Antonio Machado Ruiz (Seville, 1875 – Colliure, 1939). Author:
“Las viejas de Castilla” consists of fourteen Alexandrian verses that the poet would have removed from his collection of poems “Campos de Castilla”. It was written by hand on a sheet of paper with various erasures and erasures and under the letterhead of the Soria Institute where he taught French.
Antonio Machado Ruiz (Seville, 1875-Colliure, 1939) was excluded, perhaps because of his book fields of Castile a song Old women of Castilenow appeared in Burgos among the documentation of José María Zugazaga Marino, who was the secretary of Manuel Machado, the poet’s brother.
The text is being studied in order to clarify its authorship, although everything indicates that it is an autograph of the General of Seville. The Fernán González Institution has been managing the Zugazaga Fund for months, and its director, René Jesús Payo, has found composition in the first approach to Zugazaga’s papers, a fund that could contain other surprises.
The manuscript page is yellowed by time with three spots of ink, some erasures and under the letterhead where it says: “Professor of French at the Soria Institute.” It contains fourteen Alexandrian verses (of 14 syllables) written in pen in black ink and a title that quotes the verses Hamlet’Shakespeare: “To be or not to be, that is the question. Is it nobler in the mind to suffer” [Ser o no ser, esa es la cuestión. Si la gente cree que es más noble sufrir…].
The title appears in the middle and between the dashes, and the entire poem refers to Antonio Machado de fields of Castile. “One day I rode on the wide road / that goes from Soria to Burgos, in the middle of spring, / through these high plains in late spring / to spread my pink hands on the brown earth”, are her first lines.
A facsimile edition of the song accompanied by various studies is expected to be released by the end of the year. The academic María Jesús Jabato is already working on one of them, dealing with the possibility mentioned above that it is a poem rejected by its author fields of Castilecult collection of songs from Machado published in 1912.
“It’s not a very good song, that’s why Machado rejected it. The important thing is its documentary value,” said Jabato. A few months ago, Manuel Machado was provided with safe travels to travel from Burgos to Collioure, in the middle of the civil war, to say goodbye to his beloved brother, who died on February 22, 1939, in the French coastal town where he was buried, they were in the same Zugazaga fund a few days after crossing the border on the way to exile.
Antonio Machado traveled to Valencia in November 1936, where he participated in the Second International Congress of Writers in Defense of Culture held in July 1937. In 1939, before Franco’s inevitable victory, the poet headed for Barcelona and crossed the Pyrenees. all the way to Collioure, where he died a month and a week before the end of the war. There, on a crumpled piece of paper that his brother José found in the pocket of a worn coat, he wrote his last and famous line: “These blue days and this sunshine of childhood”.
The Zugazaga Fund includes “autographs, texts, drawings and poems dedicated to Marina José María Zugazaga by various characters in letters, culture, art and entertainment,” the institution says on its website. House plans from The land of Alvargonzález and other manuscripts of fields of Castile Antonio Machado and books, writings, letters and other materials belonging to his brother Manuel: books, documents, clippings from his newspaper publications, letters, photographs, works of art and personal belongings.
Everything was donated by Eulalia Cáceres, Manuel Machado’s widow, after his death in 1947. One of the questions that needs to be clarified is how the now found manuscript ended up in the hands of Manuel Machado’s secretary, who together with his brother Antonio wrote some theater pieces in the 1920s and 1930s. century.
Old women of Castile
One day I was riding along the wide road that leads from Soria to Burgos, in the middle of spring, through these high plains spring slowly opens its pink hands on the brown earth. And it’s already mid-April, when greenery is born again, where foals play, where sheep graze, [el pescador furtivo apresta sus reteles y tienen las abejas donde libar sus mieles]* when the plums bend their white flowers and the mother stork teaches the children with her clumsy wings, and at the beginning of May the back of the Moncayo is still white. And the man who works late pegujal punishes the blizzard and whips the cold north wind. More sun and blue. I prefer the wastelands of Castile to the flowery plains of Córdoba or Seville.
Source: La Vozde Galicia
I am David Miller, a highly experienced news reporter and author for 24 Instant News. I specialize in opinion pieces and have written extensively on current events, politics, social issues, and more. My writing has been featured in major publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, and BBC News. I strive to be fair-minded while also producing thought-provoking content that encourages readers to engage with the topics I discuss.
