Octavio Paz: Himno entre ruinas (1948)

Donde espumoso el mar siciliano...
Góngora

Coronado de sí el día extiende sus plumas.
¡Alto grito amarillo,
caliente surtidor en el centro de un cielo
imparcial y benéfico!

Las apariencias son hermosas en esta su verdad momentánea.

El mar trepa la costa,
se afianza entre las peñas, araña deslumbrante;
la herida cárdena del monte resplandece;
un pñado de cabras es un rebano de piedras;
el sol pone su huevo de oro y se derrama sobre el mar.

Todo es dios.

¡Estatua rota,
columnas comidas por la luz,
ruinas vivas en un mundo de muertos en vida!

Cae la noche sobre Teotihuacán.

en lo alto de la pirámide los muchachos fuman marihuana,
suenan guitarras roncas.

?Qué yerba, qué agua de vida ha de darnos la vida,
dónde desenterrar la palabra,
la proporción que rige al himno y al discurso,
al baile, la cuidad y a la balanza?

El canto mexicano estalla en un carajo,
estrella de colores que se apaga,
piedra que nos cierra las puertas de contacto.
Sabe la tierra a tierra envejecida.

#

Himno 3

el instante se cumple en una concordancia amarilla,
!oh mediodía, espiga henchida de minutos,
copa de eternidad!

Mis pensamientos se bifurcan, serpean, se enredan,
recomienzan,
y al fin se inmovilizan, ríos que no desembocan,
delta de sangre bajo un sol sin crepúsculo.
¿Y todo ha de parar en este chapoteo de aguas muertas?

¡Día, redondo día,
luminosa naranja de veinticuatro gajos,
todos atravesados por una misma y amarilla dulzura!
La inteligencia al fin encarna en formas,
se reconcilian los dos mitades enemigas
y la conciencia-espejo se licúa,
vuelve a ser fuente, manantial de fábulas:
Hombre, árbol de imágenes,
palabras que son flores que son frutos que son actos.

[prose translation by J. M. Cohen]

Octavio Paz

Hymn among ruins

Where with foam the Sicilian sea . . .
Góngora

Crowned with itself, the day displays its plumage. Tall yellow
shout, hot geyser in the middle of an impartial and beneficent sky!
Appearances are beautiful in this, their transient truth. The sea mounts
the coast, clings between the rocks, a dazzling spider; the livid wound
on the mountain glistens; a handful of goats is a flock of stones; the
sun lays its golden egg and spills upon the sea. All is god. A broken
statue, columns gnawed by the light, living ruins in a world of living
dead.

Night falls on Teotihuacán, on the pyramid top the lads are smoking
marihuana, harsh guitars sound. What herb, what water of life will give
us life? Where shall we unearth the word, the proportion that governs
hymn and speech, the dance, the city and the scales? Mexican song
explodes in a curse, a coloured star that goes out, a stone that blocks
our doors of communication. Earth tastes of earth that has decayed.

Eyes see, hands touch. Here a few things are enough: Indian fig, the
prickly coral-plant, the hooded fig, grapes that taste of resurrection,
clams, stubborn maidenheads, salt, cheese, wine, the bread of sun. An
island girl looks down on me from the height of her duskiness, a slim
cathedral clothed in white. Like salt towers against the green pines of
the shore, the white sails of the boats rise up. Light builds churches
on the sea.

New York, London, Moscow. Shadow covers the plain with its phantom ivy,
with its swaying and feverish vegetation, its thin down, its swarm of rats.

At intervals an anaemic sun shivers. Propping himself on mounds that
yesterday were cities, Polyphemus yawns. Below, among the craters, a flock
of men drags itself along. (Domestic bipeds, their flesh - despite recent

-2-

religious interdicts - is much relished by the wealthy classes. Until lately
the poor considered them unclean animals.)

To see, to touch each day's lovely forms. The light throbs, all
darts and wings. The wine-stain on the tablecloth smells of blood. As the
coral extends its branches in the water, I stretch my senses in this living
hour: the moment fulfils itself in a yellow harmony. Oh noon, wheat-ear
heavy with minutes, eternity's (brimming) cup.

My thoughts divided, meander, grow entangled, start again, and finally
loose motion, mouthless rivers, delta of blood beneath an unwinking sun. And
must everything end in this spatter of stagnant water?

Day, round-faced day, shining orange with four-and-twenty pegs, all permeated
with a single yellow sweetness! Intellect finally incarnates in forms, the
two hostile halves are reconciled, and the conscience-mirror liquifies, becomes
once more a fountain, a spring of legends. Man, a tree of images, words that
are flowers, that are fruit, that are deeds.