Lope de Vega

Rimas sacras, Soneto XVIII

¿Qué tengo yo que mi amistad procuras?
¿Qué interés se te sigue, Jesús mío,
que a mi puerta, cubierto de rocío,
pasas las noches del invierno escuras?

¡Oh, cuánto fueron mis entrañas duras,
pues no te abrí! ¡Qué estraño desvarío
si de mi ingratitud el yelo frío
secó las llagas de tus plantas puras!

¡Cuántas veces el ángel me decía:
Alma, asómate agora a la ventana,
verás con cuánto amor llamar porfía!

¡Y cuántas, hermosura soberana:
Mañana le abriremos -- respondía --,
para lo mismo responder mañana!



Sacred Poems, Sonnet #XVIII

What have I that my friendship you should seek?
What wealth from it, my Jesus, could you gain
so that at my front door, bedecked with dew,
you spend dark winter nights in snow and sleet?

How hard was I within my deepest core
to never let you in! How strangely mad
if of my callousness the frigid ice
dried up the bleeding wounds of your pure feet!

How many times the angel said to me,
"Soul, come now to the window and look out:
you'll see with how much love he knocks again!"

And oh, how many times, beauty divine,
"Tomorrow he may enter," I'd respond,
only tomorrow to respond the same! 

                     (©Alix Ingber, 1995)



 Patricia Guy, a librarian in Tacoma, Washington, contributes the following translation from 1893 Cambridge ed. of THE COMPLETE POETICAL WORKS OF HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW.

TO-MORROW
(Mañana)
By Lope de Vega

Lord, what am I, that, with unceasing care,
Thou didst seek after me, that thou didst wait,
Wet with unhealthy dews, before my gate,
And pass the gloomy nights of winter there?

Oh, strange delusion, that I did not greet
Thy blest approach! and oh, to Heaven how lost,
If my ingratitude's unkindly frost
Has chilled the bleeding wounds upon thy feet!

How oft my guardian angel gently cried,
"Soul, from thy casement look, and thou shalt see
How he persists to knock and wait for thee!"

And, oh! how often to that voice of sorrow,
"To-morrow we will open," I replied,
And when the morrow came I answered still, "To-morrow."




E-mail your comments and questions to:

Alix Ingber
Professor of Spanish
Sweet Briar College

ingber@sbc.edu



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