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Romancero Gitano

This book contains 18 poems by Federico García Lorca. All of the poems center around the lives and culture of the gypsy community of Andalucía.

The poems makes heavy use of metaphores and it is very hard to understand on their own. Luckily the version I read (ISBN 978-84-460-3535-0) contains extensive annotations explaining the interpretation of most of them.

I bought this book while visiting Andalucia (Southern Spain) in 2024. This was the first book I ever read in Spanish. I’m not fluent in Spanish but as a Portuguese speaker I can pick up many words in Spanish when reading. However, I overestimated how many: I had to consult the dictionary quite often.

And because of all the figurative language, this book is definitely not beginner friendly and I should have chosen something easier as my first excursion in Spanish literature. I think it wouldn’t be much easier even if it was written in English or Portuguese.

Excerpts

Here are some verses I had highlighted during my read.

Excerpt 1. San Miguel, verse 9:

A sky (…) closes its quicksilver eyes

Original:

Un cielo (…) cierra sus ojos de azogue

The eyes of the sky are the stars, shiny like quicksilver. The closing of its eyes refers to dawn, in which the light of the sun makes the stars fade.

Excerpt 2. San Miguel, verse 32:

Reeds are lost, voices are won

I’m not sure if this is the right translation, but the original reads:

Pierden juncos ganan voces

This describes a situation where mounted men ride through some tall reeds, causing them to part, while their voices increase in volume. It’s a very vivid metaphor!

Excerpt 3. Romance de la Guardia Civil Española, verse 77-79

The clocks stopped / and the cognac from the bottles / desguised itself as November

Original:

Los relojs se pararon / y el coñac de las botellas / se disfarzó de noviembre

This is some anthropomorphization in which inanimate objects are so afraid of the police (Gardia Civil Española) that they freeze and in the case of the cognac it change its colors to some dull gray, in reference to the cloudy weather of November.

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These examples highlight not only the beauty of some of the imagery the sparse and suggestive language can convey but also the difficulty in interpreting some of the more obscure metaphors.