Now that I have been documenting about Burns nights, I realised that D. acted as a perfect host and followed every step of this traditional supper.
Wearing his kilt he welcomed the guests and introduced them to one another so everyone felt at ease. The table was readily laid and everyone sat alternating sexes and preventing diners sitting next to known people. D. opened the event by mentioning the reason why we were celebrating the dinner (Burns' day) and the purpose of the gathering (raising money for the charity Hazel's Footprints), before one of the Scots recited the Selkirk Grace:
Some hae meat and canna eat,
And some wad eat that want it;
But we hae meat, and we can eat,
Sae let the Lord be thankit.
Some bagpipes began to whistle in the background as D. carried a large plate with the haggis from the kitchen. The haggis is a traditional Scottish dish which consists in sheep bowels stuffed with sheep's pluck minced with onion, oatmeal, spices, and salt, all boiled for about three hours and usually presented with neeps (mashed turnip) and tatties (mashed potatoes). Our supper menu was completed with a rich pudding made of porridge, double whipped cream and blueberries, watered with Scotch whisky and honey!
D. recited the Address To a Haggis by Burns while theatrically carving the haggis. Then amid the laughs of the guests, the haggis was given out and eaten (although some girls stared at it, sighed and rolled their eyes and had to be helped by their male companions, ay!).
During dinner the Scots read out some poems by Burns, and a threesome of South Africans sang some nursery songs in English and Afrikaans. D. had asked me to read out a Spanish poem. I thought about choosing one of Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer's Rhymes, since Robert Burns is considered the first Romantic (or pre-Romantic) Scottish poet and Bécquer the most important Spanish Romantic poet. However, I finally selected Pablo Neruda's Poema XX from 20 love poems and a desperate song and translated it into (modern) English so everyone in the table could understand it. It was a success: a deep silence welcomed my voice reading one of the most beautiful poems in Spanish and I could see one or two hastily-swept tears when I looked around the table as I finished the poem.
Please sit back, feel the silence and share with us the Spanish and the English versions of Pablo Neruda's Poema XX:
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes está noche.
Escribir, por ejemplo: «La noche esta estrellada,
y tiritan, azules, los astros, a lo lejos».
El viento de la noche gira en el cielo y canta.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Yo la quise, y a veces ella también me quiso.
En las noches como ésta la tuve entre mis brazos.
La besé tantas veces bajo el cielo infinito.
Ella me quiso, a veces yo también la quería.
Cómo no haber amado sus grandes ojos fijos.
Puedo escribir los versos más tristes esta noche.
Pensar que no la tengo. Sentir que la he perdido.
Oír la noche inmensa, más inmensa sin ella.
Y el verso cae al alma como al pasto el rocío.
Qué importa que mi amor no pudiera guardarla.
La noche está estrellada y ella no está conmigo.
Eso es todo. A lo lejos alguien canta. A lo lejos.
Mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Como para acercarla mi mirada la busca.
Mi corazón la busca, y ella no está conmigo.
La misma noche que hace blanquear los mismos árboles.
Nosotros, los de entonces, ya no somos los mismos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero cuánto la quise.
Mi voz buscaba el viento para tocar su oído.
De otro. Será de otro. Como antes de mis besos.
Su voz, su cuerpo claro. Sus ojos infinitos.
Ya no la quiero, es cierto, pero tal vez la quiero.
Es tan corto el amor, y es tan largo el olvido.
Porque en noches como esta la tuve entre mis brazos,
mi alma no se contenta con haberla perdido.
Aunque éste sea el último dolor que ella me causa,
y éstos sean los últimos versos que yo le escribo.
Pablo Neruda
Poem XX (I could write the saddest verses tonight.)
I could write the saddest verses tonight.
Write, for example: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars shiver, blue, in the distance".
The night wind revolves in the sky and sings.
I could write the saddest verses tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.
In nights like this I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the boundless sky.
She loved me, sometimes I loved her too.
How could one not have loved her great still eyes.
I could write the saddest verses tonight.
To think that I do not have her. To feel that I have lost her.
To hear the immense night, even more immense without her.
And the verse sinks in the soul as dew on the pasture.
What matters that my love could not keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.
That is all. Far away someone is singing. Far away.
My soul is not happy with having lost her.
As though to bring her closer my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her, and she is not with me.
The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, those of that time, are no longer the same.
I no longer love her, that is true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.
Another's. She may belong to another. As she was of my kisses before.
Her voice, her light body. Her boundless eyes.
I no longer love her, that is true, but maybe I love her.
Love lasts so short, and forgetting takes so long.
Because in nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is not happy with having lost her.
Even though this is the last pain that she makes me suffer,
And these are the last verses I write for her.
Love and freedom.
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