Infiere, de los achaques de la vejez,
cercano el fin, a que católico se alienta

En este occidental, en este, oh Licio,
climatérico lustro de tu vida,
todo mal afirmado pie es caída,
toda fácil caída es precipicio.

¿Caduca el paso? Ilústrese el jüicio.
Desatándose va la tierra unida;
¿qué prudencia del polvo prevenida
la rüina aguardó del edificio?

La piel, no sólo, sierpe venenosa,
mas con la piel los años se desnuda,
y el hombre, no. ¡Ciego discurso humano!

¡Oh aquel dichoso, que la ponderosa
porción depuesta en una piedra muda,
la leve da al zafiro soberano!



He infers from the ailments of old age
that the end draws near,
which consoles him as a Catholic

In this Occidental, in, Lycius,
this epoch, climacteric of your life,
each uncertain step will be a fall,
every easy fall a precipice.

Does your step falter? Good sense must prevail!
the wholeness of all matter falls apart.
What prudence ever clearly warned by dust
the ruin awaited of the edifice?

Not only all its skin, the deadly snake,
but with its skin its very years can shed
and man cannot. How human thought is blind!

Oh, he's a lucky man, who giving up
his heavier part to rest on silent stone
the lighter to a sovereign sapphire binds. 

                     (©Alix Ingber, 1995-2005)



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 E-mail your comments and questions to:

Alix Ingber
Professor of Spanish
Sweet Briar College

ingber@sbc.edu



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