“Ghazal of the Morning Market” is my translation of “Gacela del Mercado Matutino,” a poem from Federico García Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit.
My ghazal “American Boy” samples a line from “Ghazal of the Morning Market,” which begins with the narrator’s longing to gaze upon his lover at the Gate of Elvira. Lorca’s narrator wonders jealously “who gathers your seed,” seed being the obvious euphemism for semen and sex.
Agha Shahid Ali, the Kashmiri-American poet who taught English-language poets the traditional ghazal, introduced this sampling technique as a way for the poet to honor and acknowledge literary forebears.
“Ghazal of the Morning Market,” an English Translation of “Gacela del Mercado Matutino”
At the Gate of ElviraI want to see you pass,
so to know your name
and begin to weep.
What pallid twilight moon
bled your cheek to death?
Who gathers your seed
of flash fire in the snow?
What quick cactus needle
murders your crystal?…
At the Gate of Elvira
I’m going to see go by,
to drink in your eyes
and cry.
What din you raise to
castigate me in the market!
What deranged carnation
in the mounds of wheat!
How far when I am with you,
how near when you go!
At the Gate of Elvira
I’m going to see you go by,
to feel your thighs
and cry.
by Federico García Lorca,
From Diván del Tamarit (1934)
Translated by E.A. Melino
Selections from Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit
“Gacela del Mercado Matutino,” Spanish Original of “Ghazal of the Morning Market”
Por el arco de Elvira
quiero verte pasar,
para saber tu nombre
y ponerme a llorar.
¿Qué luna gris de las nueve
te desangró la mejilla?
¿Quién recoge tu semilla
de llamarada en la nieve?
¿Qué alfiler de cactus breve
asesina tu cristal?…
Por el arco de Elvira
voy a verte pasar,
para beber tus ojos
y ponerme a llorar.
¡Qué voz para me castigo
levantas por el mercado!
¡Qué clavel enajenado
en los montones de trigo!
¡Qué lejos estoy contigo,
qué cerca cuando te vas!
Por el arco de Elvira
voy a verte pasar,
para sentir tus muslos
y ponerme a llorar.
by Federico García Lorca,
From Diván del Tamarit (1934)
Selections from Lorca’s Diván del Tamarit
Image: “Federico García Lorca: From a mural on a barn in his birthplace, Fuente Vaqueros, Andalucía, Spain.” Photos by Spencer Means. Used under CC BY-SA 2.0 License.
To see the mural and its detail images as well as more photos from Andalucía, Provence and other places in Europe and the U.S., visit Spencer’s Flickr Page.