of poppies?

And the rain that often struck

your words filling them

with holes and birds?

 

I am going to tell you all that is happening to me.

I lived in a quarter

of Madrid, with bells,

with clocks, with trees.

 

From there one could see

the lean face of Spain

like an ocean of leather.

My house was called

the house of flowers, because it was bursting

everywhere with geraniums: it was

a fine house

with dogs and children.

Raúl, do you remember?

Do you remember, Rafael?

Federico, do you remember,

under the earth,

do you remember my house with balconies where

June light smothered flowers in your mouth?

Brother, brother!

Everything

was great shouting, salty goods,

heaps of throbbing bread

markets of my Argüelles quarter with its statue

like a pale inkwell among the haddock:

the olive oil reached the ladles,

a deep throbbing

of feet and hands filled the streets,

metres, litres, sharp

essence of life,

fish piled up,

patterns of roofs with cold sun on which

the vane grows weary,

frenzied fine ivory of the potatoes,

tomatoes stretching to the sea.

 

And one morning all was aflame

and one morning the fires

came out of the earth

devouring people,

and from then on fire,

gunpowder from then on,

and from then on blood.

Bandits with airplanes and with Moors,

bandits with rings and duchesses,

bandits with black-robed friars blessing

came through the air to kill children,

and through the streets the blood of children

ran simply, like children’s blood.

 

Jackals that the jackal would spurn,

stones that the dry thistle would bite spitting,

vipers that vipers would abhor!

 

Facing you I have seen the blood

of Spain rise up

to drown you in a single wave

of pride and knives!

 

Treacherous generals:

look at my dead house,

look at broken Spain:

but from each dead house comes burning metal

instead of flowers,

but from each hollow of Spain

Spain comes forth,

but from each dead child comes a gun with eyes,

but from each crime are born bullets

that will one day seek out in you

where the heart lies.

 

You will ask: why does your poetry

not speak to us of sleep, of the leaves,

of the great volcanoes of your native land?

 

Come and see the blood in the streets,

come and see

the blood in the streets,

come and see the blood

in the streets!

 

(Pablo Neruda)

 

 

 

ALCAZAR DE TOLEDO |  Amor y sacrificio