[BNP/E3, 74A – 64-66a]
The Student of
Salamanca.
Part I.
Espronceda
translated by
Alexander Search.
[65r]
The Student of Salamanca.
Part the first.
His titles his courage
His parchments his own will.
Don Quixote — Part I.
’Twas more than the hour of midnight,
As is told by ancient stories,
When all in sleep and in silence
Enwrappèd is earth and gloomy,
When the living seem but dead men
And the dead their graves relinquish.
It was that hour when perchance
Terror-hushèd voices formless
Sound, and trembling ears may listen
To still and hollow foot falls,
And when mute and dreadful phantoms
In the |ill-penetrable| darkness
Wander vaguely, and the watch-dogs
Mark with fearful howls their passing:
When haply the bell unswinging
Within some ruined church-belfry
Yieldeth full mysterious soundings
[66r]
E-I-2.
|Of curse and of malediction,|
That on |Saturdays| doth summon
The witches to their dread feast.
The sky was unfair and gloomed,
And not a star woke its shrouding,
The wind howlèd drearily
|And yonder in air[1] like phantoms|
Blackly in the night upjutted
Solemnly lovely church-towers,
And of the ancient Gothic castle
The highly-built battlements,
Where haply singeth or prayeth
In his cumbrous fear the sentry.
|In fire, at the hour of midnight|
All rested, and of its living
Lock’d in their slumber was tomb that
Ancient city by whose walls
Rolleth Tormès, fruitful river
In poetic love remembered,
Widely-famèd Salamanca,
Renowned in arm and in letters,
Mother of illustrious men,
Of sciences noble storehouse.
Suddenly of swords the dashing
[67r]
E-I-3.
Soundeth, and a moan is heard;
A moan of death-toil, a moan
That pierceth unto the heart,
That unto the marrow chilleth
And makes tremble him that heard it,
The moan of one that is giving
To the world his last farewell.
The sound
Is done,
A man
Pass’d on
Cloak’d full,
And his hat
Careful
Drew his eyes
Upon.
He glideth
Close-press’d
’Gainst the wall
Of a church,
And in shadow
Is gone.
[68r]
E-I-4.
A narrow street and high-stretching,
La Calle del Ataud,[2]
As if of black crape the blackest
A gloomy eternal hood
Covered it, always in darkness
And at night not lighted more
Than by the lamp that |illumines|
Of Jesus an image small,
The maskèd wanderer doth traverse
Holding yet in hand his sword
Which threw back a sudden lightning
In passing before the cross.
As hiding the moon when a cloud all of blackness
With luring of silver’s embroidered |around|,
And when the wind stirs it ’tis torn into darkness
And lo! to white vapour in air ’tis unbound:
E’en so, a vague phantom of dark and of lightness,
A doubtful and airy, weird vision doth gleam
A moment, then hide it the clouds in their rightness
Too like a sweet hope or a joy that did seem;
The street all in darkness, the night come already,
The lamplet with sadness whose flame is now spent,
[69r]
E-I-5.
At times that upflaming the image lights steady,
Than shrinketh and hideth the night to augment.
The nightly, vague phantom awhile that appeareth,
And then with rapid dead footstep comes on,
And then in the darkness awhile disappeareth
Like the pining shadow of one who is gone|,|
The spirit the boldest of steel to withstand it
Had shrunk into caution, had stricken with fear;
The fiercest, most cursing and blasphemous bandit
Had felt with its terror his lips find a prayer.
But not to the masked one, whose sword though yet dripping
Hot blood, did the phantom inspire fear and dread,
But the weapon in hand with a strong firmness gripping,
With boldness to meet it and slow did he tread.
Don Juan Tenorio the second,
A proud and insolent spirit,
Impious, in courage his merit,
Quarrelsome in deed and word,
Always insult in his glances,
His lips e’er irony bearing,
Fearing nought, all things referring
[69ar]
E-I-6.
To his valour and his sword.
A corrupted soul that sneereth
At one he courts, as if prizing,
He leaveth, to-day despising,
Her who was his yesterday.
Never a fear for the future,
Nor from the past ever sadden’d
By thoughts of her woman he abandoned
Nor of money lost at |play|.[3]
Ne’er in dreams he saw the phantom
Of him in duel his victim,
Nor fearful care to afflict him
His fearlessness never woke.
Always in gambles, in lovings|,
Always in bacchical orgies,
An impious speaking[4] he merges
A blasphemy in a joke.
Famous in all Salamanca
For his beauty and life imprudent,
As the bold, the fearless student
Among a thousand he’s known;
To all his boldness entitles,
[68ar]
E-I-7.
And for all his wealth, his nature
Of noble, generous feature,
And manly beauty ature.
Thou whom in arrogance and vices
And bearing noble and knightly,
Courage and grace none so[5] brightly
Can shine or equal by far:
For in his crimes very blackest,
Haughtiness and impious candour
Yet doth set a seal of grandeur
Don Felix de Montemar.
Beautiful, purer than the sky’s pure blue
With sweet and languid eyes tenderly bright
Where haply love hath shone the soft veil through
Of modesty that hides their soul’s delight,
A timid star doth reflect unto
The earth brilliant and doubtful rays of light,
Love’s angel pure, love to inspire unsated
Such was Elvira innocent, ill-fated.
Elvira, that was once the student’s love,
Happy and proud in her love’s tender glows,
When first her heart did open, when love did move,
[67ar]
E-I-8.
As to the sun’s warm ray the timely use,
Of the false lover who such sweetness wove
She the false honey pain his lips that flows
Gulps in her ardent thirst, her breast unthinking
That poison hid in honey she is drinking.
Not more serenely in its mother’s arms
The tender infant doth its rest receive
Than she in the false net and full of charms
Her knowing lover cunningly doth weave
Caresses sweet, embraces, soft alarms,
Pleasures — alas! — which but a moment live
Elvira thinks eternally will shine
In her illusion childlike and divine.
The virgin soul a pleasure did caress
With a sweet dream within its purity
Wreathes all about with truth and holiness,
Thinketh in all virtue and charm to be.
In the blue sky’s immense and spangled dress,
In the sun’s deathless wealth she more doth see
And deep in air and fields and flowers sweet-scented
Their splendour, colour, life she sees augmented.
All in Don Felix lays the unhappy maid
[66ar]
E-I-9.
Her happiness in love unquestioning
Unto her eyes his eyes that love betrayed
Are stars of glory, life’s translucid spring.
And when his lips unto her lips are laid
When she to his voice rapt is listening,
Soul-drunken of the god her heart that moves
She eyes him sweetly and ecstatic loves.
_______
[1] in air /in the mute?! air\
[2] La Calle del Ataud, /Lit. Coffin Street.\
[3] Nor /Or\ of money lost at |play|/gambled away\.
[4] An impious speaking /Impiously speaking\
[5] so /more\
