En la noche oscura...

I do tend to underestimate my clerical friends, especially the number of them that read this blog.

One sent me a quick note that made me want to smile and cry at the same time:

clerical friends are not 'just to be supported' - well not this one anyway. [snip] Take care you...

Ps. John of the Cross in Spanish? oh yes - I think you would love it. He is not about depression at all... the dark night when read in spanish is electric and passionate... it's very you. just read the poem, forget the rest. x

*Hug*, hon, and thank you - you know who you are.

I've only ever read the poem in translation, or heard Loreena McKennitt's song adapted from it. It has always struck me as beautiful, but...electric? I could see the passion, but it felt sanitised; it didn't grab me. I loved the idea of being guided by the night more surely than by day, because I have always preferred moonlight to sunlight; the night's darkness and being guided by intuition to the day's bright glare and the guidance of logic and the outer senses. So despite my doubts, I always have had an affinity for it.

Oh. my. God. I had forgotten how much gets lost in translation. 'Electric and passionate' was the perfect description of the original. The sense of breathless movement, passionate searching for the beloved, and the joy of finding the beloved is just...incredible.

Lines like these just took my breath away:

¡Oh noche que guiaste!
¡oh noche amable más que la alborada!;
¡oh noche que juntaste,
Amado con amada,
amada en el Amado transformada!

[Oh night that guided me!
Oh night more lovely than the dawn!
Oh night that united
beloved with the lover,
the lover transformed in the Beloved!]

[note the use of the second person informal throughout, making the night familiar, a friend, not a feared stranger; also, please note that I have reservations re: amable = lovely, as it usually translates to 'kind', but I chose to keep the classic translation, unsure of older meanings.]

I was swept away - home. And so I leave you with the original Spanish version of San Juan de la Cruz. You know where to get a translation if you need one; what I want you to feel is the sweeping passion and breathless movement of the original.

Hang on tight. Or rather, don't.

San Juan de la Cruz
En una noche oscura

En una noche oscura,
con ansias, en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

a escuras y segura
por la secreta escala, disfrazada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
a escuras y encelada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;

en la noche dichosa,
en secreto, que nadie me veía
ni yo miraba cisa,
sin otra luz y guía
sino la que en el corazón ardía.

Aquesta me guiaba
más cierto que la luz del mediodía
adonde me esperaba
quien yo bien me sabía
en parte donde naide parecía.

¡Oh noche que guiaste!
¡oh noche amable más que la alborada!;
¡oh noche que juntaste,
Amado con amada,
amada en el Amado transformada!

En mi pecho florido,
que entero para él solo se guardaba,
allí quedó dormido,
y yo le regalaba,
y el ventalle de cedros aire daba.

El aire del almena,
cuando yo sus cabellos esparcía,
con su mano serena
en mi cuello hería,
y todos mis sentidos suspendía.

Quedéme y olvidéme,
el rostro recliné sobre el Amado;
cesó todo y dejéme,
dejando mi cuidado
entre las azucenas olvidado.