Queen Mab's Veil
Queen Mab, in her chariot made of a single pearl, drawn by four beetles with golden breastplates and jewelled wings, travelling along a sunbeam, slipped in through the window of an attic where four men, thin, bearded and impertinent, were lamenting like wretches.
In those days the fairies had handed out their gifts to mortals. To some they had given the mysterious wands that fill the heavy strongboxes of trade with gold; to others, marvellous ears of wheat that, once threshed, brimmed the granaries with riches; to others, crystals that let them see gold and precious stones deep in the kidney of mother earth; to some, thick heads of hair and the muscles of Goliath, and enormous hammers to pound red-hot iron; and to some, strong heels and nimble legs to ride the swift horses that drink the wind and stream their manes as they run.
The four men were complaining. To one had fallen a quarry, to another the rainbow, to another rhythm, to another the blue sky.
Queen Mab heard their words. The first was saying:
"Well! Here I am in the great struggle of my marble dreams! I have cut the block and I hold the chisel. All of you have something: some gold, some harmony, some light; I think of white and divine Venus showing her bareness under a ceiling the colour of the sky. I want to give the mass its line and its sculpted beauty, and to make a colourless blood like the gods' run through the veins of the statue. I have the spirit of Greece in my head, and I love the figures where the nymph flees and the faun reaches out his arms. O Phidias! To me you are proud and august as a demigod in the precinct of eternal beauty, a king before an army of beauties who cast off their splendid robes before your eyes, showing the glory of form in bodies of rose and snow. You strike, you wound and you tame the marble, and the blow rings harmonious as a line of verse, and the cicada, lover of the sun, hidden among the tendrils of the wild vine, flatters you. Yours are the fair and shining Apollos, the stern and sovereign Minervas. Like a magician you turn rock into likeness and the elephant's tusk into a banquet cup. And seeing your greatness I suffer the martyrdom of my smallness. Because the glorious times are gone. Because I tremble before today's eyes. Because I contemplate the immense ideal with my strength exhausted. Because, as I carve the block, discouragement gnaws at me."
And the next was saying:
"Today I will break my brushes. What do I want with the rainbow, and this great palette of the flowering fields, if in the end my painting will not be accepted at the salon? What shall I take up? I have gone through every school, every artistic inspiration. I have painted the torso of Diana and the face of the Madonna. I have asked the countryside for its colours, its shades; I have flattered the light like a sweetheart and embraced it like a beloved. I have worshipped the human figure, its splendours, the tones of its flesh and its fleeting half-tints. I have traced on my canvases the haloes of saints and the wings of cherubs. Ah, but always the terrible disappointment! The future! Selling a Cleopatra for two pesetas so I can have lunch!
"And I, who in the trembling of my inspiration could paint the great picture I carry in here...!"
And the next was saying:
"My soul lost in the great illusion of my symphonies, I fear every disappointment. I listen to every harmony, from the lyre of Terpander to the orchestral fantasies of Wagner. My ideals shine in the middle of my inspired daring. I have the perception of the philosopher who heard the music of the stars. Every sound can be captured, every echo can be combined. Everything fits on the line of my chromatic scales.
"Vibrating light is a hymn, and the melody of the forest finds an echo in my heart. From the noise of the storm to the song of the bird, everything blends and links in the infinite cadence. Meanwhile I can make out nothing but the crowd that jeers and the cell of the madhouse."
And the last:
"We all drink the clear water of the Ionian spring. But the ideal floats in the blue, and for spirits to enjoy its supreme light they must rise. I have verse made of honey, verse made of gold, and verse made of red-hot iron. I am the amphora of heavenly perfume: I have love. Dove, star, nest, lily, you all know where I live. For immeasurable flights I have eagle's wings that split the hurricane with magic strokes. And to find my rhymes, I look for them in two mouths that meet; and the kiss bursts out, and I write the stanza, and then, if you see my soul, you will know my Muse. I love epics, because from them comes the heroic breath that stirs the flags waving above the lances and the plumes trembling on the helmets; lyric songs, because they speak of goddesses and of love; and eclogues, because they smell of verbena and thyme, and of the healthy breath of the ox crowned with roses. I would write something immortal; but a future of poverty and hunger crushes me..."
Then Queen Mab, from the depths of her chariot made of a single pearl, took a blue veil, almost impalpable, as if woven of sighs, or of the glances of fair and thoughtful angels. And that veil was the veil of dreams, of the sweet dreams that make life look rose-coloured. And with it she wrapped the four men, thin, bearded and impertinent. And they stopped being sad, because hope entered their breasts, and the cheerful sun their heads, together with the little devil of vanity, who consoles poor artists in their deepest disappointments.
And ever since, in the attics of the brilliant unfortunates, where the blue dream floats, people think of the future as of the dawn, and laughter is heard that drives sadness away, and strange farandoles are danced around a white Apollo, a pretty landscape, an old violin, a yellowed manuscript.
THE END
Azul, 1888
Rubén Darío, 1888. Translated for Zeitzung from the Spanish text at Ciudad Seva. Public domain.