Eso.

Thanks for the clarification. Your last 3 sentances resonate with me. It comes from different places but I feel it keenly.

Off to recharge the white and grey with the much-more-suitable-bedfellow-than-grammatical-terms.

Catch you again.

Chum

Past perfect, if I’m recalling correctly is when one “has done” rather than when one “did.” Thus the “ha dado” (has given) rather than “dido” (gave). As you so perspecaciously pointed out. The different feel, especially knowing whither Parra after she wrote this, is quite significant. All this translatorly chit-chat might bring other folks out of the woodwork and mebbe they can set me straight (no pun intended, really).

And as to the sadness: no. Nothing to hijack. No, at this moment, at least, what I feel, and what Sosa’s rendition of Parra’s song says for me, is a gratitude. Perhaps a wizzened gratitude, a knowledgable one. And I am grateful because, rather than in spite of the fact that I have had people recently leave my presence, one who was a peer, a would-have been parent, and another who was a child. So my experience of my parenthood and of my children is deep deep sweet. Not a day goes by (or a week, in a rough patch) in which I don’t remember that I can take none of this for granted. For which I give thanks to the loved ones up over my shoulders.

Now youve got me! Im quite happy with Mercedes repetetively swirling round my fatigued neurons but not so sure about grammar.

Wifey, usually an expert on grammar, is indisposed with a crucial Wii sequence and unable to impart crash explanation of past perfect.

We have a saying in our house….’must have given birth to my brain’…..to describe the most stupid things we do (or forget to do) in the post-children/ mother of young children fug. On rereading your blog I now see that I…..must have given birth to my emotional intelligence/ empathy also……sorry to hijack your obvious sadness.

Thanks for the welcome. Wish Id chanced upon your community earlier…but then Im sure you get that all the time.

Chumpy

¡Hola, and welcome, Chumpy! What a wonderful association to have with that song! What an incredible moment. Very very pregnant with so much, and in this case only a moderate pun intended. And though I wouldn’t ask anyone to touch my Spanish translations with a ten-foot pole (for an entertainung read, might I recommend my Pequeña nota page, about which one Argentinian reader wrote me to say, basically: “Huh?!”), I do prefer your translation, which allows for the past to be perfect.

Glad you happened upon this cheery community — which I’m very honored (and honoured) to say is a community — of fellow travellers.

Thanks for the link and translation. This is my favourite song of all time.

For me, the song is intimately linked to living/new life. I listened to it just before sproglets 3 & 4 were born (my first delivery). After the epidural worked there were a few minutes of complete stillness before active labour began…. so close to 3 & 4s much anticipated arrival……makes me think of awe and beauty and love as well as the stark contrasts in life.

It was written just before the authoress committed suicide…but Ive always taken it as a song about the beauty of life. I translate ‘me ha dado tanto’ as ‘has given me so much’- which has a less final/ more contemporaneous hue than ‘gave me so much’. What do you think? I suspect anyone with a modicum of Spanish could trump my translating ability.

Talking of which, hope this translates across the pond. Love the blog which I’ve just started to follow……

Chumpy