From One Lover to Another / De un amante a otro

From One Lover to Another

He won't let me name you.
He's talked about you so much
I even began to believe he believed me &#x02005.13;
despite my endless monstrosities &#x02005.13;
worthy of talking about you. But now,
he won't let me name you. So great his need was,
and must be still, to talk about you,
he seldom thought &#x02005.13;
Christ! for one so taken to think at all
of such was noble, hard like ploughing rocks &#x02005.13;
of how much I'd be hurt (nor able
always to hide that hurt
behind a shifting mask of real
interest and false interest) by
the simple, so natural act of naming you.
But naming you &#x02005.13; what name? For he, stubborn,
warily ungenerous and with powerful cause rejects
the word 'love' and by no naming it
would escape its powerful fact. How then
could he link your name, so loved,
with love's name?
He's borne so many years the coarse weight
of my rancid affection
that even naming love may turn him brutal.
I suffer a selfish and futile suffering to think
by loving him I've helped him
hate love.

But nobody hates love.
Some think they hate it &#x02005.13; at the shrillest moment
of pontificating against its name,
against its fact, they're in secret preparing
gentle actions, affections, proofs of stubborn love.
And so when he performed you in the theatre
of my curiosity and patience
(until the day I left before the interval),
naming you more often with every scene,
it soon grew clear how much it cost him to keep
from naming love. So your name grew to be
one of its other names, though he never resorted
to even the soberest lexicon, the most officially
humble, perhaps hypocritical imprecisions:
affection, warmth, friendship, all their blurred synonyms.
But he spoke like a man in love. He could no more
have kept from talking to me about you
than kissed me on the mouth in a crowded street.

So now in this quiet room, this mind, I risk your name.

De un amante a otro

Él ni siquiera me permite nombrarte.
Él ha hablado tanto de ti
que hasta he comenzado a creer que me considera &#x02005.13;
a pesar de mis infinitas monstruosidades &#x02005.13;
digno de hablar de ti. Pero ahora,
él ni siquiera me permite nombrarte. Tanta era su necesidad,
y aún ha de continuar siendo, de hablar de ti,
que raramente pensaba &#x02005.13;
¡Dios! para alguien tan poco propenso a pensar en esto
era noble, era tan difícil como arar sobre rocas &#x02005.13;
en cuánto me dolería (sin siempre
ser capaz de disimular el dolor
detrás de alguna cambiante máscara de real
interés y falso interés) la
simple y natural acción de nombrarte.
Pero nombrarte &#x02005.13; ¿cómo? Porque él, testarudo,
con cautela y con poca generosidad rechaza con razón
la palabra 'amor' y al no nombrarla
evita su poderosa realidad. ¿Cómo podría él, entonces,
relacionar tu nombre, tan amado,
con la palabra 'amor'?
Él ha padecido por varios a&ntidle;os el burdo peso
de mi rancio afecto
que incluso el sólo mencionar amor podría llevarlo a la brutalidad.
Padezco de un mal egoísta y fútil que me lleva a pensar
que por amarlo a él le he ayudado
a odiar el amor.

Pero nadie odia el amor.
Algunos creen odiarlo &#x02005.13; en el preciso momento
de pontificar contra su nombre,
contra su realidad, en secreto preparan
actos dulces, caricias, demostraciones de caprichoso amor.
Y entonces, cuando él te representó en el teatro
de mi curiosidad y paciencia...