Located in the UK
Located in the USA
Located in Europe
- Simon Holt
Six Caprices (1998)
- Chester Music Ltd (World)
- Countertenor [=Mezzo soprano]
- 8 min
- Federico Garcia Lorca
- Spanish
Programme Note
Adivinanza De La Guitarra
En la redonda
Encrucijada,
seis doncellas
bailan.
Tres de carne
y tres de plata.
Los sueños de ayer las buscan,
pero las tiene abrazadas
un Polifemo de oro.
¡La guitarra!
Riddle of the Guitar
At its round crossroads, six maidens dance. Three of sinew and three of silver. Yesterday's dreams are searching for them, but they are held on an embrace of golden Polyphemus. The guitar!
Candil
¡Oh, qué grave medita
La llama del candil!
Como un faquir indio
mira su entraña de oro
y se eclipsa soñando
atmósferas sin viento.
Cigüeña incandescente
pica desde su nido
a las sombras macizas,
y se asoma temblando
a los ojos redondos
del gitanillo muerto.
Oil Lamp
Oh! How gravely meditates the oil lamp's flame. Like an Indian fakir it contemplates its golden navel, then is extinguished, dreaming of windless atmospheres. Incandescent stork, from its nest it pecks at the massive shadows, and trembling, comes close and looks at the round eyes of the dead gypsy boy.
Crótalo
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Escarabajo sonoro.
En la araña
de la mano
rizas el aire
cálido,
y te ahogas en tu trino
de palo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Escarabajo sonoro.
Crótalo
Crótalo, Crótalo, Crótalo. Sonorous scarab. With the spider of your hand you curl the warm air, and drown in your wooden rattle.
Crótalo, Crótalo, Crótalo. Sonorous scarab
[Crótalo means both a castanet and a rattle-snake.]
Chumbera
Laoconte salvaje.
¡Qué bien estás
bajo le media luna!
Múltiple pelotari.
¡Qué bien estás
amenazando al viento!
Dafne y Atis,
saben de tu dolor.
Inexplicable.
Prickly-Pear
Wild Laocoön. How you look beneath the half moon! Multiple pelota-player. how fine you look, threatening the wind! Daphne and Attis understand your inexplicable suffering.
[Laocoön was a Trojan priest, punished by the gods along with his sons, for seeking to warn his fellow-countrymen about the Greek stratagem of using a wooden horse to enter Troy. The scene is the subject of a statue group now in the Vatican, and of a painting by El Greco, now in Washington, but formerly in Madrid. Daphne and Attis were each pursued sexually by a god, then turned into a tree - he into a pine, she into a laurel. Pelota is a fast moving game from the North of spain, in which a ball is played with a wicker racket.].
Pita
Pulpo petrificado.
Pones cinchas cenicientas
al vientre de los montes,
y muelas formidables
a los desfiladeros.
Pulpo petrificado.
Agave
Petrified octopus. You place ashen girths around the mountains' middles, and formidable molars in the ravines. Petrified octopus.
Cruz
La cruz.
(Punto final
del camino.)
Se mira en la acequia.
(Puntos suspensivos.)
Cross
The cross. (Full stop on the road.) It is reflected in the water-course. (A row of dots.)
Translated by Eric Southworth
En la redonda
Encrucijada,
seis doncellas
bailan.
Tres de carne
y tres de plata.
Los sueños de ayer las buscan,
pero las tiene abrazadas
un Polifemo de oro.
¡La guitarra!
Riddle of the Guitar
At its round crossroads, six maidens dance. Three of sinew and three of silver. Yesterday's dreams are searching for them, but they are held on an embrace of golden Polyphemus. The guitar!
Candil
¡Oh, qué grave medita
La llama del candil!
Como un faquir indio
mira su entraña de oro
y se eclipsa soñando
atmósferas sin viento.
Cigüeña incandescente
pica desde su nido
a las sombras macizas,
y se asoma temblando
a los ojos redondos
del gitanillo muerto.
Oil Lamp
Oh! How gravely meditates the oil lamp's flame. Like an Indian fakir it contemplates its golden navel, then is extinguished, dreaming of windless atmospheres. Incandescent stork, from its nest it pecks at the massive shadows, and trembling, comes close and looks at the round eyes of the dead gypsy boy.
Crótalo
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Escarabajo sonoro.
En la araña
de la mano
rizas el aire
cálido,
y te ahogas en tu trino
de palo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Crótalo.
Escarabajo sonoro.
Crótalo
Crótalo, Crótalo, Crótalo. Sonorous scarab. With the spider of your hand you curl the warm air, and drown in your wooden rattle.
Crótalo, Crótalo, Crótalo. Sonorous scarab
[Crótalo means both a castanet and a rattle-snake.]
Chumbera
Laoconte salvaje.
¡Qué bien estás
bajo le media luna!
Múltiple pelotari.
¡Qué bien estás
amenazando al viento!
Dafne y Atis,
saben de tu dolor.
Inexplicable.
Prickly-Pear
Wild Laocoön. How you look beneath the half moon! Multiple pelota-player. how fine you look, threatening the wind! Daphne and Attis understand your inexplicable suffering.
[Laocoön was a Trojan priest, punished by the gods along with his sons, for seeking to warn his fellow-countrymen about the Greek stratagem of using a wooden horse to enter Troy. The scene is the subject of a statue group now in the Vatican, and of a painting by El Greco, now in Washington, but formerly in Madrid. Daphne and Attis were each pursued sexually by a god, then turned into a tree - he into a pine, she into a laurel. Pelota is a fast moving game from the North of spain, in which a ball is played with a wicker racket.].
Pita
Pulpo petrificado.
Pones cinchas cenicientas
al vientre de los montes,
y muelas formidables
a los desfiladeros.
Pulpo petrificado.
Agave
Petrified octopus. You place ashen girths around the mountains' middles, and formidable molars in the ravines. Petrified octopus.
Cruz
La cruz.
(Punto final
del camino.)
Se mira en la acequia.
(Puntos suspensivos.)
Cross
The cross. (Full stop on the road.) It is reflected in the water-course. (A row of dots.)
Translated by Eric Southworth