Dear Glenn
This seems to have been overlooked for a few days now, which is a shame. Let me offer you some comments, which I hope are helpful, though they are, I am afraid, not positive ones. I should begin by saying that I have no Spanish, and so my remarks are largely confined to your verse as a rhymed, metrical poem in English and do not address it as a reflection of the original. I confess that I am having difficulties here with both metre and rhyme. Since some of your lines seem to be regular IP, I am inclined to take this as the paradigm throughout. (I apologize if I am mistaken.)
My difficulties begin with the very first line, whose pattern of accents strikes me as ambiguous. I had to re-read it repeatedly – without reaching a settled feel for its patterning. Here are the possibilities I think I detect (capitals mark accents): “LEt them die wIth you, LAUra, sInce you dIEd” [five accents]; “Let thEm die wIth you, LAUra, sInce you dIEd” [five accents]; “Let them dIE with you, LAUra, sInce you dIEd” [four accents]; “Let them dIE with you, LAUra, since you dIEd” [three accents].
The run-over from line 2 to line 3 strikes me as clumsy, stranding “you” at the start of the next line. Splitting the verb from its object in this way breaks the natural phrasing, which to my ear goes like this: “the affEctions / which so hOpelessly / have wAnted you”. In this phrasing “you” carries no accent, but your presumed metrical scheme requires line 3 to begin with a definite accented syllable. So, does line 3 go like this: “yOU, the EYes from whIch you deprIve the sIGHt”? The point may perhaps be that it is “you” and no one else whom the “affections” have wanted” though I am not sure I sense this from the Spanish. Nonetheless, the rhythmic and metrical effect is awkward.
Line 4 is also rhythmically ambiguous: “of the lOvely lIGHt that At one tIme you grAnted” [five accents]; “of the lOvely lIGHt that at One tIme you grAnted” [five accents]; “of the lOvely lIGHt that at One time you grAnted” [four accents]. In a stable metrical environment the first of these would be fine as a five-beat line; so, perhaps, might the second; in context, however, the line wobbles and caused me to hesitate about how to read it.
I have trouble with line 6, too. It begins with the same verb as line 1. On one reading of the first line “Let” is accented. Symmetry might suggest that this verb should be accented here, too, but that throws up new problems. Metre and rhythm are once again unstable, for there is more than one way of taking the line. Here are two, the first with an accent on the first word: “LEt my hApless lYre, which yOU inspIred, dIE” [six accents]; “Let my hApless lYre, which yOU inspIred, dIE”[five accents].
The start of line 8 throws up another instance of the problem affecting “Let”. Surely it must be unaccented, the next word, “echoes”, necessarily being accented on the first syllable. The extra syllable here strikes me as fine, though it, too, might create a small stumble at first reading. Is it “let Echoes (wIth what regrEt they cAll to yOU)” or “let Echoes (with whAt regrEt they cAll to yOU)?
Line 9 – “be heard until these ill-formed marks are dry” – is the first metrically unambiguous line so far: a regular iambic pentameter. Line 10 – “the black tears that my pen in misery drew” – also has five clear accents.
Line 11 is spoiled by the awkwardness of rhyming “admit he” with “pity” two lines before. It’s the kind of ingenious rhyming Cole Porter might have employed but is wrong here, a false note. Here “he” belongs with “is” at the start of the next line, where, in many readings, it would in any case perhaps be lightly elided.
Line 12 is faulty, though arguably it has five accents: “is EAger, As befOre, for plEAsure, tO”. The problem is the weight its metrical position throws on that little connective, “to”.
Line 13 is another metrically unstable line. I’ll spare myself the trouble of spelling it out.
Another way of thinking about these closing lines is to consider how their natural phrasing sits within the intended pattern of metrical verse-lines. I hear the phrasing of these lines like this, though I admit other patterns are possible (line-ends marked with a vertical bar, phrasal boundaries marked by relineation):
Let Love lament his bitter luck
and admit he | is eager,
as before,
for pleasure,
to | have eyes in order to be able to see | your face;
now weeping is all that they may do.
These words in this order do not strike me as obviously metrical. If this were a passage of non-metrical verse, it might be relineated (and repunctuated and rephrased more crisply: isn’t “in order to be able to” a bit clunky, a piece of metrical padding?) perhaps like this:
Let Love lament his bitter luck,
admit he is eager
as before
for pleasure:
to have eyes to see your face
now that weeping is all they can do.
Finally, despite my lack of Spanish, in comparing the original and your crib, I do wonder if the crib is inaccurate in places, though I have nothing to say about how far it might have influenced your version. (I come at this from my familiarity with Italian and French.) I know there are contributors here who have good Spanish. Perhaps they might offer you some useful thoughts.
I am sorry if this seems harsh, Glenn. It is intended to be helpful inasmuch it may offer a few things to ponder even if, on reflection, you disagree with them. Good luck with whatever further work you do on this!
Clive
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