Love and Death
Tapárouse en Una Venta
Death and Cupid chanced to meet,
On a day when they were roaming,
At a wayside country inn,
After sunset in the gloaming.
Cupid he was bound for Seville,
Death was marching to Madrid,
Both with knapsacks on their shoulders,
Where their wicked wares were hid.
Seemed to me that they were fleeing
From the clutches of the law,
For the couple gained a living
Dealing death on all they saw.
Cupid slily glanced at Death,
As they sat around the board,
Marvelled at her ugly visage,
Shook his merry sides and roared.
“Madam,” quoth he, “’tis so rude
To behave in such a way;
But, in sooth, so fair a fright
I’ve not seen for many a day.”
Death, whose cheeks grew red and fiery,
Put an arrow in her bow;
Cupid put in his another,
And to combat they would go.
Quick the landlord slipped between them,
As they scowled on one another,
Made them swear eternal friendship,
Bade them sit and sup together.
In the kitchen, by the ingle,
They were fain to lay them down,
For no bed was in the tavern,
And the landlord he had none.
They their arrows, bows and quivers,
Gave into Marina’s care,
She, a buxom wench who waited
On the guests that harboured there;
On the morrow at the dawning,
Cupid started from the floor,
Bade the landlord fetch his arms,
Broke his fast and paid his score.
’Twas the arms of Death the landlord
In his haste to Cupid brought,
Cupid flung them on his shoulder,
Took the road and gave no thought.
Death rose up a little after,
Sour, and limp, and woe-begone,
Took at once the arms of Cupid,
Shouldered them, and wandered on.
From that very day to this,
Cupid’s shafts no more revive;
Youths who feel his fatal arrows
Pass not over twenty-five.
And, ’tis stranger still, the old ones,
Whom Death’s arrows used to slay,
When they feel the shafts of Cupid,
Gain a new life and a gay.
What a world, so topsy-turvey!
What a change in people’s lives!
Cupid giving life destroys,
Death destroying life revives!
Trans. J. Y. Gibson.