Machado—"Princess Margarita"
 

This poem is an ekphrasis of the painting Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress (1660) by Juan Bautista del Mazo (c.1612 – 1667), son-in-law of Diego Velázquez (1599 – 1660). It really helps to go back and forth between the painting while reading the poem, so here's a link:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...1zquez_026.jpg
Click or zoom to enlarge it for details.


Princess Margarita, by Manuel Machado (Spain, 1874 – 1947)

Her face, a flower tinted sickly-pale
by deft strokes dipped in strawberry and milk,
emerges from the puffed-up farthingale,
imprisoned in her courtly finery’s silk.

Her hand--white amber, stuff of dreams--comes to
from swooning in a wrist-skirt sheer and stiff,
and holds the most abundant handkerchief,
just come from her astonished eyes of blue.

Italy, Flanders, Portugal… And there,
upon her childish cheeks, the final ray
of glory pauses from the setting sun…

And crowns no more her regal brow, her hair
a golden ash-eruption that won’t stay
within the fine red snood that’s near-undone.


Q2 was:
Her hand--white amber, stuff of dreams--comes to
from swooning in its wrist-skirt, made tulle-stiff,
and holds the most exquisite handkerchief,
which just left her astonished eyes of blue.
Before that, Q2 was:
Swooning against those skirts, then coming to,
her hand—white amber, stuff of royal dreams—
suspends the finest handkerchief, which seems
just come from her astounded eyes of blue.

T2 was:
The golden ash-eruption of her hair,
bound by the lightweight, pinkish snood partway,
will crown her regal head no more, when done.

**

La Infanta Margarita

Como una flor clorótica el semblante,
que hábil pincel tiñó de leche y fresa,
emerge del pomposo guardainfante,
entre sus galas cortesanas presa.

La mano—ámbar de ensueño—entre los tules
de la falda desmáyase, y sostiene
el pañuelo riquísimo, que viene
de los ojos atónitos y azules.

Italia, Flandes, Portugal… Poniente
sol de la gloria, el último destello
en sus mejillas infantiles posa…

Y corona no más su augusta frente
la dorada ceniza de cabello,
que apenas prende el leve lazo rosa.

**

Notes: The painting Infanta Margarita Teresa in a Pink Dress (1660), formerly attributed to Diego Velázquez (1599 - 1660), is now attributed to his son-in-law, Juan Bautista del Mazo (c.1612 - 1667). The nine-year-old princess shown here had been the protagonist of Velázquez’s famed Las Meninas (1656) at age five. The Spanish monarchy struggled to hold its Italian, Flemish, and Portuguese territories during the 16th and 17th centuries.

Manuel Machado (1874 - 1947) and his brother Antonio (1875 - 1939) were leading figures in the Spanish literary movement known as the Generation of ’98. Manuel published this poem in his 1911 ekphrastic collection Apolo, teatro pictórico (Apollo, Pictorial Theater).


LITERAL ENGLISH PROSE CRIB

Princess Margaret

Like a chlorotic flower the facial expression,
which (a) skillful paintbrush painted from milk and strawberry,
emerges from the puffed-up farthingale,
within her courtly finery, prisoner.

The hand—amber from a daydream (white amber, a.k.a. “royal” amber)—among/between the tulles (stiff, transparent woven silk netting)
of the skirt swoons, and holds
the most/very rich handkerchief, which comes
from her astonished blue eyes.

Italy, Flanders, Portugal… Setting
sun of glory, the final gleam
rests on her childish cheeks…

And no longer is (it) crowning her august forehead,
the golden ash of hair
that the fine red noose/knot/bow scarcely holds.


Source of Spanish Text:
https://archive.org/details/apolotea...ge/68/mode/2up
Source of Public Domain Image and info about the painting:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infant...n_a_Pink_Dress

Hi, Julie—

It was fun to follow along with the painting. The title of the painting and references in the poem make clear that the dress is pink, but it appears decidedly orange. I wondered if the if the pigment changed color or if a coat of varnish was added that yellowed with time.

You do a beautiful job of reproducing the rhyme scheme and the N’s sympathy for the frail, doomed girl imprisoned in an Iron Maiden of a dress. She represents the decline of Spanish influence in Europe. Machado’s vantage point, 250 years after the time of the painting, lets him reflect on the disintegration of the Spanish New World empire. This poem was written before the Spanish Civil War, but Machado lived through it. I wonder how he felt about Franco.

I had not seen the “wrist-skirts” before. I assume that the reference to tulle made clear that the “faldas” are the wrist collars, not actually skirts.

The comparison of her fiery, abundant hair to a volcanic eruption was a startlingly original detail that suggests that there may be more passion in this sickly girl than one would suppose. Was it common for snoods to be worn on one side or did her snood become unpinned and askew? Interesting to compare Mazo’s presentation of this delicate, inbred, but feisty-looking girl with the vapid, moronic faces in Goya’s court paintings.

Lovely work.

Glenn

Thanks for your feedback, Glenn. Tweaks posted above.

I've been reflecting a lot lately on certain Americans' current obsession with white Christian "purity," and on how that same obsession led to such inbreeding a few centuries ago. Maria Theresa's full brother, who became Charles II of Spain, showed more symptoms, including cognitive disabilities as well as physical ones, but you can still see the trademark Habsburg underbite and bulging ("astonished") eyes in her portrait.

I've decided it's too hard to keep "tulle," so I've made the wrist-skirts "sheer and stiff" in the second quatrain.

The grammatical relationships between the two main nouns in the final tercet ("forehead" and "ash") were giving me fits, because it seems obvious from the context of the previous tercet that the real subject of the verb "crowns" should be the gleam of the setting sun of Spain's glory. I'm not completely happy with the comma splice I've had to use there, but I think it's closer to what is actually meant, and the ominous imagery of disaster and undoing is now clearer, too.

I've peered and peered at that damn snood-thing. It's clearly not a feather, but a bag of some sort, made of cloth thin enough to crinkle a bit, and with a vaguely ruffled edge. A very weird fashion, but not the worst hairstyle I've seen her in.

Her older half-sister was married to King Louis XIV of France the year of the portrait described in the poem (1660). Here she's nine, and I suspect the snood thingy might be to make her look older, as she was already in marriage negotiations to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (who was her maternal uncle and paternal cousin--and whom she continued to call "Uncle" after she married him—ick, ick, ick). Her paternal grandparents were his parents. Of her four children, only one survived infancy, probably due to the inbreeding problem; but apparently she blamed their deaths on the Jews, whom she insisted be expelled from Vienna.

Hi, Julie—

Just a thought on the snood thing. In Catholic countries women—especially upper-class women—usually made all public appearances with head covers. I suppose this was because on any given day they might be expected to enter churches, chapels, or other holy sites and did not want to have to worry about putting on or taking off a chapel veil or mantilla that would make their ‘do askew. The odd asymmetry of this nine-year-old girl’s snood might suggest several possible interpretations:
1. Did she just get into a scuffle with her obnoxious brother?
2. Is her abundant golden hair (which rivals her blue eyes as her best feature) literally unable to be confined in a cloth sack? So does this allow the painter to display it?
3. Does it suggest the difficulty (and cruelty) of donning the elaborate and confining clothing of the times?
4. Did she pull the uncomfortable hair-cover loose herself, suggesting a rebellious streak?

Interestingly, in the second portrait with all the red bows in her braids, her eyes are brown. Her dresses in both portraits are the same colors. Were red (or pink/orange) and silver the colors of her family or one of the Spanish kingdoms her family ruled?

I read that Charles II had an inbreeding coefficient that was higher than a brother-sister cross. (gag.)

Glenn

Hi, Glenn!

Since Charles was her full brother, Margarita Teresa's inbreeding coefficient would have been the same, wouldn't it?

Margarita Teresa's full brother (Charles) wasn't born until the year after the painting was made. Her half brother, Balthazar Charles, had died before she was born, and actually was the reason that her mother married King Philip instead of his son Balthazar Charles, to whom she had been engaged. (Can you imagine the suckitude of preparing to marry your young cousin, and then having to marry his dad—your uncle—instead? There was a thirty-year age difference between Margarita Teresa's parents.)

I'm still not sure it even is a snood. The Spanish says "lazo," which could be anything from a lasso to a noose to a knot to a loop to a bow.

I'm struck by the similarities between this portrait and one of her mother (by Diego Velázquez), in which there is another voluminous handkerchief (probably indicating grief over one of the many children she had lost), and another hairdo that rhymes with the farthingale structure of the dress. But that hairstyle stops above the shoulder, and also has a sort of two-tone feather boa riding it (rather like a slug, in my opinion). And the hairline's weird in front. Could this be a wig?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marian...del_Prado).jpg

Here's a portrait by the same artist (del Mazo) of Margarita Teresa shortly before her marriage at age 14, clearly wearing a black snood:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margar...rningdress.jpg

But she liked to wear her hair down in her portraits, even after she became an adult and then a mother. Note the handkerchief of mourning again—she had already suffered several miscarriages by then:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margar...,_GG_3079).jpg
She died at age 21, four months into her seventh pregnancy. Ah, the life of royalty!

You asked about the poet's thoughts on Franco. Miguel Manuel Machado and his brother Antonio had been partners on many poetic and artistic projects (mostly plays), but when the Spanish Civil War broke out, they happened to be in regions of the country controlled by opposing sides, and they never saw each other again. Miguel was very quickly nominated to the Spanish Royal Academy by (Gen. Francisco Franco's) Nationalists, and he also wrote some jingoistic poems that ingratiated him with the Nationalists, so he has not been viewed as warmly by posterity as Antonio has been. I don't know if Miguel sincerely believed in their cause or if he just saw which way the wind was blowing and trimmed his sails accordingly.

There's a portrait of Margarita Teresa about age 14 (1665), in an orange dress:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margar..._Margarita.jpg
But I don't think there's any connection to the House of Orange-Nassau, which was behind the Dutch revolt against Spanish rule. I assume it had more to do with the cochineal beetles (source of cochineal dye) and achiote trees (source of annatto dye) in several Spanish colonies in the New World.

Hello, Julie,

Another adept translation—the flow smoothly, with inspired work on meaning, meter, and rhyme.

Still, here are some thoughts on it:

Her face, a flower's tarnished hue of pale

-- ‘sickly’ may be too strong for ‘clorótica’

from deft strokes dipped in strawberry and milk,
emerges from the salient farthingale,

-- ‘puffed-up’ misses the ‘boastful’ nuance of ‘pomposo’ – with salient, double duty might be achieved of ‘puffed-up’ and ‘pompous’

captive in courtly finery of silk.

-- smoother without the possessive, I think.

Her hand--white-amber dreams--descend onto

-- ‘stuff of dreams’ sounds rather prosaic to me

the swooning skirt, designed tulle-stiff,

-- to smooth flow with previous line

and holds the most exquisite handkerchief,
which flows from her astonished eyes of blue.

-- this might fit better with the ‘viene’ action.

. . . . . .

I hope you find something helpful in here… and good luck with this, Julie. It’s coming along great!

Cheers,
…Alex

Hi, Julie—

I like the tweaks, and the additional background and paintings are fascinating!

I don’t know how inbreeding coefficients are calculated. Since males have slightly less DNA than females, is it possible that the calculation would vary between the sexes?

Is the poet’s name Manuel or Miguel?

I really enjoyed your excellent research and beautiful translation. I want to read more by poets of the Generation of ‘98. It seems that El Desastre, the loss of the Spanish American War, Spain’s remaining overseas territories, and the last of its imperial glory, was the overriding theme of their poems.
Thanks for the meticulous work.

Glenn