Soneto I (George Herbert)

Retrato de George Herbert, por R. White. Lápiz sobre papel.

Sonnet I

My God, where is that ancient heat towards thee,

Wherewith whole shoals of Martyrs once did burn,

Besides their other flames? Doth Poetry

Wear Venus livery? only serve her turn?

Why are not Sonnets made of thee? and layes

Upon thine Altar burnt? Cannot thy love

Heighten a spirit to sound out thy praise

As well as any she? Cannot thy Dove

Out-strip their Cupid easily in flight?

Or, since thy wayes are deep, and still the fame,

Will not a verse run smooth that bears thy name!

Why doth that fire, which by thy power and might

Each breast does feel, no braver fuel choose

Than that, which one day, Worms, may chance refuse?

Soneto I

Mi Dios, ¿dónde está el viejo fuego que hacia ti sube,

con que grandes legiones de mártires ardieron,

junto a sus otras llamas? ¿Viste la poesía

los ropajes de Venus?, ¿sólo sirve a su causa?

¿Por qué no se te escriben sonetos, ni canciones

arden sobre tu ara? ¿Tu amor no puede, acaso,

elevar un espíritu que diga tu alabanza,

como Venus consigue? ¿No puede tu paloma

rebasar a Cupido fácilmente en su vuelo?

¡Pues hondo es tu camino, tu fama silenciosa,

no corre sin obstáculos un verso con tu nombre!

¿Por qué ese fuego, gracias al cual tu poderío

todos los pechos sienten, elige como leña

la que tal vez, un día, los gusanos rechacen?

Traducción: Ramiro Rosón

Digno mil veces de la muerte

Spinoza niño en las rodillas de Uriel da Costa. Samuel Hirszenberg.

(Se hace el oscuro. Cuando regresa la luz, aparece Uriel a solas en la habitación principal de su casa. Sobre la mesa reposan los folios del manuscrito del Espejo de una vida humana, su autobiografía, atados con un cordel; junto al manuscrito, se encuentra el mismo arcabuz con el que lanzó un disparo fallido contra su primo Isaac, pretendiendo vengarse de él por las afrentas que le había causado. Uriel no deja de pasearse por la habitación, de un lado a otro, con la mirada ausente. Su movimiento errático trasluce toda la agitación interna que lo domina.)

Uriel.—Estoy aquí, solo entre los muros de mi casa, con la sola compañía de mis pensamientos. Aquí no se escuchan los rumores del mundo. Esta mañana he terminado la historia de mi propia vida, el Espejo de una vida humana: ahí dejo los folios sobre el escritorio, para quien se atreva a leerlos. ¡Serán mi único legado, mi testamento! Ahora sólo me queda escribir el punto y final con mi propia muerte. (Suspira con angustia.) No sé qué habrá tras el velo de la muerte cuando para mí se levante. Ignoro del todo si recibiré premios o castigos. Sólo sé que muero con la dignidad a salvo, como los hombres libres. Si todos estos años he buscado mi ruina de forma incansable, ha sido por dedicarme a perseguir la verdad, con todas las energías de mi cuerpo y de mi alma. Y al menos acabo mis días con esa certidumbre y ese orgullo. Dejé mi país natal, donde habría muerto en las garras de los inquisidores. Después de asentarme en Holanda, me acusaron de hereje ante los notables de la judería. Me negaron el derecho a casarme con una segunda mujer después de que murió Sara, mi esposa. Me excomulgaron dos veces. Me llevaron a juicio, logrando que el juez me enviara diez días a prisión y ordenara la quema de mis libros. Me condenaron a presentarme a los ojos de todo mi pueblo en la sinagoga, donde me declaré digno mil veces de la muerte, padecí treinta y nueve latigazos y me tendí en el suelo, para que las gentes pasaran sobre mí cuando salían del templo. Me reservaron todos los insultos y humillaciones imaginables. Tiraron piedras a las ventanas de mi casa, para sobresaltarme a cada rato. Con artificios legales, me quitaron la porción que me tocaba de la herencia de mis padres, tan sólo para darse el gusto de verme hundido en la miseria. En suma, quisieron degradarme a la condición de un perro de las calles. Pero jamás lo consiguieron. Jamás podrían arrancarme la dignidad de los hombres libres, pues ellos, mis perseguidores, jamás la tendrán. Y de ti, Samuel da Silva, jefe de los rabinos de Ámsterdam, mi enemigo más enconado, el perro más fiel de la sinagoga, ¿qué podría decir de ti? Sin embargo, prefiero no hablar de tu bajeza. Que la historia te cubra de infamia o borre tu nombre con las aguas del olvido, como siempre ha hecho y hará con los personajes como tú, mientras el sol siga alumbrando la tierra. ¿Quién sabe? Quizá todos, sabios y necios, reyes y mendigos, santos y malhechores, estemos destinados al olvido. Quizá no se conserve ni un solo vestigio de nosotros para que alguien nos recuerde. ¡Vanísimo teatro! (Rotundo.) Pero al menos conservo el privilegio de morir con dignidad. En el teatro del mundo, nadie me aplaude cuando finalizo mi papel en la comedia. Desaparezco a través de una puerta oscura y angosta, y ni siquiera nadie se da cuenta de que salgo del escenario, pero me voy con el ánimo tranquilo. Eso me basta. No me importa lo que se esconda tras el velo de la muerte, ya que nadie, ningún juez en la tierra ni en el cielo, podrá condenarme por otro delito que el de buscar la verdad. Ni podrá acusarme de ser infiel a mi corazón y a mis ideas. A veces dije mentiras y me valí de simulacros, pero todo lo hice con la única intención de preservar mi salud y mi vida, la más legítima y natural de las intenciones. Si Dios existe, si alguien mueve la máquina del mundo más arriba de las estrellas, no puede condenarme por usar la inteligencia que me dio. Y si nada hubiera, si el destino del alma es aniquilarse, así como la carne se pudre, nada tengo de qué asustarme, pues he obrado solamente según la naturaleza. Si algún hombre estuviera escuchándome ahora, si yo no me hubiera quedado solo entre los muros de esta casa, hablando a solas como un loco, me gustaría decirle que tuviera el coraje de usar su inteligencia y defender su libertad. Nada más hace falta para ser un hombre digno. Judíos, cristianos… Cuántos males habéis causado con vuestros altares, con vuestros libros sagrados, con vuestra fe. Cuando voy por las calles, las gentes dicen a coro: Éste no es judío, ni cristiano, ni musulmán: no tiene religión. ¿Y qué les importa si no tengo religión? Me limito a proclamarme humano, pues no soy nada salvo humano por naturaleza. ¡No puedo ser otra cosa! (Pausa.) Los ejércitos luchan en el nombre de los dioses: los invocan antes de lanzarse a los campos de batalla y luego cubren la tierra de sangre. ¿Hasta cuándo, hasta cuándo se prolongará la masacre, la enemistad, el odio? Esos amos terribles, poseídos por una sed infinita de sangre, no pueden ser más que delirios macabros, fantasmas que algunos locos imaginan para enloquecer a los cuerdos. Así la mayoría de los hombres, de la cuna a la sepultura, vive como una legión de fantasmas, creyendo las mentiras de príncipes, de nobles, de sacerdotes y de mercaderes. Oigo el ruido cada vez más fuerte de sus cadenas, como si retumbara en mi cabeza, martilleándome las sienes. (Pausa.) ¿Y qué es el hombre? ¡Un fantasma que sueña con fantasmas! Y lo será por muchos siglos. (Pausa.) Pero los audaces como yo se rebelarán, y tal vez algunos despertarán a la muchedumbre del sueño que duerme. Algún día el género humano sacudirá su yugo y romperá sus cadenas. No dudo que ese día llegará. Y los príncipes, y los nobles, y los sacerdotes, y los mercaderes temblarán cuando llegue. Pero yo no lo veré. Mi vida ya carece de sentido. La muerte me llama desde las sombras, con susurros inaudibles, aunque su rostro se me esconda tras un velo. He tomado una decisión y debo cumplirla. ¿Dónde está el arcabuz? (Busca el arcabuz.) Ah, sí. (Lo toma en sus manos.) Bendito arcabuz, si contigo no acerté el tiro de la venganza, al menos habré de acertar el que salvará mi honra con la muerte. Ya ha sonado la hora de abandonar este mundo. Necesito valentía. Aunque no dé ni un paso más allá de la tumba, aunque las malvas hundan sus raíces en mi calavera, aunque mi alma se disipe como la bruma de los mares, sin duda hallaré más alivio en la nada que en este mundo. Los fariseos dicen que la vida es un don que Dios nos regala, pero su hipocresía la ha convertido en un don insoportable para mí. (Pausa.) Nadie llorará sobre mi cadáver: ni siquiera mis hermanos, pues ya me tratan en vida como si hubiera muerto. Quizá no me admitan en el cementerio judío ni en el cristiano, por haber sido un hereje para todos. Quizá me arrojen sobre algún muladar donde los cuervos me devoren. Tanto da. Mi cadáver no sentirá nada. Ahora debo romper las ataduras, partir hacia la orilla de lo desconocido, hacia el misterio absoluto, hacia la incógnita que se despejará con la eternidad o con la nada. El arcabuz está cargado. (Sale del escenario.) Malditos sean los culpables de mi desgracia para toda la eternidad. ¡Que sean, como yo, dignos mil veces de la muerte!

(Se oyen dos disparos de arcabuz. Cae el telón.)

Nota del autor: Este texto es un fragmento de la tragedia inédita Digno mil veces de la muerte, sobre la vida del heterodoxo judío Uriel da Costa. El fragmento seleccionado corresponde al final del segundo acto de la obra. Para ampliar información sobre la figura de Da Costa, recomiendo la lectura del magnífico artículo de José Ramón San Miguel Hevia, Uriel da Costa, el difunto hablador:

nodulo.org/ec/2005/n045p08.htm

Música de iglesia (un poema de George Herbert)

George Herbert en Bemerton, Salisbury. William Dyce. Óleo sobre lienzo.

Church music

Sweetest of sweets, I thank you: when displeasure

Did through my body wound my mind,

You took me thence, and in your house of pleasure

A dainty lodging me assigned.

Now I in you without a body move,

Rising and falling with your wings:

We both together sweetly live and love,

Yet say sometimes, “God help poor Kings”.

Comfort, I'll die; for if you post from me

Sure I shall do so, and much more:

But if I travel in your company,

You know the way to heaven's door.

Música de iglesia

Dulcísima dulzura, te doy las gracias: cuando,

a través de mi cuerpo, la pena hirió mi mente,

me llevaste contigo, y en tu casa de gozo

delicado aposento me asignaste.

Ahora, ya sin cuerpo, en ti me muevo,

alzándome y cayendo con tus alas:

dulcemente vivimos y nos amamos juntos,

y aun decimos a veces: “Dios ayude a los reyes”.

He de morir: consuélate; que, si de mí te alejas,

sin duda habré de hacerlo, y mucho más:

pero, si viajo en compañía tuya,

tú sabes el camino a la puerta del cielo.

Traducción: Ramiro Rosón

La reina del alba

Georges Rouault: Muchacha ante el espejo. Óleo sobre cartón, 1906.

Sobre las aceras de la avenida todavía desierta, donde sólo crecen algunos laureles de Indias malnutridos, parcos en ramas y en hojas, cuando en el horizonte se aclaran las sombras de la noche como sábanas desteñidas, la reina del alba todavía sigue de pie; como un enigma silencioso, con la silueta negra de una diosa africana, con su escote en forma de valle pronunciado, su minifalda que deja casi al aire las ingles y sus tacones vertiginosos, sobre los cuales otras mujeres resbalarían sólo con dar un paso. Ella vino de tierras africanas hace mucho tiempo, buscando el futuro que la suerte le negaba en sus orillas natales. Nadie sabe exactamente cómo vino, pues ella no quiere contarlo. Quizá llegó en avión, en barco o, en el peor de los casos, en alguna patera. Quizá cayó en las redes de alguna mafia dedicada a la trata de blancas. Da igual. Ha tenido que aprender a vestirse de esa forma y a caminar con esos tacones, como un analfabeto que se aprende el abecedario con esfuerzo. Quizás espera al último cliente de la noche que ahora se disuelve, como un azucarillo, en el amargo café de la mañana, el que sirven los bares grasientos de todas las esquinas, desde las primeras luces diurnas, como un veneno que ingieren los habitantes del imperio del sol, para que las cadenas de su trabajo les resulten soportables. Pues el café de la mañana, en realidad, no es un estimulante, sino un poderoso narcótico, un láudano que duerme la conciencia del gran absurdo al que se reduce la vida cotidiana bajo el sol. Pero la reina del alba pertenece al imperio de la noche. Solo desempeña su oficio bajo los destellos de las farolas, que relucen sobre las calles de la ciudad, como largas hileras de pupilas amarillentas, hasta desvanecerse en algún punto de fuga. Ha comprobado que las gentes del día la miran con recelo, que murmuran a su paso, que no gustan de su presencia. Pero quizás algunos de los muchos que ahora la maldicen, cuando la noche caiga, le pedirán sus favores a cambio de unos billetes. Y ella no se negará a prestárselos, pues la reina del alba acoge en sus brazos a quien le pague la tarifa establecida, sin importarle su origen, ni su apariencia, ni su condición social, ni los demás espejismos sin los que todos los hombres se reconocerían como iguales en miserias. Ella, como la muerte, iguala a todos con su abrazo furtivo, que da a sus clientes en la penumbra de una callejuela o sobre el asiento trasero de algún coche, siempre en horas nocturnas; pues todas las manchas que borra el día con su claridad cegadora, con el juego de las apariencias, relucen bajo la noche como confesiones imprudentes. Las mujeres de bien, las respetables, guardan para ella los peores insultos del idioma, pero los insultos resbalan sobre su piel oscura como un aguacero sobre un impermeable, pues se ha cansado ya de oírlos como una retahíla ensordecedora, en las bocas de quienes han ido cruzándose en su camino, desde su infancia de pobreza y humillaciones en algún pueblo africano que tal vez ni siquiera figure en los mapas. Esas mujeres, cuando la miran con asco, no saben que su hipocresía las hace más dignas de lástima y desprecio que la más impúdica de las rameras. Ella, fumándose un cigarrillo tras una larga noche de trabajo, aspirando el humo con avidez, como si fuera la única tabla de salvación a la que puede agarrarse ahora mismo, sabe que sólo puede confiar en sí misma y que nadie enjugará sus lágrimas cuando vuelva a su piso y llore a solas en el cuarto de baño, delante del espejo, maldiciendo su perra vida, maldiciendo al perro mundo que la condena, sin lógica ni entrañas, por haberla condenado a ganarse la vida con este oficio.

El yonqui

***
Casi todos los días, por la mañana temprano, el yonqui se sienta en el escalón de un portal situado frente a mi casa, junto a un supermercado. Es rara la ocasión en que no aparece. Debe de tener más de treinta y cinco años: quizás anda cerca de los cuarenta. Los clientes del supermercado entran y salen, con sus bolsas de la compra: el eterno ciclo del consumo no descansa, como una rueda de engranaje que gira noche y día. Todos caminan con la mirada fija en el horizonte, con sus mentes que bullen de ideas, cálculos, designios, esperanzas; pero él ha perdido ya toda referencia del horizonte. Nadie lo mira: la piedad no existe para los olvidados, pues la primera condición de la piedad es acordarse del otro. La vida, la más impúdica de todas las rameras, la gran estafadora que vende sueños quebradizos, arrojó hace tiempo sus ilusiones por la borda, como también ha hecho con las mías. Ya sólo acude a este barrio para abastecerse de metadona, pues aquí está la oficina pública donde la suministran, y conversar con algunos yonquis que pasan de vez en cuando por esta calle. Sí, este barrio todavía conserva su mala fama: varias calles arriba, hay un manicomio; varias calles abajo, la oficina de la metadona. Entre locos y drogadictos anda el juego. El yonqui viene a sentarse en el mismo portal de todos los días, esperando nadie sabe qué, nadie sabe a quién: tal vez la muerte, la única certeza del hombre; tal vez a Godot, como diría Beckett: ese Godot que ahora imagino como un fantasma ausente al que nadie jamás ha visto y que no llega por más horas que se lo espere. Conforme el sol avanza por el arco del día, la luz y la sombra se van desplazando sobre las fachadas de las casas y edificios, como un enorme reloj de sol fabricado con piezas de ladrillo y hormigón, hasta que después del mediodía, sobre la hora del almuerzo, el sol cae de lleno sobre la escuálida figura del yonqui. Pero a él no le importa: a él ya no le importa nada. Como una barca varada sobre los callaos negros de una playa, mientras el siroco la azota con sus ráfagas arenosas, él permanece allí, solitario, sin apenas moverse, con la cabeza baja y los párpados semicerrados, con los brazos apoyados sobre sus rodillas dobladas, tendidos hacia el frente, esperando nadie sabe qué, esperando que alguien le tienda su mano y lo ayude a levantarse, aunque no llegue nadie. Ha renunciado a integrarse en la sociedad, a convertirse en un hombre de bien, a poner una sonrisa hipócrita cuando lo miren, a negociar con mentiras y prejuicios, a tomar parte en la carrera por el éxito y el dinero, una carrera que jamás acaba porque no tiene meta fija, porque no es más que el infinito proyectarse de la ambición (la voluntad, como diría Schopenhauer con lúcida amargura) sobre la vida humana. Unas veces habla consigo mismo y balbucea palabras que nadie entiende, o sube la voz y da gritos en el silencio de la calle medio vacía, como si llamara a un amigo ausente, como si se quejara de una dolencia subterránea que los demás nunca nombran, aunque también la sufran. Otras veces se duerme, preso de un insondable cansancio, con los miembros entumecidos como los de un pájaro enfermo; y cuando lo veo me parece como si no fuera a despertarse del sueño, de igual modo que los pájaros enfermos, cuando intuyen la cercanía de su muerte, se retiran a una esquina de su jaula para dormirse y no despertarse nunca.

English version:

The junkie

Almost every day, early in the morning, the junkie sits down on the step of a door located opposite my house, next to a supermarket. It’s rare the time when he doesn’t appear. He’s probably more than thirty-five years old: perhaps he’s close to his forties. The customers of the supermarket come in and leave with their shopping bags: the eternal cycle of consumption doesn’t rest, like an engine wheel which spins around day and night. All of them walk with their looks focused in the horizon, with their minds boiling with ideas, calculations, plans, hopes; but he’s already lost any reference of the horizon. No one looks at him: pity doesn’t exist for the forgotten ones, because the first condition of pity is remembering somebody else. Life, the most shameless of all whores, the big swindler who sells brittle dreams, threw time ago his illusions overboard, as she has done with the mine ones. He only comes to this neighbourhood now in order to stock up on methadone, because the public office where they provide it is here, and to talk with some junkies who once in a while go pass this street. Yes, this neighbourhood still keeps its bad name: some streets up, there is an asylum; some streets down, the methadone office. The game is played by madmen and drug addicts. The junkie comes to sit down in the same door of everyday, waiting nobody knows what for, nobody knows who for: maybe for death, the only certitude of man; maybe for Godot, as Beckett would say: that Godot who I imagine now as an absent phantom who nobody has seen and never comes regardless the hours they wait for him. As the sun advances over the arc of the day, light and shadows gradually move over the façades of houses and buildings, like an enormous sundial made with bricks and pieces of concrete, until after midday, at the hour of lunch, when the sun falls squarely on the squalid shape of the junkie. But that doesn’t matter to him: he doesn’t mind anything. Like a rowboat aground on the black rocks of a beach, while the sirocco lashes it with their sandy gusts, he remains lonely there, hardly moving, with his head low and his eyelids half-closed, with the arms resting in his bended knees, stretched forward, waiting nobody knows what, waiting that somebody lends him a hand and helps him to get up, even though nobody comes. He has refused to fit in society, to become a good man, to put a hypocritical smile when they look at him, to negotiate with lies and prejudices, to take part in the race for success and money, a race which never ends because it doesn’t has a fixed finish line, because it’s the infinite hold of ambition (will, as Schopenhauer would say with his lucid bitterness) over human life. Some times he talks with himself and stammers words which nobody understands, or he raises his voice and shouts in the silence of the half-empty street, as if he was calling an absent friend, as if he was complaining about a hidden illness which the others never mention, although they suffer from it. Some other times he falls asleep, overcome by an unfathomable tiredness, with their limbs as numb as the ones of a sick bird; and when I see him it seems to me as if he was never going to wake up from sleep, in the same way that sick birds, when they sense the nearness of their death, retire to a corner of their cage in order to sleep and never wake up.

(Translation: Ramiro Rosón)

Elegía

(A Héctor Vargas Ruiz)

Te fuiste sin aviso, de repente,

sin decirnos adónde te marchabas,

asido a la cuerda rota del vacío.

El aullido mortal de los huracanes

batía las ventanas de tu casa;

los agravios infames de la vida,

esa vida que amaste sin mesura,

habían rebosado ya tu vaso.

Ahora que te has ido nos dolemos a solas,

mesándonos en vano los cabellos,

y repetimos tu nombre sin descanso,

como quien llama a gritos,

desde los arrecifes de la costa,

a un marinero perdido en las aguas;

sabiendo que, de ahora en adelante,

ya sólo te veremos

en el espejo invisible de la memoria.

Ahora que te has ido,

las arcadas vacías de los puentes

irradian un gemido silencioso;

los árboles, llorando, se desangran,

como venas abiertas en la sombra;

los cauces de los áridos barrancos

llevan aguas oscuras de lamentos.

Recuerdo cómo aleteabas,

desvelada luciérnaga, en la noche,

con una luz más viva que todas las farolas

y todos los neones de los bares,

en la ciudad borracha de licores amargos.

Y tus alas giraban delante de nosotros,

que fuimos y seremos tus amigos,

con la pureza de tu mirada impura,
llena de lúcida pasión, más honda que la nuestra.

Eras dichoso y libre:

seguías el mandato de la vida,

las voces imperiosas de tu sangre,

fuera de los caminos
donde pasa la inerte mayoría:
esclavos de temores e ignorancias

que abarrotan las calles del mundo
con silencio de muertos,

con aire de sonámbulos cansados.

No importa si bebías

los bares de la turbia madrugada;

no importa si apurabas

las horas como cálidos cigarros

o botellas espumosas de cerveza.

De pronto, sin aviso,

nos has dejado huérfanos ahora.

Pero veo también, maravillado,

cómo vuela tu nombre por los aires,

cómo remonta los océanos

de la noche y abraza las estrellas,

donde vives ahora,

regando pensativo los jardines

de las constelaciones;

donde ahora nos ves, en la distancia,

con tu sonrisa límpida y serena,

la sonrisa que nada, ni la muerte,

conseguirá llevarse de tus labios.

Y nosotros, los vivos o los muertos en vida,

guardaremos las brasas humeantes

que dejaron tus huellas en el mundo:

llevaremos al hombro tu memoria,

como un peso dulcísimo y amado.

Cuando venga la noche,

para que se desnuden cielo y tierra,

mostrando lo que el día nos esconde,

alzaremos los vasos en tu nombre.

Y habitarás el vino que bebamos,

llenándonos a mares de tu vida,

tú, que riegas y enciendes las estrellas.

The sun warms up his bones mercifully

Gran Canaria seen from Tenerife.

(English translation of this text)

(Words before my grandfather Israel’s niche)

The morning of All Souls’ Day, my mother and I came into the cemetery, in order to visit my grandfather’s niche, with a bunch of white chrysanthemums, as if they were white symbols of immortality. The entire cemetery irradiated a serene sadness, which didn’t invite to lamentations or inconsolable sobs, but rather to melancholic thoughts, to the sad calm of the great elegiac poems. Some birds –maybe goldfinches– sang with an unusual strength, as if they weren’t in autumn, but in the beginning of spring, in the period of courtship. Didn’t the birds have to keep silence this morning of All Souls’ Day? –I asked myself. No: they had to keep singing, because nature follows its secret rhythm; the celebrations and calendars of men don’t concern it.

My grandfather’s niche faces south, towards the coast. Although the cemetery is far from the ocean, this latter can be seen easily from it, especially from its highest streets, because it’s built over a hillside. Waves couldn’t be distinguished. The sun spilled itself over the water like a diamond broken in countless fragments. The nearby island emerged from the horizon with unspeakable clarity, showing me its bluish peaks. In that moment, when I look it in the distance opposite the tombs of the cemetery, it seemed me to be an image of the island of the blessed, where the righteous would be taken to in order to rest from the hardship of life. I ran my hand over the marble tombstone which closes my grandfather’s niche; it was hot, because it was receiving all the light of morning. At least the sun warms up his bones mercifully –I thought in that moment–, redeeming them from the gloomy cold of the niche where they lie. My mother and I spread the chrysanthemums among a crystal jug and two glasses put beside the niche. I remember then some verses of Ugo Foscolo, that belong to his famous ode The sepulchres: [...] Ahi! su gli estinti / non sorge fiore, ove non sia d’umane /lodi onorato e d’amoroso pianto ([...] Ah!, over the dead / flowers wouldn’t be born if it wasn’t due to human / worries and loving tears.). How much reason Foscolo had: only men, with their work, care and keep the tombs of the dead, because their last dwelling–places are also subjected to the wearing away of time. That morning, I cried in silence before my grandfather’s niche, with resigned tears, with the certitude that death is a natural law, because our complaints can’t help it. But death keeps hurting although we become aware of its inevitability, because it leaves open the question about the last fate of man, that each one answers as well as he can. More than ten years have passed from my grandfather’s death, but the sorrow inherent to his absence revives when I come back to the cemetery.

My grandfather was a socialist and supporter of secularism: there were drops of Jacobin blood in his veins, as Machado would say. He belonged to a generation who had known a wide range of humiliations: the ration books, the persecution of dissidents, the somniferous allocutions of the dictator, the obligation of raising arms when the national anthem played, and the marriage of ecclesiastic and civil powers. According to Catholic orthodoxy, he should find himself in some kind of hell, because of having separated himself from the Church. Some years ago, when I went to mass every Sunday (although I wasn’t born in a too religious family, I tried to follow the commandments of the Church during some time), worried for the fate of my grandfather’s soul, I always said some prayers for it. However, nowadays I consider that, if a God transcends reality and his mercy towards man lacks any limit, as that same orthodoxy states, he must hardly to correspond with the image of him that offer us some that arrogate the absolute knowledge of his will with the boldness of human condition. While my mother and I were gazing my grandfather’s niche in thoughtful silence, a sparrow passed by flying beside us. Fast like a whistle, it disappeared among the cypresses of the cemetery, drawing an undulating rhythm with its wings. Then I remembered the words of Hyperion, the main character of the homonymous Hölderlin’s novel: Holy Nature!, you are the same inside and outside me. Perhaps nature wasn’t the same inside and outside me, who was crying before my grandfather’s niche, inside and outside all the sepulchres of the cemetery? In truth my grandfather hadn’t died, I thought. In the same way that rivers flow into the ocean, his spirit had joined to the stream of life force which animates the entire universe, and he was outside the niche, in the sparrow that had just passed by besides us, in the cypresses that grew slowly, in the sun that warmed up his tombstone, in the infinite and calm ocean. And I understood that I hadn’t to cry, but keep myself serene, because there truly wasn’t any death, but transfiguration.

The disciples at Sais

Bust of Novalis at Weissenfels.

(English translation of this writing)

The disciples at Sais can be considered one of the most enigmatic and fascinating works of Novalis. This novel show us a brotherhood of sages placed halfway between the figures of the philosopher, the mystic and the scientist, and who dedicate to the study of nature. For these sages, the task of scientist doesn’t differ in essence to the one of mystic or the one of philosopher, because all they aspire to get the knowledge of truth by different means, understanding it as the sense of human existence and the existence of the world. The members of this brotherhood devote themselves to the study of nature, hoping that it gives them the necessary keys to know the order of the universe. Within this study, geology is of great importance, because the disciples spend a great part of their time wandering fields and forests, collecting stones of various types which they keep and classify later in the temple of the brotherhood. In this interest in stones and minerals, we can perceive an echo of the interest in geology which Novalis felt in his real life and arose when he had to take lessons of this discipline in order to work at the management of the salt mines of Weissenfels.

The members of the brotherhood conceive of the universe as a net of resemblances which exist between the beings who form it (thus, they think that there are resemblances between the different kingdoms of beings: the mineral one, the vegetal one and the animal one). Nature produces similar shapes and structures in the diverse categories of beings. The aim that the sages pursue with their task is to understand nature, what is to say, to know its structure and its order. Novalis uses the temple of Isis located in the ancient Egyptian town of Sais, which this novel’s title alludes to, as a metaphor of the knowledge of nature. In the interior of this temple, there was an image of Isis covered with a veil. This veil symbolizes the deep mystery that hides the structure of nature. Only the members of the brotherhood described in the novel, after a long and difficult learning, will be able to draw back the goddess’ veil, what is to say, to know the order of the universe and the laws that rule it such as they are, that constitutes the highest knowledge that a man can aspire to: in short, knowing the truth. Furthermore, the idea of evolution already appears in this novel. Nature is not conceived as a static, unchanging being, but dynamic, because it is continuously experiencing changes. Although the idea of evolution will not be formulated in a complete way until the second half of nineteenth century, when Darwin publishes his essay The origin of species, the thinkers and scientists of the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth one have already intuited it. For example, Goethe, in his scientific labour, formulated the theory of the Urpflanze (in German, primitive plant): according to this theory, in remote times there was a plant that would have served as a prototype for all the others, because it contained the features of all them. In the description of this brotherhood of sages, we can perceive the desire that early German Romantics felt of creating a total science, a science that unified all the disciplines of knowledge, as humanistic ones as scientific ones, with the aim of providing a general explanation of the world. In short, we find a scene very different to the radical separation between sciences and humanities and the specialization of the branches of knowledge which have took place in Western society from the birth of scientific positivism.

After the philosophical introduction which the novel begins with, one of the disciples narrates an allegorical legend, with the fabulous tone of a children’s story. The protagonist of this legend, Hiacinthe, leaves his house, his parents and even his lover Rosenblüthe, in order to walk to Sais, the town where the temple of Isis is, and to receive the teachings that will ease his desire of knowledge. After a long tour which leads him to diverse places, he reaches the temple’s doors and he falls asleep (in this reference to dream we can observe the irrationalism of Novalis, for whom dreams could constitute true revelations). In the dream, he passes through the temple’s halls, which seem familiar to him, although he doesn’t remember being ever in them, he arrives at the image of Isis and he lifts the veil which covers it. As soon as he lifts the veil of the goddess, his beloved Rosenblüthe appears. The two lovers end up together, having many descendents and enjoying the happiness of family life. The sense of this legend resides in the necessity of love to get the deep knowledge of nature. Only by the experience of love, by the union with the loved person, man understands the ultimate meaning of the universe. The lover overcomes his lacks, the limits inherent to his individual being, and goes out to the encounter with the loved person. Novalis considers man as a reflection of the universe and this as a reflection of man, to the extent that they share a series of resemblances in their structure; for this reason, the loved person becomes a reflection of the universe for the lover, so that loving somebody is equal to love the universe. This idea is expressed in a beautiful aphorism of the author: My beloved is an abbreviation of the universe, and the universe is an extension of my beloved.

In The disciples at Sais, Novalis talks about the existence of a general soul of the universe, which all the beings belong to. Here the influence of Spinoza’s pantheism can be seen. We shall remember that Spinoza formulated the concept of intellectual love towards God, which is defined as the love of nature (Spinoza, as a pantheist, identifies God with nature) which is born from the true knowledge of it and which produces a feeling of deep joy. However, Novalis cannot be called exactly pantheist, because he makes a curious synthesis of pantheism and Christianity. In Novalis’s thinking, Christ appears as the only direct mediator between man and nature, because only he is in a direct relationship with God; now then, the rest of beings of the world can act as indirect or second-degree mediators between God and man, allowing the loving relationship of man with Christ, who in turn allows the loving relationship of man with God. This synthesis of pantheism and Christianity is not perceived in The disciples at Sais, but in the Hymns to the night, where Novalis’s beloved Sophie appears as a mediator between Christ and the own poet. From there comes the identification of Sophie with the Virgin Mary which Novalis will carry out in the Hymns, because one of Mary’s fundamental missions, in Christian theology, is the intercession before God for men.

Novalis uses the conversations which the members of the brotherhood hold to include a debate where four disciples expose their opinions on nature and the most appropriate mean to know it. According to Félix de Azúa, who writes the prologue to this edition of the work, these disciples embody the thinking of some philosophers contemporary of Novalis and the own poet’s one. Thus, the disciple who begins this discussion defends Schelling’s and Schleiermacher’s ideas. In this disciple’s ideas we see the influence of the theory of correspondences, according to which the structure of the universe consists in a series of resemblances which exist between the macrocosmos (the whole of the universe) and the microcosmos (the human being). Therefore, for Schelling and Schleiermacher the human being must dedicate to self-knowledge, because he has few possibilities to achieve a certain and infallible knowledge of the world that surrounds him. In this way, studying his own structure, his own physical and intellectual characteristics, he would not only know himself, but also discover the structure of the universe.

The second disciple defends, in his lines, the theories of the philosopher Franz von Baader, contemporary of Novalis and member of the school of thought called philosophy of nature. Baader defines nature as an unwonted harmony, a miraculous balance which all the beings of cosmos have achieved in their relationships. He expresses the diversity of nature, describing it as a whole formed by an immense variety of beings, and remarks the connections that join some to the others, because the beings do not live isolated, but they create numerous relationships between themselves and influence some to the others in a continuous way. He considers that the influence of some beings on the others is produced through a sort of cycle, which could be understood as an energy transmission where three agents take part: nature, human beings and the universal spirit (in other words, the divine intelligence which is present in all the universe, of which its external manifestation, perceptible for the senses, would be nature). First, nature influences human beings; later, these ones influence the universal spirit; finally, this latter one influences nature again, so this cycle of energy transmission gets closed. In this way, a disciple expresses it with his words:

It is very bold […], wanting to rearrange […] Nature, with the aid of her external forces and phenomena, and consider her now as a monstrous fire, now as an accidental fact strangely shaped, as a duality or a trinity, or as any other singular force. It would be more plausible that she was the product of an incomprehensible agreement between infinitely diverse beings, the miraculous bond of the spiritual world, the point of union and contact for countless universes.

[…]

anything is not as extraordinary as the great homogeneity and simultaneity of Nature, who seems to be fully present everywhere. In the flame of a light, all the forces of Nature are in activity; and, in this way, she continuously represents and transforms herself in every place, making leaves, flowers and fruits emerge at the same time. She finds herself, in the middle of centuries, present, past and future at once; and who knows at what special kind of remoteness she works in the same way; it is probable that her system is anything but a sun in the universe, a light, a stream, of which its influences are perceived, first at all, by our spirit, but, outside it, they spread over Nature the spirit of universe and communicate the soul of the latter to other systems.

The third disciple defends the theories of Henrik Steffens, a philosopher of Norwegian origin who moved to Germany, becoming another representative of philosophy of nature. For Steffens, nature evolves according to a program, a plan previously laid down. Therefore, man’s mission consists in finding out this program, with the aim of discovering how it has developed up until now and predicting how it will do in the future. The most suitable discipline to carry out this mission is natural history, which is in charge of explaining the different stages of nature’s development; because this, Steffens gives it great importance, considering it as the only science who will allow to access to the true knowledge of nature. However, Steffens states that, at his time, natural history was an emerging discipline, which was in formation process, because it had still neither achieved to gather enough knowledge about its matter of study nor arranged them in a consistent way in order to become established as a science. In that period, scientists only had made some discoveries about the matter, laying the foundations of natural history.

Novalis expounds his own conception of nature by a fourth disciple. Thus, he talks us about the moral appropriation of nature, a concept that we will try to explain below. Novalis believes in the myth of the Golden Age, and he considers that nature has fallen into a state of degeneration and decline from the end of that age. Now then, man is destined to collaborate with nature; by his creative and transforming activity, he will lead nature again to its perfection. In this way, as examples of this activity, he mentions painting, which organises colors so that they produce a beautiful result; dance, which teaches the limbs of the human body to move in a harmonious way; domestication of animals, which allows them to get used to coexisting with men; and gardening, which joins natural elements in order to create organised and harmonious landscapes. Leading nature to its perfection, man will manage to restore the mythical Golden Age, that period which Ovid described in his Metamorphosis, when mankind lived in a state of general happiness and harmony with nature. In this way, man provides a moral purpose to nature, because his task repairs the decline where nature sank from the end of the Golden Age; and he guides the beings that form it, both the living ones and the inanimate ones, towards the achievement of good. It is clearly perceived that Novalis follows an optimistic view of the transformation of nature that man carries out. That could be down to the fact that, in the spatial and temporal setting where he writes this work (the Germany of the eighteenth century), the industrial revolution had not still begun and was far from its peak. In those days, they don’t even imagine the negative consequences which industrialization would entail: the conversion of man in merchandise, of which value the market determines by the exploitation of working class, and the conversion of nature in a mere resource, of which aim is reduced to provide commodities for the economic development. On the other hand, when Novalis asks himself how to access to the knowledge of nature, he states that only poets can discover the last meaning of natural phenomena, by an intuitive approach to them, which entails a privilege forbidden to scientists, whose activity is limited to discover the physical qualities of objects. In this way, it is expressed the supreme value that Novalis gaves to the figure of poet. The fourth of the disciples explains it in his lines:

Only poets have understood what Nature can means for a man, said a handsome adolescent, and it is not bold stating that the most perfect solution of mankind finds itself inside them and, in this way, each sensation spreads pure everywhere, with its infinite modifications, through the crystal and the mobility of the said solution. They find everything in Nature, whose soul only does not refuse them; and poets seek in the relationship that they have with her, with much reason, all the happiness and the charm of the Golden Age. Nature offers them the variability of her infinite character; and more than man, witty to the highest degree and full of life, she surprises with her finds and her deep detours, with her encounters and her diversions, with her great ideas and her rarities. The everlasting treasure of its fantasies does not allow that even one of his friends moves away empty–handed. She embellishes, animates and confirms everything; and, if it would be said that an unconscious and meaningless mechanism rules in certain details, the look that delves into the essence of things discovers an amazing friendliness towards human heart, in the coincidence and the continuation of its particular features. The wind is a movement of air that can be due to many external causes, but, does not it seems to you that it has other meaning for the lonely heart full of desires, when it passes through, from a very loved region which seems to dissolve the serene sorrow with a thousand profound and melancholic murmurs, in a deep sigh of the whole Nature? Perhaps does the young in love not find his soul swamped in flowers, so does he, and with admirable truthfulness, expressed in the fresh and tender vegetation of the spring fields? And can the vigour of a soul that has just immersed in the gold of wine seem more precious and smiling than in the bunch of heavy and shiny grapes, almost hidden under the leaves?

In the examples that Novalis brings to this passage of the work, we can confirm how the poet identifies his mood with the elements of nature. For example, the lonely man full of unsatisfied desires reliefs his sadness hearing the soft rumour of the wind; the lover sees his gladness reflected in the fields full of flowers of the spring; the man immersed in enthusiasm thanks to the wine finds an image of his mood in the bunch of grapes. In this way, the poet discovers resemblances between his internal life and the outer world, between man and the whole of the universe.

Once the four disciples have compared and discussed their theories, the brotherhood’s master takes part in the dialogue, and his speech seems to back in a veiled way the theory of moral appropriation of nature which Novalis has formulated. In order to access to the knowledge of nature, he recommends the disciples the acquisition of two indispensable habits: a discreet and simple life, like a children’s one, and tireless patience. The serenity of a discreet and simple life becomes a condition necessary to achieve this knowledge, because, as the master admits, it can be considered as very rare the fact of finding the true intelligence of Nature joined to the great eloquence, the skill and a notable life, as it is generally accompanied by very simple words, an honest and sincere thinking and a humble life. On the other hand, patience becomes necessary, because it is not possible to determine how much time after Nature reveals her secrets. Certain chosen few obtain and know them when they are still young; others only at an advanced age. The master links the aging of the body with the wisdom of the spirit, because he states that the true enquirer never gets older: every eternal passion is out of the limits of life, and the more the external sheath withers and dries up, the clearer, more blazing and more powerful the core becomes. According to the master, the acquisition of these two habits comes about, in an easy and frequent way, at the workshop of the artisan and the artist, where men are in contact and have to fight with nature in a thousand ways, in the work of country, mines and navigation, in the breeding of cattle and in many more professions. In this praise of work we could find a reflection of the theory of moral appropriation of nature, because, as we already have said, for Novalis man leads again nature to its perfection, by his creative activity, which transforms reality.


The disciples at Sais. Novalis. Prologue by Félix de Azúa. Hiperión Publisher.


Translation: Ramiro Rosón

Tres sonetos de Giuseppe Parini

Monumento a Giuseppe Parini (1838). Gaetano Monti. Palazzo di Brera, Milán.

Al sonno

O Sonno placido che con liev' orme

vai per le tenebre movendo l' ali,

e intorno a i miseri lassi mortali

giri con l' agili tue varie forme;

là, dove Fillide secura dorme

stesa su candidi molli guanciali,

vanne, e un' immagine carca di mali

in mente pingile trista e deforme.

Tanto a me simili quell' ombre inventa,

e al color pallido che in me si spande,

ch' ella destandosi pietà ne senta.

Se tu concedimi favor sì grande,

con man vo' porgerti tacita e lenta

due di papaveri fresche ghirlande.

Al sueño

Plácido Sueño, que con leves huellas

por tinieblas moviendo vas tus alas,

y entre lasos y míseros mortales

vagas con formas ágiles y varias;

a donde Fílida segura duerme

sobre muelles y blancas almohadas,

ve, y una imagen de diversos males,

triste y deforme, píntale en su mente.

Tan iguales a mí crea esas sombras,

y al pálido color que en mí se extiende,

que, despertándose, de mí se apiade.

Si me concedes un favor tan grande,

te ofreceré con mano calma y lenta

dos guirnaldas de frescas amapolas.

Per Caterina Gabrielli cantatrice

Quando Costei su la volubil scena

di celeste bellezza apre i portenti;

e il notturno spettacolo serena

co’ raggi del bel volto, Amor, che tenti?

Entro per gli occhi a quel prodigio intenti;

scendo ne’ cori; e là calmo ogni pena;

desto teneri sensi; empio a le genti

di foco soavissimo ogni vena.

E mentre simulando i prischi lai

da i due corali de la bella bocca

scioglie il canto amoroso, Amor, che fai?

Volo al bel labbro onde il piacer trabocca

e grido: oh in terra fortunato assai

chi sì bel labbro ascolta o vede o tocca!

Para la cantante Caterina Gabrielli

–Cuando ella sale a la mudable escena,

de celeste belleza abre el portento,

y el nocturno espectáculo serena

con la luz de su rostro, Amor, ¿qué intentas?

–Llevar miradas al prodigio intento;

bajo a los pechos; calmo toda pena;

despierto admiración; lleno a las gentes

de suavísimo fuego cada vena.

–Y mientras, simulando tristes ayes,

de los corales de su bella boca

surge el canto amoroso, Amor, ¿qué haces?

–Vuelo hasta el labio en que el placer abunda,

y grito: ¡Oh, cuán feliz en esta tierra

quien este labio escucha, mira o toca!

La pietà divina

L’ arbor son io, Signor, che tu ponesti

nella tua vigna; e a coltivar lo prese

Misericordia, i cui pensier fur desti

sempre a guardarlo da nemiche offese.

Ma il tronco ingrato che sì caro avesti

frutto finora il suo cultor non rese;

e dell’ ampie superbo ombrose vesti

sol con sterili braccia in alto ascese.

Però tosto che il vide, arse di sdegno

tua Giustizia: e perchè, disse, il terreno

occupa indarno? Omai si tagli ed arda.

Ma Pietà pose al tuo furor ritegno

gridando: un anno attendi, un anno al meno.

Arbor che fia se il tuo fruttar più tarda?

La piedad divina

El árbol soy, Señor, que tú pusiste

en tu viñedo, y quiso cultivarlo

Misericordia, que empleó desvelos

en guardarlo de ofensas enemigas.

Mas ese tronco ingrato, a ti querido,

fruto hasta ahora a su cultor no rinde,

y con grande, soberbio, umbroso manto,

con estériles ramas, sube al cielo.

Pero enseguida, al verlo, arde con furia

tu Justicia: ¿y por qué, dice, el terreno

ocupa en vano? Que se tale y arda.

Mas la Piedad pone a tu furia riendas,

gritando: un año espera, un año al menos.

¿Árbol, que harás si tarda más tu fruto?

(Traducción: Ramiro Rosón)