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.
Longing
Oh! Unfathomable pain,
desolate bitterness
not even finding a lover’s
gift along my path,
and feeling, at the start of
each difficult day,
like I have a pensioner’s
brain and a child’s heart!
And our hope has been
crushed
by the pitiless wrath of heaven!
And this pain of feeling a
coward in the face of life,
of jettisoning all noble
desire..!
Oh blessed, indeed, are
those who are oblivious;
if it’s time to laugh, they
laugh, if it’s time to cry, they cry
living the simplicity of
blissful ignorance!
I long for a life where I
commit to my joy and my despair,
to live out the sadness of
each and every day,
as if my soul had returned
to infancy!
Anhelo
¡Oh dolor insondable,
desolada amargura
de no hallar en la senda ni la flor de un cariño,
y sentirse, al comienzo de la jornada dura,
con cerebro de viejo y corazón de niño!
¡Y que nuestra esperanza haya sido vencida
por la implacable hostilidad del cielo!
Y el dolor de sentirse cobarde ante la vida,
y la renunciación de todo noble anhelo...!
¡Oh bienaventurados, en verdad, los que ignoran;
y si es de reír, ríen, y si es de llorar, lloran
con la simplicidad de su santa ignorancia!
¡Solo anhelo ser siempre en mis dichas y males,
y vivir la tristeza de los días iguales,
como si el alma hubiera retornado a la infancia!
The Danaïdes
Amid the scent of women’s
flesh,
the cursed woes of the
condemned,
a yawn of light from the
firmament
lit a miracle of
silhouettes.
Struck again and again with
steel
from the ship’s bow, along
unknown shores,
the shuddering horde has to
hear
every dire snarl of Cerberus.
Now a demonic deputy,
from the top of a steep
mountain,
Triptolemus ruled over the
rites and punishments;
then from the fen shores of
Acheron,
in a gray blur, at the sound
of an oar,
Charon’s boat drifted on.
Las danaides
Hubo aroma de carnes femeniles,
ayes e imprecaciones de
tormento,
y un bostezo de luz del firmamento
iluminó un milagro de perfiles.
Golpeó con ruido isócrono el
acero
de una prora en la riba
inconocida,
y escuchó la legión estremecida
el trágico ladrar de
Cancerbero.
Con atributos de Censor
supremo,
desde la cima de un abrupto
monte,
dictaminó el castigo
Triptolemo;
mientras sobre el fangal del
Aqueronte,
en un esfume gris, al son del
remo,
se alejaba la barca de Caronte.
Prayer
A depthless hunger I strive
to sate,
a thirst the soul tries in
vain to slake,
there’s nothing that eases
the emptiness of dreaming,
there’s nothing that
relieves my thirst for affection!
Mighty Lord! You
who own
all our sorrows and joys,
you, the culmination of your
own divine dream
of love, hope, mercy, and
kindness;
you who keep vigil over
everything, exist in everything,
can do everything and know
everything,
deliver us from neglect and from evil,
relieve the anguish of my
grim days,
and give me the humble gift
of some soft lips,
fair hands and sad eyes!
Plegaria
Un hambre infinita que en
saciar me empeño,
una sed que el alma mitigar
procura,
¡sin que nada calme mis hambres
de ensueño,
sin que nada alivie mi sed de
ternura!
¡Señor poderoso! Tú que eres el
dueño
de nuestras tristezas y nuestra
ventura,
tú que coronaste tu divino
sueño
de amor, de esperanza, piedad y
dulzura;
tú que en todo velas y que en
todo existes,
que todo lo puedes y todo lo
sabes,
que en el abandono y el mal nos
asistes,
alivia la angustia de mis horas
graves,
¡hazme el don humilde de unos
labios suaves,
unas manos buenas y unos ojos tristes!
Downpour
A glacial afternoon of rain
and monotony.
You, behind the glass in a
florid tower,
with a castaway gaze in the
gray distance
slowly stripping away the
whorl of my heart.
The withered petals twist
down… Boredom, melancholy,
disenchantment… trembling as
they fall, repeating,
and your uncertain gaze, the
grim shadow of a bird,
swoops down across the ruins
of yesterday.
The rain sings its accord. Under
the withered afternoon
your last dream dies like a
flower in agony
and, meanwhile, in the
distance a sacred litany
in twilight church bell
voices
you pray Verlaine’s disconsolate prayer:
just as it rains in the
streets, so it pours in my heart.
Llueve
Tarde glacial de lluvia y de
monotonía.
Tú, tras de los cristales del
florido balcón,
con la mirada náufraga en la
gris lejanía
vas deshojando lentamente el
corazón.
Ruedan mustios los pétalos...
Tedio, melancolía,
desencanto... te dicen trémulos
al caer,
y tu incierta mirada, como una
ave sombría,
abate el vuelo sobre las ruinas
del ayer.
Canta la lluvia armónica. Bajo
la tarde mustia
muere tu postrer sueño como una
flor de angustia,
y, en tanto que, a lo lejos
preludia la oración
sagrada del crepúsculo la voz
de una campana,
tú rezas la doliente letanía
verleniana:
como llueve en las calles, en
mi corazón.
Ernesto Noboa y Caamaño (1889 - 1927; Quito, Ecuador). Noboa was an established presence in Ecuador’s literary world, though he only published one book of poetry, “Romanza de las Horas” (Romance of the Hours), in 1922. At the time of his death, he was said to be working on a second poetry collection, “La sombra de las alas” (The Wings’ Shadow), which remained unfinished. Noboa died aged 38 in Quito in 1927, reportedly of an overdose.
image source:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ernestonoboaycaama%C3%B1o.jpg
