«Los comedores de loto»: Alfred Tennyson; poema y análisis.
Los comedores de loto (The Lotos-Eaters) —a veces traducido al español como Los lotófagos— es un poema del romanticismo del escritor inglés Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892), publicado en la antología de 1833: Poemas (Poems).
Los comedores de loto, sin dudas uno de los mejores poemas de Alfred Tennyson, y probablemente el que reúne en sus versos todas las características del romanticismo, describe la inquietante aventura de un grupo de marineros, quienes luego de probar los pétalos de la flor de loto, logran entrar en un estado alterado de consciencia, aislándose así dentro de sus propias fantasías.
Esta intensa fuga de la realidad es extremadamente seductora. Los comedores de loto realmente quieren abandonar la realidad, las preocupaciones mundanas, y sobre todo ese estado de ensimismamiento, de insoportable languidez, propio de la filosofía del romanticismo, y de esta forma hundirse para siempre en el olvido.
Sin embargo, esta separación, o quiebre, con la realidad, no es del todo completo. Si bien cada uno de los comedores de loto está aislado dentro de su propia fantasía, la fuga se realiza en grupo, en comunidad, una especie de hermandad que, al final del poema, consigue abandonar las penas del mundo.
A continuación les dejamos la mejor traducción al español de Los comedores de loto de Alfred Tennyson, realizada por el gran traductor argentino Juan Rodolfo Wilcock.
Los comedores de loto.
The Lotos-Eaters, Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Dulce música hay aquí, cuya cadencia es más suave que el descenso de los pétalos de las rosas, deshojadas sobre la hierba, o el rocío nocturno sobre las aguas quietas entre paredes de sombrío granito, en un desfiladero brillante; música que cae sobre el espíritu más suavemente que los cansados párpados sobre los ojos cansados; música que nos trae un dulce sueño desde los cielos bienaventurados. Aquí hay musgos frescos y profundos, y entre los musgos trepan las hiedras, y las flores de largos pétalos lloran sobre el arroyo, y la amapola pende soñolienta de los abruptos arrecifes.
¿Por qué soportar la fatiga, y consumirnos enteramente en la aguda aflicción, cuando todas las cosas descansan de su cansancio? Todas las cosas tienen descanso; por qué sólo nosotros nos esforzaremos, sólo nosotros, que somos las cosas principales; por qué gemiremos perpetuamente, arrojados de una tristeza a otra y nunca plegaremos nuestras alas, ni cesaremos nuestros peregrinajes, ni bañaremos nuestras frentes en el sagrado bálsamo del sueño; ni escucharemos lo que canta el íntimo espíritu: “No hay más alegría que el reposo”. ¿Por qué sólo nosotros nos esforzaremos, si somos la bóveda y la corona de las cosas?
¡Mirad! En medio del bosque, la hoja plegada de los brotes es solicitada por los vientos, sobre su misma rama, y allí crece y verdece, y de nada cuida, bañada por el sol a mediodía, y nocturnamente alimentada de rocío en la luz lunar; y cuando amarillea, cae, y desciende flotando por el aire. Mirad: endulzada por la luz estival, la jugosa manzana, excedida en su madurez, cae en la noche silenciosa de otoño. Y durante su espacio de días prefijados, la flor madura en su lugar, madura y se marchita, y cae, y no se fatiga, hondamente enraizada al fructífero suelo.
Odioso es el cielo azul oscuro, abovedado sobre el mar azul oscuro. La muerte es el término de la vida; ¿por qué sólo las fatigas ocuparán nuestra vida? Dejadnos solos. El tiempo avanza velozmente, y muy pronto enmudecerán nuestros labios. Dejadnos solos. ¿Qué cosa durará? Todo nos es arrebatado, y se convierte en porciones y partículas del temible pasado. Dejadnos solos. ¿Qué placer podemos hallar luchando contra el mal? ¿Qué paz hay en la superación eterna de las olas ascendentes? Todas las cosas tienen descanso, y maduran hacia la tumba, en silencio maduran, caen, y cesan; dadnos el largo reposo de la muerte, la oscura muerte, o la felicidad de los sueños.
¡Qué hermoso sería, oyendo la corriente que desciende, y con los ojos entrecerrados, adormecerse eternamente en un semiensueño! Soñar y soñar, como aquella luz ambarina, que nos abandona aún esa mata de mirra en la colina; oír las susurrantes palabras de los compañeros y comer los lotos, día tras día; contemplar los rizos crespos de la playa, y las tiernas líneas ondulantes de la espuma cremosa; entregar totalmente nuestros espíritus y nuestros corazones a la influencia de una amable melancolía; pensar y reflexionar, y vivir nuevamente en la memoria, con todos esos antiguos rostros de nuestra infancia, ya cubiertos por un montículo de hierba, dos manojos de polvo blanco encerrados en una urna de bronce.
Amable es la memoria de nuestras vidas conyugales, y amable el último abrazo de nuestras mujeres, y sus calientes lágrimas; pero todo ha sufrido un cambio; porque seguramente nuestros hogares están ahora fríos, nuestros hijos nos heredan, nuestro aspecto es extraño, y llegaríamos como fantasmas a turbar la alegría. O quizá los atrevidos príncipes de la isla han consumido ya nuestro patrimonio, y ante ellos canta el juglar los diez años de guerra de Troya, y nuestros grandes actos, como si fueran cosas semiolvidadas. ¿Habrá confusión en la pequeña isla? Que lo deshecho permanezca deshecho. Los Dioses son difíciles de reconciliar; es trabajoso instituir nuevamente el orden. Y hay confusión peor que la muerte, obstáculo sobre obstáculo, sufrimiento sobre sufrimiento, larga labor hasta la senectud, dolorosa obligación para estos corazones gastados por tantas guerras, y estos ojos nublados por el constante escrutinio de las estrellas conductoras.
Pero aquí, reclinados sobre lechos de amaranto y mandrágora, qué dulce –mientras las cálidas brisas nos acunan, flotando levemente- con tranquilos párpados entrecerrados, debajo de un cielo oscuro y sagrado, contemplar el largo río brillante que vierte sus aguas lentas desde la purpúrea colina –escuchar los húmedos ecos repitiéndose de caverna en caverna a través de la vid enmarañada-, contemplar el agua esmeraldina que cae entre tantas divinas guirnaldas de tejido acanto. Oír tan solo y ver la lejana espuma centelleante del mar; tan sólo oírla sería hermoso, extendidos debajo de los pinos.
Los Lotos florecen debajo de los estériles riscos, los Lotos brotan en cada fluctuante riachuelo; todo el día sopla suavemente el viento con dulcísimo sonido; a través de cada caverna vacía y cada sendero solitario, girando y girando, vuela el polen amarillo del Loto sobre las llanuras perfumadas.
Bastante hemos conocido la acción y el movimiento; hemos rodado a babor, rodado a estribor, cuando el oleaje se agitaba libremente, cuando el monstruo turbulento escupía sobre el mar sus fuentes de espuma. Hagamos un juramento, y mantengámoslo con constancia, de vivir en el vano país del Loto, y yacer reclinados y reunidos sobre las colinas, como los Dioses, indiferentes ante la humanidad. Ellos yacen junto al néctar, y los relámpagos nacen muy por debajo de ellos, sobre los valles, y las nubes se encrespan levemente en torno de sus casas doradas, circundadas por un mundo resplandeciente; allí sonríen en secreto, contemplando las tierras desoladas, la sequía y el hambre, plagas y terremotos, abismos rugientes y arenas incendiadas, combates clamorosos, ciudades en llamas, barcos que naufragan, y manos que rezan. Pero ellos sonríen, y descubren una música que asciende, centrada en un canto doloroso, un lamento y una antigua historia de injusticias, como una historia sin mayor sentido, aunque las palabras son terribles; donde se canta la raza oprimida de los hombres que aran la tierra, plantan la semilla, y cosechan el grano con interminable fatiga, ahorrando su pequeño diezmo anual de trigo, de vino, de aceite; hasta que perecen, y sufren –algunos, se murmura- en el hondo infierno, sufren eterna angustia, y otros descansan en los valles Elíseos, reposando sus fatigados miembros sobre macizos de asfódelo.
Seguramente, el ensueño es más dulce que la acción, y la costa más dulce que las fatigas en el profundo centro del océano, y el viento y las olas, y el remo; ¡oh descansad, hermanos marineros, ya no navegaremos más!
"Courage!" he said, and pointed toward the land,
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
Choric Song:
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
"This mounting wave will roll us shoreward soon."
In the afternoon they came unto a land
In which it seemed always afternoon.
All round the coast the languid air did swoon,
Breathing like one that hath a weary dream.
Full-faced above the valley stood the moon;
And like a downward smoke, the slender stream
Along the cliff to fall and pause and fall did seem.
A land of streams! some, like a downward smoke,
Slow-dropping veils of thinnest lawn, did go;
And some thro' wavering lights and shadows broke,
Rolling a slumbrous sheet of foam below.
They saw the gleaming river seaward flow
From the inner land: far off, three mountain-tops,
Three silent pinnacles of aged snow,
Stood sunset-flush'd: and, dew'd with showery drops,
Up-clomb the shadowy pine above the woven copse.
The charmed sunset linger'd low adown
In the red West: thro' mountain clefts the dale
Was seen far inland, and the yellow down
Border'd with palm, and many a winding vale
And meadow, set with slender galingale;
A land where all things always seem'd the same!
And round about the keel with faces pale,
Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,
The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.
Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,
Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave
To each, but whoso did receive of them,
And taste, to him the gushing of the wave
Far far away did seem to mourn and rave
On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,
His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;
And deep-asleep he seem'd, yet all awake,
And music in his ears his beating heart did make.
They sat them down upon the yellow sand,
Between the sun and moon upon the shore;
And sweet it was to dream of Fatherland,
Of child, and wife, and slave; but evermore
Most weary seem'd the sea, weary the oar,
Weary the wandering fields of barren foam.
Then some one said, "We will return no more";
And all at once they sang, "Our island home
Is far beyond the wave; we will no longer roam."
Choric Song:
There is sweet music here that softer falls
Than petals from blown roses on the grass,
Or night-dews on still waters between walls
Of shadowy granite, in a gleaming pass;
Music that gentlier on the spirit lies,
Than tir'd eyelids upon tir'd eyes;
Music that brings sweet sleep down from the blissful skies.
Here are cool mosses deep,
And thro' the moss the ivies creep,
And in the stream the long-leaved flowers weep,
And from the craggy ledge the poppy hangs in sleep.
Why are we weigh'd upon with heaviness,
And utterly consumed with sharp distress,
While all things else have rest from weariness?
All things have rest: why should we toil alone,
We only toil, who are the first of things,
And make perpetual moan,
Still from one sorrow to another thrown:
Nor ever fold our wings,
And cease from wanderings,
Nor steep our brows in slumber's holy balm;
Nor harken what the inner spirit sings,
"There is no joy but calm!"
Why should we only toil, the roof and crown of things?
Lo! in the middle of the wood,
The folded leaf is woo'd from out the bud
With winds upon the branch, and there
Grows green and broad, and takes no care,
Sun-steep'd at noon, and in the moon
Nightly dew-fed; and turning yellow
Falls, and floats adown the air.
Lo! sweeten'd with the summer light,
The full-juiced apple, waxing over-mellow,
Drops in a silent autumn night.
All its allotted length of days
The flower ripens in its place,
Ripens and fades, and falls, and hath no toil,
Fast-rooted in the fruitful soil.
Hateful is the dark-blue sky,
Vaulted o'er the dark-blue sea.
Death is the end of life; ah, why
Should life all labour be?
Let us alone. Time driveth onward fast,
And in a little while our lips are dumb.
Let us alone. What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us, and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have
To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen toward the grave
In silence; ripen, fall and cease:
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease.
How sweet it were, hearing the downward stream,
With half-shut eyes ever to seem
Falling asleep in a half-dream!
To dream and dream, like yonder amber light,
Which will not leave the myrrh-bush on the height;
To hear each other's whisper'd speech;
Eating the Lotos day by day,
To watch the crisping ripples on the beach,
And tender curving lines of creamy spray;
To lend our hearts and spirits wholly
To the influence of mild-minded melancholy;
To muse and brood and live again in memory,
With those old faces of our infancy
Heap'd over with a mound of grass,
Two handfuls of white dust, shut in an urn of brass!
Dear is the memory of our wedded lives,
And dear the last embraces of our wives
And their warm tears: but all hath suffer'd change:
For surely now our household hearths are cold,
Our sons inherit us: our looks are strange:
And we should come like ghosts to trouble joy.
Or else the island princes over-bold
Have eat our substance, and the minstrel sings
Before them of the ten years' war in Troy,
And our great deeds, as half-forgotten things.
Is there confusion in the little isle?
Let what is broken so remain.
The Gods are hard to reconcile:
'Tis hard to settle order once again.
There is confusion worse than death,
Trouble on trouble, pain on pain,
Long labour unto aged breath,
Sore task to hearts worn out by many wars
And eyes grown dim with gazing on the pilot-stars.
But, propt on beds of amaranth and moly,
How sweet (while warm airs lull us, blowing lowly)
With half-dropt eyelid still,
Beneath a heaven dark and holy,
To watch the long bright river drawing slowly
His waters from the purple hill--
To hear the dewy echoes calling
From cave to cave thro' the thick-twined vine--
To watch the emerald-colour'd water falling
Thro' many a wov'n acanthus-wreath divine!
Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine,
Only to hear were sweet, stretch'd out beneath the pine.
The Lotos blooms below the barren peak:
The Lotos blows by every winding creek:
All day the wind breathes low with mellower tone:
Thro' every hollow cave and alley lone
Round and round the spicy downs the yellow Lotos-dust is blown.
We have had enough of action, and of motion we,
Roll'd to starboard, roll'd to larboard, when the surge was seething free,
Where the wallowing monster spouted his foam-fountains in the sea.
Let us swear an oath, and keep it with an equal mind,
In the hollow Lotos-land to live and lie reclined
On the hills like Gods together, careless of mankind.
For they lie beside their nectar, and the bolts are hurl'd
Far below them in the valleys, and the clouds are lightly curl'd
Round their golden houses, girdled with the gleaming world:
Where they smile in secret, looking over wasted lands,
Blight and famine, plague and earthquake, roaring deeps and fiery sands,
Clanging fights, and flaming towns, and sinking ships, and praying hands.
But they smile, they find a music centred in a doleful song
Steaming up, a lamentation and an ancient tale of wrong,
Like a tale of little meaning tho' the words are strong;
Chanted from an ill-used race of men that cleave the soil,
Sow the seed, and reap the harvest with enduring toil,
Storing yearly little dues of wheat, and wine and oil;
Till they perish and they suffer--some, 'tis whisper'd--down in hell
Suffer endless anguish, others in Elysian valleys dwell,
Resting weary limbs at last on beds of asphodel.
Surely, surely, slumber is more sweet than toil, the shore
Than labour in the deep mid-ocean, wind and wave and oar;
O, rest ye, brother mariners, we will not wander more.
Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
Poemas góticos. I Poemas de Alfred Tennyson.
Más literatura gótica:
El análisis, traducción al español y resumen del poema de Alfred Tennyson: Los comedores de loto (The Lotos-Eaters), fueron realizados por El Espejo Gótico. Para su reproducción escríbenos a elespejogotico@gmail.com
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