{"id":4159,"date":"2013-02-19T15:30:01","date_gmt":"2013-02-19T18:30:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.recoletacemetery.com\/?p=4159"},"modified":"2013-02-19T15:30:01","modified_gmt":"2013-02-19T18:30:01","slug":"494-la-recoleta","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/?p=4159","title":{"rendered":"494. “La Recoleta”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Recoleta<\/p>\n

Jorge Luis Borges<\/strong> often wandered the walkways of Recoleta Cemetery (along with his friend & fellow writer Adolfo Bioy Casares<\/a>), but his prediction of being buried there never came true<\/a>. The cemetery, however, makes a remarkable appearance as the topic of one of his first published poems, La Recoleta<\/em>… appearing in the 1923 collection Fervor de Buenos Aires<\/em>. Below is the original text in Spanish followed by an English translation found online by Robert Mezey & Richard Barnes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Convencidos de caducidad
\npor tantas nobles certidumbres del polvo,
\nnos demoramos y bajamos la voz
\nentre las lentas filas de panteones,
\ncuya ret\u00f3rica de sombra y de m\u00e1rmol
\npromete o prefigura la deseable
\ndignidad de haber muerto.<\/em><\/p>\n

Made certain of impermanence
\nby so many noble witnesses of dust,
\nwe linger with hushed voices
\nbetween the stately rows of mausoleums,
\nwhose rhetoric of shade and marble
\npromises or foreshadows the appealing
\ndignity of having died.<\/p>\n

Bellos son los sepulcros,
\nel desnudo lat\u00edn y las trabadas fechas fatales,
\nla conjunci\u00f3n del m\u00e1rmol y de la flor
\ny las plazuelas con frescura de patio
\ny los muchos ayeres de a historia
\nhoy detenida y \u00fanica.<\/em><\/p>\n

Beautiful, these sepulchers,
\nthe naked Latin and the linked and fatal dates,
\nflowers touching marble and
\nthe little plazas cool and fresh as a courtyard,
\nthe myriads yesterdays of a story
\nnow cut short and unique.<\/p>\n

Equivocamos esa paz con la muerte
\ny creemos anhelar nuestro fin
\ny anhelamos el sue\u00f1o y la indiferencia.
\nVibrante en las espadas y en la pasi\u00f3n
\ny dormida en la hiedra,
\ns\u00f3lo la vida existe.<\/em><\/p>\n

We confuse this peace with death
\nand we think we long for the end
\nwhen all we long for is indifference and sleep.
\nVibrant in swords, tremulous in passion,
\nasleep in the ivy,
\nlife is all there is.<\/p>\n

El espacio y el tiempo son normas suyas,
\nson instrumentos m\u00e1gicos del alma,
\ny cuando \u00e9sta se apague,
\nse apagar\u00e1n con ella el espacio, el tiempo y la muerte,
\ncomo al cesar la luz
\ncaduca el simulacro de los espejos
\nque ya la tarde fue apagando.<\/em><\/p>\n

Time and space are but the forms it takes,
\nthe magic instruments of the soul,
\nand when it is snuffed out,
\nas when the light dies
\ntime & space will be snuffed out with it,
\ndeath will be snuffed out,
\nthe semblance in the mirror expires,
\nwhich the twilight was already snuffing out.<\/p>\n

Sombra benigna de los \u00e1rboles,
\nviento con p\u00e1jaros que sobre las ramas ondea,
\nalma que se dispersa entre otras almas,
\nfuera un milagro que alguna vez dejaran de ser,
\nmilagro incomprensible,
\naunque su imaginaria repetici\u00f3n
\ninfame con horror nuestros d\u00edas.<\/em><\/p>\n

Kindly shade of trees,
\nbird-streaked wind that ripples through the branches,
\nsoul dispersing itself into other souls,
\nit must have been a miracle that on a day those souls left off existing,
\na miracle that passeth understanding,
\neven though its imagined repetition
\nstains our days with horror.<\/p>\n

Estas cosas pens\u00e9 en la Recoleta,
\nen el lugar de mi ceniza.<\/em><\/p>\n

These thoughts came to me in La Recoleta,
\nin the place of my ashes.<\/p>\n

\"Recoleta<\/p>\n

Photos courtesy of Marcelo Metayer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jorge Luis Borges often wandered the walkways of Recoleta Cemetery (along with his friend & fellow writer Adolfo Bioy Casares), but his prediction of being…<\/p>\n

Continue reading494. “La Recoleta”<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-literati","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4159\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/recoletacemetery.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}