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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
Dedication to the Duke of Bejar (lines 1-4)
Steps of a wandering pilgrim are these,
The verses my sweet muse dictated to me:
in perplexing solitude
Some lost, yet others enlivened and inspired.
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The First Solitude (lines 28-33)
He kisses the sand, and from the shattered ship
the spare and meager fragment
that brought him to the beach he offers the rocks:
even crags confess themselves
flattered by signs and shows of gratitude.
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The First Solitude (lines 321-328)
Liquor that Aurora wept
-if nectar is what she weeps -
before the Sun, is dried
by the bee, early riser
to sip at flowers and drink crystal drops,
in cells of liquid gold, in honeycombs
contained in the gallipot
carried by a mountain lad.
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The First Solitude (lines 572-583)
A spacious circle made a peaceful center
for more avenues than a star has beams
of white poplars or perhaps of alders,
and this is where the Spring
-shod in Aprils, clad in Mays-
brings the gleam of crystal waves
to flinty rock rimmed round with jonquil blooms.
This center, then, the shaded
destination was of cowherds proximal,
delicious object of those come from afar,
where, even more weary than the traveler,
the road came to a rest.
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The First Solitude (lines 897-903)
May the response of Fortune
to your farming be applause.
To the importune plow,
to the troublesome hoe
may a grateful field produce
for you – in uneven days –
well-threshed gold and nectar pressed.
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The Second Solitude (lines 149-155)
Die, beloved enemy,
let my fault die, and your disdain, too late
a penitent, keep for it
a mere sigh that makes my death content
though it is not follow by
a fleeting or indifferent or weary
tear that dries before it is even wept.
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7. |
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The Second Solitude (lines 651-661)
For your sake we see the pilgrim leave behind
castles, where sight overcome
by the sublime, calls upon their beauty;
where architecture rebels
against geometry, wearing shoes of
jasper, clothes of porphyry.
Poor hut, crowded with nets
he enters now, and you abandon him!
Take wing, young god, and flying from complaints,
return them both to their barks
while your rigor allows sleep!
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
The Second Solitude (lines 825-831)
The crowd has not yet disturbed the banks of the
tranquil lake whose looking glass
the timid kingbird forgives.
No arrow shot by bowstrings
presumes to equal its unequal tips,
for in vain does a feather adorn a shaft
as it adorns a wing.
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9. |
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Text from The Solitudes by Luis de Góngora
as translated by Edith Grossman
Dedication to the Duke of Bejar (lines 1-4)
Steps of a wandering pilgrim are these,
The verses my sweet muse dictated to me:
in perplexing solitude
Some lost, yet others enlivened and inspired.
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Fragments of Solitude is based on the exquisite translation of Luis de Góngora’s The Solitudes by Edith Grossman, published in 2012. The work, is immense so I have taken glimpses and fragments of the text
rather than whole 2000 lines but I thoroughly recommend reading the full text if this piece has interested you in any way.
Rather than a strict setting of Góngora’s narrative I instead wanted to follow the fragments of the pilgrim’s journey as a metaphor of self-exploration and the power and terror of solitude, the time when we get know ourselves.
Each song deals with a different section of the pilgrim’s journey and another aspect of the self.
released December 14, 2015
Composer: Cameron Lam
Author: Luis de Góngora
Translator: Edith Grossman
Soprano: Amelia Golding
Piano: Alison Cameron
Sound Engineer: James Passfield
Cover Art: Hayden Shepherd Photography