Any Pablo Neruda fans here?
- Thread starter TammyD
- Start date
I used to send one a day to my DH before our wedding. My favorite is Love Sonnet xvii. He didn't understand it until I rented "Patch Adams" - and we're reading it all over again.
Love Sonnet XVII
[SIZE=-1]by Pablo Neruda [/SIZE] I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Love Sonnet XVII
[SIZE=-1]by Pablo Neruda [/SIZE] I don't love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn't bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don't know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
Yes! I love the poem "Tonight I Can Write."
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
Write, for example, 'The night is starry
and the stars are blue and shiver in the distance.'
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
Through nights like this one I held her in my arms.
I kissed her again and again under the endless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
Tonight I can write the saddest lines.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, still more immense without her.
And the verse falls to the soul like dew to the pasture.
What does it matter that my love could not keep her.
The night is starry and she is not with me.
This is all. In the distance someone is singing. In the distance.
My soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
My sight tries to find her as though to bring her closer.
My heart looks for her, and she is not with me.
The same night whitening the same trees.
We, of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but how I loved her.
My voice tried to find the wind to touch her hearing.
Another's. She will be another's. As she was before my kisses.
Her voice, her bright body. Her infinite eyes.
I no longer love her, that's certain, but maybe I love her.
Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
Because through nights like this one I held her in my arms
my soul is not satisfied that it has lost her.
Though this be the last pain that she makes me suffer
and these the last verses that I write for her.
I hear you all- I LOVE Pablo Neruda.
You should check out the film IL POSTINO (the postman): The year is 1952 and the location is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. Exiled from his homeland, the poet Pablo Neruda finds hospitality from his travels and settles down on this little island, where he meets Mario Ruoppolo. Mario is the son of a fisherman who has no intention whatsoever of following in his father's footsteps. His only alternative would be to immigrate, but that is more of a dream than reality. His meeting with the poet will drastically alter his life. (this is the start of the synopsis from http://www.lone-star.net/literature/postino/ BUT if you are considering seeing the movie, don't read the rest- BIG SPOILERS!!!).
Il Postino is like poetry, it is an amazing movie (If you saw and liked Cinema Paradiso you will love it).
I think my favourite Neruda poem is
White Bee
White bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey,
and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke.
I am the one without hope, the word without echoes,
he who lost everything and he who had everything.
Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing.
In my barren land you are the final rose.
Ah you who are silent!
Here is the solitude from which you are absent.
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.
The water walks barefoot in the wet streets.
From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.
White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.
Ah you who are silent!
--------------------------------------------
It gives me shivers
TammyD what an awesome thread
You should check out the film IL POSTINO (the postman): The year is 1952 and the location is a small island in the Mediterranean Sea. Exiled from his homeland, the poet Pablo Neruda finds hospitality from his travels and settles down on this little island, where he meets Mario Ruoppolo. Mario is the son of a fisherman who has no intention whatsoever of following in his father's footsteps. His only alternative would be to immigrate, but that is more of a dream than reality. His meeting with the poet will drastically alter his life. (this is the start of the synopsis from http://www.lone-star.net/literature/postino/ BUT if you are considering seeing the movie, don't read the rest- BIG SPOILERS!!!).
Il Postino is like poetry, it is an amazing movie (If you saw and liked Cinema Paradiso you will love it).
I think my favourite Neruda poem is
White Bee
White bee, you buzz in my soul, drunk with honey,
and your flight winds in slow spirals of smoke.
I am the one without hope, the word without echoes,
he who lost everything and he who had everything.
Last hawser, in you creaks my last longing.
In my barren land you are the final rose.
Ah you who are silent!
Here is the solitude from which you are absent.
It is raining. The sea wind is hunting stray gulls.
The water walks barefoot in the wet streets.
From that tree the leaves complain as though they were sick.
White bee, even when you are gone you buzz in my soul
You live again in time, slender and silent.
Ah you who are silent!
--------------------------------------------
It gives me shivers
TammyD what an awesome thread
Gotta love Neruda!! Although after reading the translated poems (while still beautiful), I feel like a lot is lost in translation. Native Spanish speaker, hehe!
Well, you know the saying, to talk about computers, or money, English can't be beat.
But for everything else, pretty much any language other than English can't be beat!
^^^Agreed. I am a native English speaker, but speak and read Spanish. Not only does it lose something in the translation, but if you read it in Spanish the verse flows smoother and softer. Also Spanish has a way of conveying stronger passions and emotions through its word usage. Spanish is a language in which proper word choice is very important. The incorrect word could easily offend the person with whom you're speaking. In English, I find the same word can have different meaning simply by changing the inflection. I strongly recommend that if you can, read it in Spanish. It's just more passionate.
Another poet I studied was Sappho. A classical Greek poetess. While I studied her verse in English, I got to hear it pronounced in classical Greek, not even modern Greek. Even though my classical Greek is extremely rudimentary, I noticed that there was a certain rhythm and softness in the words chosen for the poems.
Another poet I studied was Sappho. A classical Greek poetess. While I studied her verse in English, I got to hear it pronounced in classical Greek, not even modern Greek. Even though my classical Greek is extremely rudimentary, I noticed that there was a certain rhythm and softness in the words chosen for the poems.
^^^Agreed, native English speaker here but read Poema Venite in Spanish before I read it in English. To me, there's no english translation for the following line:
"Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido."
In Spanish I can feel and understand the despair but no enlish translation I have ever read expresses it.
"Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido."
In Spanish I can feel and understand the despair but no enlish translation I have ever read expresses it.
Ooooh I love Neruda! My boyfriend and I used to read The Captain's Verses to each other in bed, in Spanish, even though he doesn't speak it (I do, poorly). So lovely!