Four/Four: The Decapitated Generation
This series, posting monthly across four months,
presents four poems by each of four Ecuadorian modernist poets known
collectively as the ‘Decapitated Generation’ (la generación decapitada). That
name, applied posthumously by essayists, references the fact that all four
poets died young, by suicide. Together, their works reflect the social
influence of a time of great change in Ecuador at the turn of the last century,
as well as the literary influence of both Rubén Darío and the ‘cursed’ French
poets (Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Verlaine). Translations are by the California-based
writer Tristan Partridge.
The four central members of the Decapitated Generation are: Medardo Ángel Silva
(1898-1919); Humberto Fierro (1890-1929); Arturo Borja (1892-1912); Ernesto Noboa
y Caamaño (1889- 1927). Their work is scarcely available in
English. Born on the coast and not a member of the country’s elite, only Ángel
Silva grappled directly with the racial, sexual, and class demands of a society
keen to exclude him. Despite their differing backgrounds, however, all four
poets share an acute focus on despair and absurdity, each offering their own
perspectives on beauty, loss, creativity, and death.
The Faun
Goldfinch song. Ushering in
a fresh breeze.
An axe ringing out through
the myrtle trees.
A withered rose, all but
dead
Shadows its crystal amethyst
bed.
And the young faun, a
desperate soul, alone,
Their eyes filling with
raindrops.
El Fauno
Canta el jilguero. Pasó la racha.
Entre los mirtos resuena el hacha.
La rosa mustia se inclina loca
Sobre su fuente, cristal de roca.
El fauno triste de alma rubia
Tiene en sus ojos gotas de lluvia.
Art Dream
The white trail of a white
swan
A guide across limitless
lakes
In softened strokes and
graceful waves
She shows me her silken
sides.
From the mulch lawn of my
perch
To the marble of Milo, all
is lost among leaves
and climbing arrowhead
twines
Hiding the divine one-armed
arm.
The evening descends in
harmony
The light flickering away in
agony.
The star of Venus already ablaze.
Looking at some flowers,
lost in thought,
I suddenly jump in alarm:
Restless Pegasus is here,
stamping the ground.
Sueño de arte
Blanca estela dejaba el
cisne blanco
En las mágicas aguas andadas
Y en gallardas y suaves balanceadas
Me mostraba la seda de su flanco.
Desde el césped frondoso de mi banco
A la Milo de mármol enlazadas
Trepaban las volubles lanceoladas
A ocultar el divino brazo manco.
Armoniosa la tarde descendía
Paipadeando su luz con agonía.
Ya la estrella de Venus fulguraba.
Y mirando unas flores abstraído
De repente salté muy sorprendido:
Impaciente Pegaso ya piafaba.
To Clori
So that you know, Clori, the woes
your goddess eyes inflict,
I write these lines along
the breaking branches
of a tree among flowers and streams.
Not even Eclogue shepherds
describe
such a heavenly beloved,
Paolo never gazed at
Francesca
under such crystal moons of
adoration.
And if your dear spirit
would allow,
I would be the Golden Cloud
for Danae, imprisoned, impregnated,
or self-neutered Atys, dead alone in the forest.
As lost as Sisyphus,
my lips to your ear, I tell
you
Love is a God that never
dies.
A Clori
Para que sepas, Clori, los
dolores
Que tus ojos divinos me han causado,
Dejo escrito en el álamo agobiado
del valle de las fuentes y las flores.
Ni en las églogas tienen los pastores
Una amada que más hayan soñado,
Ni Paolo a Francesca ha contemplado
Bajo lunas más nítidas de amores.
Y así fuera en tu espíritu querido
La Pluvia que Danae recibiere,
O muriendo como Atys en olvido.
O triste como Sísifo estuviere,
Te diré con mis versos al oído
El Amor es un Dios que nunca muere.
Return
He came back from afar
Our brother,
who left our lands
one January.
He still talks with
tenderness
his hair grayed,
Next to the piano, long
since
forgotten.
Why greet the dying sun
with such a desolate smile?
He confides in us his
sorrow,
Perhaps he doesn’t love us
anymore...?
The wind strips the garden
Now withered and old,
And he sees the garden
golden
In the mirror.
Retorno
Llegó de lejano país
El compañero,
Que vimos partir del país
Un mes de Enero.
Conversa afectuoso y está
Encanecido,
Al lado del piano, que está
Dado al olvido.
¿Por qué su sonrisa infeliz
Al sol que muere?
Nos calla que ha sido infeliz,
¿Ya no nos quiere...?
El viento deshoja el jardín
Hoy mustio y viejo,
Y él ve amarillear el jardín
En el espejo.
Humberto Fierro Jarrín (1890 - 1929; Quito, Ecuador). Fierro’s poems appear in two collections, his first book “El Laúd en el Valle” (The lute in the valley) from 1919, and a second volume, published posthumously in 1949, “La Velada Palatina” (Palatine Evening). Fierro spent almost all of his working life as a clerk in a Public Ministry Office. Fierro died aged 39 from a mountain fall, widely believed to be suicide.
image source:
https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q5904905#/media/File:Humbertofierro.png
