Elegy On the Death of Vicente Aleixandre, Translation of Carlos Bousono's Poem: Elegia En La Muerte

Elegy on the Death of Vicente Aleixandre, Translation of Carlos Bousono’s poem : Elegia en la muerte de Vicente Aleixandre (Born in 1923, Carlos Bousono, a renowned prize-winning Spanish poet and eminent theoretician on the aesthetics of poetry, held the Chair of Stylistics at the Central (Complutense) University of Madrid. ; later as E-meritus. He wrote his doctoral dissertation, in 1950, on the poetry of Vicente Aleixandre, the recepient of the 1977 Nobel Prize for Literature. It is evident, he witnessed the Nobel laureate’s passing in 1984. Bousono’s every lecture, delivered off the cuff, earned him an indomitabe world-wide reputation. T. Wignesan) In Death Eyes that kept looking so full of pain on the last day, hardly moments before dying, and from the deathbed he recalled in sadness, from far away, very far away though somewhat hazily, those days with his friends, out there in the distance of his childhood, having himself a great time, life even then being immortal, they (may have) roamed through small orchards, or through the pinewood, or the soaring heights bathed palpitatingly in the light. Then to run, concealing themselves, in the rear of some thickets, awhile : why were they not being called to yet from the house. A little later, a little later feeling really lonesome for the very last time, and that would be it. And when they put a crown on his head as on the king of the world the day when it all came to pass the king* had reigned for seven years, seven years as lord over everyone in the universe : the air, the sea. He breathed. He looked tired and the impossibility. Life, the crown, painted cardboard, feeling yet happy, later in love, in the company of those slinging shots, such happiness. Years without knowing doubt, and all that was just an instant so lonely, bitter grief real. And now the tears – he who never cried – filled his eyes, sliding down ever so slowly over his pale cheeks, soaking the skin, the mouth, and continued sliding even though he was already dead. The tears lasted longer than his sorrow-laden eyes. Much longer than his own pain. • Probably a reference to King Juan Carlos of the House of Bourbon. © T. Wignesan – Patis, 2013