Soneto 130 - Shakespeare

 Shakespeare - a crude romantism

I am not particulary a poetry lover in general, but as everybody I have my moments in appreciate that kind of expression due to the impossibility of ignore poets like Shakespeare, Carlos Drumond de Andrade, Fernando Pessoa, Mario Quintana, names random picked amongst so much others.

Below it is one of the Shakespeare sonets that impressed me, not for idealizing the love subject, but exactly for bring it in crude men and women cotidian terms of common people.

In this sonnet, in a manner that surprised me because it was written before 1609, the poet reveals his love for a woman who is not particulary pretty of specially kind, neither to the lover eyes. It is the sonnet 130 that is followed by an Olavo Bilac translation.

Shakespeare - Sonnets 130

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun,
Coral is far more red, than her lips red,
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun:
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head:

I have seen roses damasked, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks,
And in some perfumes is there more delight,
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.

I love to hear her speak, yet well I know,
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,
My mistress when she walks treads on the ground.

And yet by heaven I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

William Shakespeare

Soneto 130

Não tem olhos solares, meu amor

Não tem olhos solares, meu amor;
Mais rubro que seus lábios é o coral;
Se neve é branca, é escura a sua cor;
E a cabeleira ao arame é igual.

Vermelha e branca é a rosa adamascada
Mas tal rosa sua face não iguala;
E há fragrância bem mais delicada
Do que a do ar que minha amante exala.

Muito gosto de ouvi-la, mesmo quando
Na música há melhor diapasão;
Nunca vi uma deusa deslizando,

Mas minha amada caminha no chão.
Mas juro que esse amor me é mais caro
Que qualquer outra à qual eu a comparo.

(trad. Olavo Bilac)