Translation:It Was a Clear Afternoon, Sad and Somnolent

by Antonio Machado

 

It was a clear afternoon, sad and somnolent
afternoon of summer. The ivy reached
the wall of the park, black and dusty.
      You could hear the fountain.
   My key squeaked in the old gate;
with a sharp sound the rusty iron door
opened and, upon closing, gravely
struck the silence of the dead afternoon.
   In the deserted park, the sonorous
bubbling copla of the singing water
led me to the fountain. The fountain poured
its monotony over the white marble.
   The fountain sang: Does this song remind you,
brother, of a distant dream?
It was a slow summer’s slow afternoon.
      I answered the fountain:
I don’t remember, sister,
but I do know this song of yours is distant.
   It was this same afternoon: as today
my crystal poured its monotony upon the marble.
Remember, brother? ... The dangling myrtle,
that you see, darkened the clear songs
that you hear. Blonde as a flame,
the ripe fruit hung from the branch,
the same as now. Remember, brother?...
It was this same slow summer afternoon.
   –My sister the fountain, I don’t know
what your bright copla of distant dreams is saying.
   I know that your clear crystal of joy
already learned from the tree’s vermilion fruit;
I know its distant this bitterness of mine
that dreams in the afternoon of an old summer.
   I know that your pretty singing mirrors
copied old deliriums of love:
but recount, o fountain of entrancing words,
recount my joyful and forgotten legend.
   –I don’t know any legends of ancient joy,
but old melancholic stories.
   It was a clear afternoon of the slow summer...
You would come alone with your sadness, brother;
your lips kissed my serene lymph,
and in the clear afternoon they spoke of your sadness.
   They spoke of your sadness, your burning lips;
the thirst that they have now, they had then.
   –Goodbye forever, sonorous fountain,
always singing in the sleeping park.
Goodbye forever; your monotony,
fountain, is more bitter than my sadness.
   My key squeaked in the old gate;
with a sharp sound the rusty iron door
opened and, upon closing, gravely
struck the silence of the dead afternoon.