Words and Verse
Negra Sombra (Translation-Galician)
This is the first of many poems I shall be putting on my site translated from Rosalía de Castro, a woman whose poetry is world class, but has remained largely unknown because she wrote in Galacian and has been largely untranslated into anything but arthritic Spanish paraphrase. She was a woman whose earliest years of her life were her best. After a wondrous joyful youth, she left and had little but suffering for the rest of her life including years of domestic abuse and grief, several chiildren, and morriña, an intense homesick longing,
The poem I present below (Negra Sombra, or Gloomy Shadow) in my translation is an example of the latter.
When I think you've gone and left me,
Then you're back again. You haunting
Gloomy shadow that enshrouds me
Round my bed you circle, taunting.
I imagine that you've vanished,
You emerge as darkness masses,
You're the twinkle in the starlight
You're the howl in wind that passes.
Where they're singing, you're the singer
Where they're sorrowing, the sorrow
You're the murmur of the river
Gloom of night and gloom tomorrow.
You're my all. My all and only.
Round me, in me, leaving never,
You're my very self, the haunting
Shadow shrouding me forever.
Here's the original...
Take the time to read it. If you speak either spanish or portuguese, it's not very hard.
Cando penso que te fuches,
Negra sombra que m'asombras,
Ô pe d'os meus cabezales
Tornas facéndome mofa.
Cando maxino qu'és ida
N'ò mesmo sol te m'amostras,
Y eres á estrela que brila,
Y eres ò vento que zoa.
Si cantan, ês ti que cantas;
Si choran, ês ti que choras,
Y ês o marmurio d'o rio
Y ês á noite y és á aurora.
En todo estás e ti ès todo,
Pra min y en min mesmo moras,
Nin m'abandonarás nunca,
Sombra que sempre m'asombras
The poem I present below (Negra Sombra, or Gloomy Shadow) in my translation is an example of the latter.
When I think you've gone and left me,
Then you're back again. You haunting
Gloomy shadow that enshrouds me
Round my bed you circle, taunting.
I imagine that you've vanished,
You emerge as darkness masses,
You're the twinkle in the starlight
You're the howl in wind that passes.
Where they're singing, you're the singer
Where they're sorrowing, the sorrow
You're the murmur of the river
Gloom of night and gloom tomorrow.
You're my all. My all and only.
Round me, in me, leaving never,
You're my very self, the haunting
Shadow shrouding me forever.
Here's the original...
Take the time to read it. If you speak either spanish or portuguese, it's not very hard.
Cando penso que te fuches,
Negra sombra que m'asombras,
Ô pe d'os meus cabezales
Tornas facéndome mofa.
Cando maxino qu'és ida
N'ò mesmo sol te m'amostras,
Y eres á estrela que brila,
Y eres ò vento que zoa.
Si cantan, ês ti que cantas;
Si choran, ês ti que choras,
Y ês o marmurio d'o rio
Y ês á noite y és á aurora.
En todo estás e ti ès todo,
Pra min y en min mesmo moras,
Nin m'abandonarás nunca,
Sombra que sempre m'asombras
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Negra Sombra (Translation-Galician)
Negra Sombra (Translation-Galician)