*****
Soror Violante do Céu Montesino (1607 – 1693)
translated from Portuguese and Spanish by Ranald Barnicot
Violante do Céu Montesinos (1607 – 1693) was a Portuguese Dominican nun, renowned in her lifetime as ‘The Tenth Muse’ but now fallen into comparative obscurity, who wrote both secular and religious poems in both Spanish and Portuguese. The first four poems, probably written shortly before or after she took the veil, express a despairing erotic love inspired by her doomed engagement to a fellow poet, Paulo Gonçalves Andrade, whom she addresses in her poems as Silvano, Lauso or Lauro — in the poems he wrote for her he calls her Silvia. The fifth poem of this selection is an engagingly feisty decima, a short single-stanza form reputedly invented by the Spanish poet and musician Vicente de Espinel, addressed to an unwanted suitor.
The remaining poems, all written to women, are on the subject of friendship. In the sixth, in Portuguese, she addresses a fellow woman poet in terms of the greatest admiration. The final four poems are all written in Spanish. In the first of these, addressed to Belisa (an anagram of Isabel), she offers general reflections on friendship. Her warmth and sincerity illuminate the text. The next two, addressed to Sine (i.e. Ines), may display feelings that go beyond friendship. Poem eight is designed to console Sine in her solitude, since by her husband’s departure for Paris as Portuguese ambassador, she is forced to wear dull clothing. In the second of these two poems, Violante expresses fear of rejection. In the final poem, an elegy for Juliana de Lencastre, Duchess of Aveiro, she expresses both love (of whatever kind) and deep religious faith. Finally, it is interesting that Violante, despite her fervent Portuguese nationalism, wrote as prolifically and proficiently in Spanish as in her native tongue.
*****
Soror Violante do Céu Montesino: Six poems translated from Portuguese
1. WHAT LONG SUSPENSE
What long suspense, what ecstasy, what care
is mine, God Cupid, tyrant to the core?
From me all sense you commandeer and draw;
each feeling attracts its contrary, won’t share.
Absorbed in my harsh fate and in despair,
alien from my own senses, I ignore
but two things: I am living, the rapport
life has with death, which I within me bear.
Exulting in the hurt whereby offended,
I am suspended in my weeping’s cause;
in nothing, though – alas! – my pain’s suspended.
Such is the rare enchantment that is yours;
cease, cease it, love. Whom love leaves undefended
“Not so much pain, less pain’s enough!” implores.
*
Que suspensão
Que suspensão, que enleio, que cuidado
É este meu, tirano deus Cupido?
Pois tirando-me enfim todo o sentido
Me deixa o sentimento duplicado.
Absorta no rigor de um duro fado,
Tanto dos meus sentidos me divido.
Que tenho só de vida o bem sentido
E tenho já de morte o mal logrado.
Enlevo-me no damno que me ofende,
Suspendo-me na causa do meu pranto
Mas meu mal (ai de mim!) não se suspende.
Ó cesse, cesse amor, tam raro encanto
Que para quem de ti não se defende
Basta menos rigor, não rigor tanto.
***
2. LIFE THAT’S NOT REACHED THE END
Life that’s not reached the endpoint of its ending,
Though bidding you a premature farewell –
Its senses their own atrophy compel,
Or else it feels immortality impending.
Life that from you now suffers its self-rending
And into self-destruction all but fell –
Living, its flame consumes it to a shell,
Or else it kills, eternal life pretending.
What’s certain, Lord, is that it doesn’t finish,
This life of suffering which they report:
Limitless suffering won’t fade or vanish.
But, living amongst tears, what import?
Life amongst absences, a life of anguish,
Alive to sorrow, dead to all glad thought?
*
Vida que não acaba
Vida que não acaba de acabar-se,
Chegando já de vós a despedir-se,
Ou deixa por sentida de sentir-se
Ou pode de immortal acreditar-se.
Vida que já não chega a terminar-se,
Pois chega já de vós a dividir-se,
Ou procura vivendo consumir-se,
Ou pretende matando eternizar-se.
O certo é, Senhor, que não fenece,
Antes no que padece se reporta,
Porque não se limite o que padece.
Mas, viver entre lágrimas, que importa?
Se vida que entre ausências permanece
É só viva ao pezar, ao gosto morta?
***
3 TO A SUSPICION
Love, if an imagined alteration
is harsh enough to be my homicide,
what if, while setting all mere fear aside,
fear finds fulfilment in fear’s verification?
If a mere dread can cause such consternation,
my life extracted by such force applied,
what when complete acquaintance is supplied,
transcendent truth suspicion’s justification?
And yet, now that it kills me, still uncertain,
presumption still resides in mere suspicion,
pains of imagined pain cut short or shorten.
What will it do to me when I am certain?
Restore to life to feel without remission
Or, after death, enforce still feelings’ burden?
*
A uma suspeita
Amor, se uma mudança imaginada
é com tanto rigor minha homicida,
que fará, se passar de ser temida
a ser, como temida, averiguada?
Se só por ser de mim tão receada,
com dura execução me tira a vida,
que fará, se chegar a ser sabida?
Que fará, se passar de suspeitada?
Porém, já que me mata, sendo incerta,
somente o imaginá-la é presumi-la,
claro está, pois da vida o fio corta.
Que me fará depois, quando for certa?
Ou tornar a viver para senti-la,
ou senti-la também depois de morta.
***
4. THE DAY AT LAST
The day at last draws to its close,
Night falls at last to sicken, sadden,
No sweet delight falls slow or sudden,
Night’s tyranny none may depose,
At last rebellion’s overridden,
Nothing to soothe, nothing to gladden,
Fortune’s unfeeling, time’s unhealing,
Hope would be joyful, will’s frail and failing,
Pleasure is perished beyond pleading,
Unhappy I, Lauro unheeding …
Who ever saw a harsher fate?
Such sufferings, love, for death must wait?
Are not enough, life lost and grieving,
This cruel absence, ever leaving?
Are not such pain, such fear sufficient?
Such care, confusion, so persistent?
Does this absence not suffice
That death must squeeze me in its vice?
That also, cruel, you refuse me
Some written word to salve and soothe me?
Since for this spirit-piercing pain
All written comfort is in vain,
It’s well you do — of all deprive me! —
Nothing to shield me or reprieve me,
That life should shelter or defend me
All things are lacking, all offend me,
My life drags on, drains out in grieving,
I somehow kept it through your leaving.
*
Enfim fenece o dia
Enfim fenece o dia,
Enfim chega da noite o triste espanto,
E não chega desta alma o doce encanto,
Enfim fica triunfante a tirania,
Vencido o sofrimento,
Sem alívio meu mal, eu sem alento,
A sorte sem piedade,
Alegre a emulação, triste a vontade,
O gosto fenecido,
Eu infelice enfim, Lauro esquecido…
Quem viu mais dura sorte?
Tantos males, amor, para uma morte?
Não basta contra a vida
Esta ausência cruel, esta partida?
Não basta tanta dor? tanto receio?
Tanto cuidado, ai triste, e tanto enleio?
Não basta estar ausente,
Para perder a vida infelizmente?
Se não também, cruel, neste conflito
Me negas o socorro de um escrito?
Porque esta dor que a alma me penetra
Não ache o maior bem na menor letra,
Ai! bem fazes, amor, tira-me tudo!
Não há alívio, não, não há escudo,
Que a vida me defenda,
Tudo me falte, enfim, tudo me ofenda,
Tudo me tire a vida,
Pois eu a não perdi na despedida.
***
5. TO A LEARNED DOCTOR WHO COMPLIMENTED THE AUTHOR
xxBY COMPARING HER TO A VIOLA
To contradict a doctor’s evident
Proof, I know well, of some temerity,
Yet I would offer him a truth as fee
For his so sweetly worded compliment:
Neither am I flower, nor instrument.
Yet, if I might be so, then, I beseech,
Let none aspire so far beyond his reach,
For I am no man’s for the touching,
No man’s for playing or for plucking,
And these words to the wise I teach.
Note: Viola is both a musical instrument (the Portuguese guitar, not the bowed string instrument classical music audiences are familiar with) and a flower (our ‘violet’).
*
A um doutor que chamou á Autora em uns versos que lhe fez
viola — flôr — e viola — instrumento
Contradizer a um Doutor
Bem sei que é temeridade:
Porém com uma verdade,
Quero pagar um louvor:
Nem instrumento, nem flor
Sou; porém, se o posso ser,
Ninguem trate de emprehender
O que não ha de alcançar:
Pois nenhum me ha de tocar,
Pois nenhum me ha de colher.
***
6 TO DONA MARIANN DE LUNA
Muses, who in the king of daylight’s garden,
loosening sweet voices, of the wind take hold,
deities admiring thought that’s fresh and bold,
augmenting Apollo’s flowers your kind burden.
Leave, leave the sun to other friends and fortune,
in the sun’s entourage no more enrolled;
in the envious firmament a moon’s revealed,
in her harmonious garden is your portion,
for, being moon, she’s also sun and portent.
Lest you should think such an ambitious statement
may go beyond all reason and proportion
making the moon’s pure light the sun’s curtailment –
this lyric garden, know, defies intrusion,
walled by eternity, immortal, fragrant.
*
A Dona Marianna de Luna
Musas, que no jardim do rei do dia,
soltando a doce voz, prendeis o vento;
deidades, que admirando o pensamento
as flores aumentais, que Apollo cria.
Deixai, deixai do sol a companhia,
que fazendo invejoso o firmamento
uma lua, que é sol, e que é portento;
um jardim vos fabrica de harmonia.
E porque não cuideis que tal ventura
pode pagar tributo à variedade
pelo que tem da lua a luz mais pura;
sabei que por mercê da divindade,
este jardim canoro se assegura
com o muro imortal da eternidadade.
***
Soror Violante do Céu Montesino: Four poems translated from Spanish
7 TO BELISA
Belisa, friendship’s treasure we may find
precious in worth that is eternity’s,
beyond Arabia or Potosí’s
silver and gold in those rich regions mined.
In friendship hearts honourably aligned
in presence and absence guard the bonds that please,
and each heart with the other close agrees,
in sorrow, pain, tears, laughter the same mind.
Nor that do we call friendship which displays
violence, but rather an apt sympathy,
loyalty that till death unshaken stays;
this is the friendship I wish passionately,
friendship from which no true friend ever strays,
and this (in fine, Belisa) friendship you find in me.
*
Soneto a Belisa
Belisa, la amistad es un tesoro
tan digno de estimarse eternamente,
que a su valor no es paga suficiente
de Arabia y Potosí la plata y oro.
Es la amistad un lícito decoro
que se guarda en lo ausente y lo presente,
y con que de un amigo el otro siente
la tristeza, el pesar, la risa, el lloro.
No se llama amistad la que es violenta,
sino la que es conforme simpatía
de quien lealtad hasta la muerte ostenta;
Ésta la amistad es que hallar querría,
ésta la amistad entre amigas se sustenta,
y ésta, en fin, Belisa, la amistad mía.
***
8. SONNET TO NISE 1
The greatest sovereignty proclaims its art
Even, fair Nise, in humility,
Remaining strange perhaps, victoriously,
While from strange, vulgar shows it keeps apart.
To bring such gladness to your Sun’s sore heart,
When sadness aches it long and bitterly,
It grants dull clouds admission rigorously;
Out of dull clouds a brighter day can dart.
O you, so to remain in all things rare,
Admit contraries into the divine,
So do your genius and intent declare!
You witness how your wandering Sun can shine,
So clouded and obscure, with rays so clear,
Raiment so common, love so fine.
*
Soneto a Nise 1
Ostenta la mayor soberanía,
en la misma humildad, Nise la hermosa,
quedando por bizarra, victoriosa,
sin dever a las galas bizarría.
Por causar su Sol tanta alegría,
cuando de una tristeza está quejosa,
pardas nubes admite rigorosa,
y en pardas nubes, luce más su día.
¡Oh, tú, que por quedar en todo rara
opuestos admitiste en lo divino,
bien tu ingenio, tu intención declara!
Pues muestra de tu Sol lo peregrino,
en nube tan escura, luz tan clara,
en traje tan grosero, amor tan fino.
***
9. SONNET TO NISE 2
Gifts from that sovereign goddess, whom the Sun
Sears as a planet in eastward decline,
Relics passed from a hand we see assign
Terror and breath divinely, giftless none.
What pleasure, what delight could I combine,
Vain glory too could Nise but refrain
From fastening her kindness with a chain
Hinting of tyranny, though still divine.
Letters she denies me — Lord! — for which I blame
Not just twin stars that in their grasping gleam,
But even her rare thoughts share in the same!
Ah, where’s the gain if, calling them to shame,
Glory concedes I hold still their esteem,
Life does not give me to make good my claim!
*
Soneto a Nise 2
Prendas de aquella Diosa soberana
que Sol abrasa, cuando estrella inclina,
reliquias de una mano, que por dina
divina da temor, y haliento humana.
¡Qué gusto, qué placer, qué gloria vana
tuviera yo si Nise la divina
a las mismas acciones de benina
no vinculara indicios de tyrana:
letras me niega, ay Dios, por que de avaros
no acuse solamente sus luceros
sino también sus pensamientos raros!
¡Ay, qué importa que en fe de castigaros
la gloria me conceda de teneros,
si la vida no me da para lograros!
***
10 SONNET ON THE DEATH OF THE DUCHESS OF AVEIRO
Aveiro’s Sun lies here out of the light —
Deadened its clarity, day turned to dark;
Assiduous fate’s accomplished its grim work,
That great star’s radiance dulled in our sight.
How present joys succumb to future blight
Lurking within them — traveller, see. Yet mark
How good may spring from such decay and murk,
Such pure, such saintly fortitude requite.
Juliana is dead, but she died in such grace,
She followed close on virtue, keeping pace,
And lives, because she’s dead, eternally.
Do not dismay, for this death but displays
How from such Sun this world in twilight strays
Yet rises, orient sky, to greet its majesty.
*
Soneto a la muerte de la Duquesa de Avero
Aquí yace sin luz el Sol de Avero
muerta su claridad, su día obscuro,
que pudo de la Parca el rigor duro
dejar sin esplendor tan gran lucero.
Tú que mirando estás (¡oh pasajero)
en la presente pira el mal futuro,
sabe, que en un valor tan santo y puro,
principio fue del bien el mal prostero.
Juliana murió, mas de tal suerte
siguió de la virtud el mismo paso,
que vive, porque es muerta, eternamente.
No te desmayes, pues que en esta muerte
si fue para tal Sol el mundo Ocaso,
también es de tal Sol el Cielo Oriente.
Ranald Barnicot has a BA in Classics from Balliol College, Oxford, and an MA in Applied Linguistics from Birkbeck College, London. He is a retired teacher of EFL/ESOL who has worked in Spain, Portugal, Italy and the UK. He has published or is due to publish original poems and translations from Ancient Greek, Latin, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Italian in various journals, including The French Literary Review, Stand, Acumen, Poetry Salzburg Review, Metamorphoses, The Hypertexts, Better than Starbucks and Transference. A Greek Verse for Ophelia, and other poems by Giovanni Quessep (Out-spoken Press), co-translated from Spanish with Felipe Botero Quintana, came out in November 2018. By Me, Through Me, original poems and translations, was published by Alba Publications in December of the same year. Friendship, Love and Abuse: The Shorter Poems of Catullus (Dempsey and Windle) was published in July 2020.
Some the above poems have been previously published in his book By Me, Through Me (see above) and/or in one or more of the following journals: Poetry Salzburg Review, The Hypertexts and Better than Starbucks.
The High Window 