Julie, I’m afraid I don’t have much helpful to say about this translation, which I find absolutely delightful.
It’s true, I didn’t know the words “ostinato” or “elytra,” but “ostinato” is such a nice improvisation that I’m going to add it to my vocabulary and keep quiet. “In her elytra” could of course be “within her forewings,” but Rueda uses “elytra,” which I don’t suppose is any better known in Spanish.
“Zing” sounds very modern, but the translation and poem are quirky enough that I decided I like it.
The third stanza is my favorite – really fine.
The substitution of “body” for “real nature” in L12 is questionable. If her body is consumed, her real nature could live on. In fact, the translation makes me think that at some point nothing is left of her but her song. That’s quite lovely, though Rueda seems to mean simply that her singing consumes her till she dies.
I’d lose the comma in L2 and the first one in L14, but that’s more a matter of where you want pauses.
Finally, I have to ask about the professor who taught poetry to Virgil. It sounds like a myth, but my quick search turned up only a place or two where Virgil referred to cicadas as “shrill” or “querulae.” There are several legends about Virgil and flies, but they never taught him poetry.
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