Edouard Manet
The Dead Toreador
from Lament for Ignacio Sanchez Mejias
(4 Absence of the Soul)
The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
Nor horses, nor the ants on your floors.
The child does not know you, nor the evening,
Because your death is forever.
The saddleback of rock does not know you,
Nor the black satin where you tore apart.
Your silent recollectoin does not know you
Because your death is forever.
Autumn will return bringing snails,
Misted-over grapes, and clustered mountains,
But none will wish to gaze in your eyes
Because your death is forever.
Because your death is forever,
Like everyone’s who ever died on Earth,
Like all dead bodies discarded
On rubbish heaps with mongrels’ corpses.
No one knows you. No one. But I sing you –
Sing your profile and your grace, for later on.
The signal ripeness of your mastery.
The way you sought death out, savored its taste.
The sadness just beneath your gay valor.
Nor soon, if ever, will Andalusia see
So towering a man, so venturesome.
I sing his elegance with words that moan
And remember a sad breeze in the olive groves.
~ Federico García Lorca ~
(4 Absence of the Soul)
The bull does not know you, nor the fig tree,
Nor horses, nor the ants on your floors.
The child does not know you, nor the evening,
Because your death is forever.
The saddleback of rock does not know you,
Nor the black satin where you tore apart.
Your silent recollectoin does not know you
Because your death is forever.
Autumn will return bringing snails,
Misted-over grapes, and clustered mountains,
But none will wish to gaze in your eyes
Because your death is forever.
Because your death is forever,
Like everyone’s who ever died on Earth,
Like all dead bodies discarded
On rubbish heaps with mongrels’ corpses.
No one knows you. No one. But I sing you –
Sing your profile and your grace, for later on.
The signal ripeness of your mastery.
The way you sought death out, savored its taste.
The sadness just beneath your gay valor.
Nor soon, if ever, will Andalusia see
So towering a man, so venturesome.
I sing his elegance with words that moan
And remember a sad breeze in the olive groves.
~ Federico García Lorca ~
