Two wrongs CAN make a right.

Obviously I'm not advocating any physcial violence or retaliatory actions here but it turns out in Spanish Literature two wrong cans make a right. Poetry= scary. A class in Spanish= scary. Poetry in Spanish= surprisingly refreshing. What can I say? Spaniards have a way with their words. Here's a sonnet (Soneto XXIII por Garcilaso de la Vega) we talked about in class last week in Spanish first then English! For my fellow poetically challenged people, it is about this lady named Venus.

Soneto

En tanto que de rosa y azucena
se muestra la color en vuestro gesto,
y que vuestro mirar ardiente, honesto
enciende el corazón y lo refrena;
y en tanto que el cabello, que en la vena
del oro se escogió, con vuelo presto,
por el hermoso cuello blanco, enhiesto,
el viento mueve, esparce y desordena;

coged de vuestra alegre primavera
el dulce fruto, antes que el tiempo airado
cubra de nieve la hermosa cumbre.

Marchitará la rosa el viento helado,
todo lo mudará la edad ligera,
por no hacer mudanza en su costumbre.


Sonnet

So long as of red rose and lily white
the proper colors of your face now show,
and your impassioned, fervent, honest glance
inflames the heart and holds it close in tow;
and so long as your hair, which in a vein
of gold was mined, endowed with rapid flight,
around your lovely white, and haughty throat
the wind can still move, scatter, and uncomb;

go, pluck now from the spring of your delight
the sweetest fruit, before the angry years
can wrap the lovely peak in snowy scenes.

The icy wind will cause the rose to wilt,
and all things will be changed by fickle time,
so as to never change its own routine.

And there you are! Go forth and be cultured mis pequenos poetas!


Post script: I google "soneto" looking for this sonnet and it was the first one that popped up. I have a suspicion this man is the spanish version of Shakespeare.