Neruda Redux

Recently I ran across another Pablo Neruda poem on someone's site, I forget whose site it was, and of course I enjoyed it tons because I'm a big Neruda fan. As some of you may remember, I posted a Neruda poem in the original Spanish a while back with a lovely translation by T. M. Lauth.

So all this got me to thinking. There is a favorite Neruda poem of mine that I memorized when Cristina was a mere gosling, so why not post it here and do the translation myself? Until now the only poetry I've ever translated was Catullus's love poetry from Latin, which incidentally was pretty steamy in places. At any rate, I thought I'd give this poem a shot, so I'm reproducing the Spanish from memory and providing an English translation as well. Hopefully I remembered the poem correctly -- I can't seem to find it on line anywhere.

Incidentally, I think this little poem makes a wonderful anti-war statement, and I find it very dramatic in its own minimalist way, even chilling. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

El Raid

by Pablo Neruda

Hormigas viene.
Hormigas van.
Las cucurachas comiendo estan.
Viene Raid,
Las mataran.
Y ya no volveran, ¡no no!

The Raid

by Pablo Neruda
translated by Hulles

The soldiers come.
The soldiers go.
The scavengers are feasting.
Then comes the raid,
And the soldiers die.
And they never come back.



See? I told you it was a dramatic little poem. I've loved this ever since it was taught to me by my bilingual ex-family, God bless 'em. Anyway, just thought I'd pass it on. Let me know what you think of the translation.

-- Hulles