GONGORA'S ECHOES, WAVES AND MIRRORS
LA SOLEDAD PRIMERA, 669 -76
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| Who said rivers are boring? |
La gaita al baile solicita el gusto,
a la voz el salterio;
cruza el Trión más fijo el hemisferio,
y el tronco mayor danza en la ribera;
el eco, voz ya entera, (1)
no hay silencio a que pronto no responda;
fanal es del arroyo cada onda, (2)
luz el reflejo, la agua vidrïera. (Sol.I 669 - 76)
Trión refers to Polaris, the most stable ("cruza") star of the Oso Minor, paralleled on earth by an Oso Mayor on the riverside, mirrored to perform a dance (*) during a wedding.
Why la agua vidrïera? Answer: don Luis wanted the verse to rhyme with entera, and avoid a Greek accusative. Alonso, in his interpretation (1927), states: el agua de vidriera. Carreira (Antología Poética, 2009) writes: el verso 676 es quiásmico.
The verse may be read as: luz el reflejo, la vidrïera agua. Or: luz el reflejo, el agua vidrïera. Or: luz el reflejo, vidrïera el agua.
Don Luis took the best option. A monotonous repetition of el would not have been right: el eco, el arroyo, el reflejo, el agua. He did not even reiterate la voz, but chose ya to maintain the ever present "a" in this fragment.(3)
Don Luis took the best option. A monotonous repetition of el would not have been right: el eco, el arroyo, el reflejo, el agua. He did not even reiterate la voz, but chose ya to maintain the ever present "a" in this fragment.(3)
The event is surrounded by the shapes and sounds of nature (with some mysticism) impregnated by the music of Northern Spain, composed by the poet in the satisfying scale of A Major.
(1) Quite a dominant voice (double / two-way): the eco.
In line 674 "no" appears twice.
Carreira mentions Séneca.
(2) Pellicer interpretes Góngora's visualization of a river in detail.
Initially Góngora inserted "a".
(3). In the Dedication Góngora played with the a, u, o and e.
(*) Jammes published in 1984 (in Criticón no. 27, University Le Mirail, Toulouse) a handwritten copy of a Góngora manuscript (dated 17th century) obtained by Prof. Antonio Rodriguez-Moñino. It contains 779 lines of the first Soledad, in a very early construction. Góngora's early texts often contain spelling errors. (Here: "frio", "fijo", the comma in line 671). The "Trión" is the North Star Polaris, the most stable one of the "Oso Minor", and the outer edge of the handle which leads to the dipper. After that Góngora writes "más frío,** el emisferio" (the cold spotlight of "Trión", not the Moon) and "tronco maior", mirrored in the moving lighthouse ("fanal") of a river. Góngora might have read the studies of Ptolomeo, and study the stars while staying overnight in the fields of Spain.
Of course the "Rodríguez Manuscript" is an early version of the first Solitude, and Góngora might have altered the text later on. (In the text below he leaves out "gaita". "Emisferio" features in order to rhyme with "psalterio" to musically describe the wedding. After that the visual part emerges). We could translate "mas" (in line 671) as but, and interprete the line as: from a cold hemisphere the star (the handle of the "Oso Minor" (in the shape of a ladle) descends to the warmer ambience of the river.
** Góngora should have written "en" here, but wrote down a comma instead (by candle light). The same occurs a few lines later.
*** Trión also refers to an Italian card game.
**** Why does Góngora write "tronco maior" ?
**** Fanal derives from the Greek phanárion.
Books consulted: Alonso, Pellicer, Carreira, Jammes.