Translation:Egalité

Egalité
by José Asunción Silva, translated from Spanish by Wikisource

Translation from the Spanish by Zach Powell

30210EgalitéJosé Asunción Silva

Juan Lanas, the street urchin,
Is absolutely equal
To the Emperor of China:
The two are the same animal.
Juan Lanas covers his hide
With our national blanket;
The great magnate wears a suit
Of exceptional green silk.
One hundred dragons of porcelain
And glass watch the one;
Juan Lanas carries curses
And heavy packages for a real^[1],
But if some Mandarin
Following her sexual instinct
Approached the Emperor
In the traditional dress
That our mother Eve had
In that fateful afternoon
In which they ate the fruit
From the tree of Good and Evil,
And if to our Juan a Juana
Gave herself up in a brutal way
And the human beast throbbed
In a single sexual spasm,
Juan Lanas, the street urchin,
Is absolutely equal
To the Emperor of China:
The two are the same animal.

↑ The real was the currency in Spain until the middle of the 19th century, and thus would have been that of Colombia until the latter's independence in the beginning of the 19th century. The use of this term is also possibly a pun on the word's other meaning, "royal."

[ref1-1] The real was the currency in Spain until the middle of the 19th century, and thus would have been that of Colombia until the latter's independence in the beginning of the 19th century. The use of this term is also possibly a pun on the word's other meaning, "royal."

[1]