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VICENT ANDRÉS ESTELLÉS (1924-1993)

LOVERS

(Translation by Jack H. Smith, Professor Emeritus at the University at Albany, NY)

Never were there in València two lovers like us.

We loved ferociously, from morn 'til night.

I recall everything, as you hang out the clothes.

Years have passed, many years: many things have happened.

Suddenly that wind, or love, seizes me still

And we roll on the ground amidst embraces and kisses.

We do not know love as a loving custom,

As a quiet custom of politeness and finery

(and may the chaste López-Picó pardon us).

Love, It awakens suddenly, like an old hurricane,

it throws us to the ground, it joins us together,

squeezing us tightly.

Sometimes I desired a courteous love,

With the gramophone on, kissing you idly,

Now a shoulder, next an ear lobe.

Our love is a brusque and savage love

And we feel a bitter yearning for the earth,

Of rolling upside down amidst kisses and clutches.

I'll say it clear. Primal, ... I know it.

We ignore Petrarch's work, we ignore many things.

The stanzas of Riba, the rhymes of Bécquer.

Afterwards, lying somehow on the ground,

We realise that we are barbarous, that this may not be,

we are not in the right age, and this and that.

Never were there in València two lovers like us,

Lovers like us are just not born !