I
Stir up the brain, awake the sleeping soul;
arise, and let us go to contemplate
how life slips by, how it declines to wait,
how silent death will come to seize control,
how quickly every pleasure ebbs away
but leaves a memory painful to recall,
and how it seems to our best judgment all
that’s past looks so much better than today.
IV
I will forsake the fancy invocations
of all the orators and poets of fame.
I have no taste for their sweet fabrications—
that flavor has its poison just the same.
I will commend myself to one alone:
that one alone do I invoke as true,
who while he lived in this world as his own,
this world his living godhead never knew.
VII
If somehow it could be in our control
to beautify this low and carnal face
the way that we can strive to run the race
and clothe with glory our angelic soul,
what diligence would spur our days, what zeal,
what labor spent in lively urgency,
to dress the bondslave up in finery
and leave the Mistress all in dishabille.
XV
The Trojan tribe we might as well forget:
we never saw their pangs or victories.
And we can disregard that Roman set,
although we read and hear their histories.
What happened one short century ago?
Who cares? Our memories have acquiesced.
Now look at yesterday: one glance will show
it’s in oblivion, just like all the rest.
Coplas por la muerte de su padre
I
…Recuerde el alma dormida,
avive el seso y despierte,
…………..contemplando
cómo se passa la vida;
cómo se viene la muerte
…………..tan callando;
cuán presto se va el placer;
cómo, después de acordado,
…………..da dolor;
cómo, a nuestro parecer,
cualquiere tiempo passado
…………..fue mejor.
IV
…Dexo las invocaciones
de los famosos poetas
…………..y oradores;
non curo de sus ficciones,
que traen yerbas secretas
…………..sus sabores.
Aquél sólo m’encomiendo,
Aquél sólo invoco yo
…………..de verdad,
que en este mundo viviendo,
el mundo non conoció
…………..su deidad.
VII
…Si fuesse en nuestro poder
hazer la cara hermosa
…………..corporal,
como podemos hazer
el alma glorïosa
…………..angelical,
¡qué diligencia tan viva
toviéramos toda ora
…………..e tan presta,
en componer la cativa
dexándonos la señora
…………..descompuesta.
XV
…Dexemos a los troyanos,
que sus males non los vimos,
…………..ni sus glorias;
dexemos a los romanos,
aunque oimos e leimos
…………..sus hestorias;
non curemos de saber
lo d’aquel siglo passado
…………..qué fue d’ello;
vengamos a lo d’ayer,
que también es olvidado
…………..como aquello.
Jorge Manrique (c. 1440-1479)
Born sometime around 1440, the poet and soldier Jorge Manrique came from an important family in Castile. He died in 1479, fighting for Queen Isabella in a civil war over succession. Manrique wrote courtly love poetry, but he also left us one of the most important works in Spanish literature, Coplas por la muerte de su padre, [Stanzas on the Death of His Father]. Each of Manrique’s coplas contains twelve lines of pie quebrado or “broken foot” verse: octosyllabic lines interspersed with four-or-five syllable lines. The Coplas commemorates Manrique’s father, Rodrigo, and expresses Christian faith and devotion; but the work also muses on topoi like the vanity and brevity of earthly life—typical themes for both medieval and early modern poetry. Yet Manrique’s verse astonishes for two reasons: first, its tight, pithy articulation of these themes within a highly constrained form, and second for his inventive metaphors. This selection of four out of the forty Coplas highlights these accomplishments.