Wind blows up skirt

7.   The Curious Wind Lifted Your Skirt     (Ibas gozando no meu tormento)

(Queixumes dos Pinos, 1886)

Translator's Notes

As usual some verses of "Ibas gozando no meu tormento" are reverse sentences (1.4, 2.2-3, 3.4). Such sentences are deliberately disordered usually to obtain rhyme. For example the line, "Levóuch' a faldra curioso o vento" (1.4) which would translate literally as "Lifted your skirt, curious, the wind," garners a rhyme with 1.1, "Ibas gozando no meu tormento."

Ibas gozando no meu tormento,
Ibas fugindo,
Por medo a min;
Levóuch' a faldra curioso o vento...
Vállam' os ceos,
Ay o q' eu vin!

Déndesd' aquela, sempro sofrindo,
O doce sono,
Non conocin;
Se durmo, en soños, estou decindo:
—Vállam' os ceos,
Ay o q' eu vin!

Espera un pouco, doce enemiga,
Se non qués q' esto,
Salla de min;
S' a todos crúa, nón qués que diga:
—Vállam' os ceos,
Ay o q' eu vin!

You went relishing my torment,
You went running away
Afraid of me...
The curious wind lifted your skirt...
May the heavens help me,
My, what did I see!

Since then, always suffering,
I have not known
Sweet sleep—
If I do sleep, in dreams I am saying,
"May the heavens help me,
My, what did I see!"

Pause a while, sweet enemy,
If you do not want this
To come out of me,
If you'd rather not I tell everyone, cruel one,
"May the heavens help me,
My, what did I see!"