The moon came to the forge
wearing a bustle of nards.
The boy is looking at her.
The boy is looking hard.
In the troubled air,
the wind moves her arms,
showing lewd and pure,
her hard, tin breasts.
"Run, moon, moon, moon.
If the gypsies came,
they would make of your heart
necklaces and white rings."
"Child, let me dance.
When the gypsies come,
they will find you on the anvil
with your little eyes shut tight."
"Run, moon moon moon.
I can hear their horses.
Child, let me be, don't walk
on my starchy white."
The rider was drawing closer
playing the drum of the plain.
In the forge the child
has his eyes shut tight.
Bronze and dream, the gypsies
cross the olive grove.
Their heads held high,
their eyes half open.
Ay how the nightjar sings!
How it sings in the tree!
The moon goes through the sky
with a child in her hand.
In the forge the gypsies
wept and cried aloud.
The air is watching, watching.
The air watched all night long.
Notes
translation by Will Kirkland and Christopher Mauer (2002) This is an updated version of the original Kirkland translation posted here, done in collaboration with Christopher Mauer. His newer choice for the word velando, which was first translated as "viewing," is now "watching". Several other translations available on the internet (for example, by Dr. David K. Loughran of John Hopkins University) translate it as "watching", as well, and another as "keeping a vigil." Ben Harnett's version uses the term "guarding".
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Comments
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I agree with the comment below. The word 'velando' in the original shouldn't be translated as viewing, it changes the meaning, and yes I know, we can't touch the translations without the translator's permission.
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Thank you for bringing this to OP's attention. The poem has now been thoroughly researched and an updated translation by the same translator has been added, as well as "notes."
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This translation is extremely well done except for the last stanza. The use of the word vela has been changed to the viewing, when velando does not mean viewing but mourning. The last verse says
El aire la esta velando.
Meaning the air is mourning the moon. Since there is only to subjects in this poem the moon and the boy, the moon in Spanish is female. Therefore the wind is mourning her.
Apart from that I do not see any problems.
So I suggest, from "the air is at the viewing."
to "the air is mourning the moon."Which is a more literal translation.
After all it was the air which first enticed the moon to show her breast to the boy.
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