Las seis cuerdas
Language: Spanish (Español)
La guitarra,
hace llorar a los sueños.
El sollozo de las almas
perdidas,
se escapa por su boca
redonda.
Y como la tarántula
teje una gran estrella
para cazar suspiros,
que flotan en su negro
aljibe de madera.
Text Authorship:
Musical settings (art songs, Lieder, mélodies, (etc.), choral pieces, and other vocal works set to this text), listed by composer (not necessarily exhaustive):
- by Roberto Bañuelas (b. 1931), "Las seis cuerdas", 1971 [ medium-high voice and piano ], from Tres canciones españolas: para canto y piano, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
- by Ramiro Cortés (1933 - 1984), "Las seis cuerdas", from Three Spanish Songs, no. 2 [sung text not yet checked]
- by George Crumb (1929 - 2022), "Las seis cuerdas", 2009, from The Ghosts of Alhambra, no. 2 [sung text checked 1 time]
Available translations, adaptations or excerpts, and transliterations (if applicable):
- ENG English (Jeffrey Tang) , "The Six Strings", copyright © 2023, (re)printed on this website with kind permission
Researcher for this text: Emily Ezust [
Administrator]
This text was added to the website: 2008-07-11
Line count: 11
Word count: 38
The Six Strings
Language: English after the Spanish (Español)
The guitar
makes dreams cry.
The lament of the soul,
lost,
Escapes from his open
mouth.
And like a tarantula,
He weaves a large star
to catch sighs
that float in the black
reservoir of wood.
Notes provided by Laura Prichard:
Line 1 - The guitar is a symbol of the Roma culture and the southern Spanish region of Andalusia, invoked here as a vehicle to express strong emotions. Symbols from Andalusia appear throughout Lorca's writings. In this poem, the guitar gives lost souls or those who suffer a way to express themselves. The sobs are amplified and emerge from the mouth/soundhole of the guitar.
Line 7 - Tarantulas weave complicated, unique webs: in this poem, the web may symbolize an individual’s problems or emotions. Lorca uses the spider web as a metaphor to express how a guitar might capture pain and heal through music.
Line 8 - The act of weaving is a metaphor for both a guitar’s strum and for the act of musical composition. Stars are symbols of hope, as they may guide those who are lost.
Line 10 - The color black has to do with “the duende”, which has been defined as “all black sounds”- Lorca uses the color black to refer to what is dark and mysterious.
Text Authorship:
- Translation from Spanish (Español) to English copyright © 2023 by Jeffrey Tang, (re)printed on this website with kind permission. To reprint and distribute this author's work for concert programs, CD booklets, etc., you may ask the copyright-holder(s) directly or ask us; we are authorized to grant permission on their behalf. Please provide the translator's name when contacting us.
Contact: licenses@email.lieder.example.net
Based on:
This text was added to the website: 2023-02-20
Line count: 11
Word count: 36