The complete story of Neruda at Machu Picchu

The Peak of Kechu Picchu

Translated by Wang Yangle

This poem is one of Neruda's most influential and most published poems.

It was first published in Venezuela's "National Cultural Magazine" in 1946, and in 1950

It was included in the second edition of "Collection of Poems" (first translation of "Collection of Manga"). Macchu Picchu

Quicchu is located in the southeastern Andes Mountains, northwest of Cusco, about 112 kilometers

from the city. It is an ancient Indian castle, 700 meters long from north to south. , 400 meters wide from east to west, on the mountainside of Sakantai Snow Mountain, composed of the ruins of 216 buildings. Neruda visited this ancient castle on horseback on October 22, 1943, and composed this poem two years later. The twelve chapters of the poem are just like the twelve letters of Macchu

Picchu, the twelve hours of a day and the twelve hours of a year

The moon coincides with the moon, although this has nothing in common with ancient Inca culture.

From space to space, as if in an empty net,

I walked between the streets and the environment, coming and leaving.

Autumn is coming, and the leaves stretch like coins.

Between the spring and the ears of wheat, is the greatest love,

As if it is falling. Inside the glove,

is given to us like a huge bright moon.

(Those turbulent years,

I passed by the storm of my body;

The steel turned into acidic silence,

The night is torn apart to the last crumb,

That is the violated fiber of the newlywed motherland)

A person waiting for me among the violins,

Encountering a world is like a buried tower,

The top of the tower is buried so deeply,

Deeper than all the hoarse sulfur-colored leaves;

It is even deeper, in the gold of geology,

It is like a sword wrapped in changing weather.

I put my chaotic and sweet hands

deeply into the most fertile places of the earth.

I place my forehead among the deep waves,

Like a drop of water, descending into the sulfuric tranquility;

Like a blind man, returning to

Humankind’s exhausted spring jasmine.

If the flower is still handing over its growing bud to another flower,

the stone is still in its diamond and gravel

The broken coat retains scattered flowers,

And man crumpled the bright petals collected from the turbulent source of the ocean

Drilling into the metal pulsing in his hands.

Suddenly, in the clothes and smoke, on the collapsed table,

Like a pile of messy things, the soul was left:

Yes Quartz is jealousy and tears of the sea,

like a cold swamp: yet he still

uses paper and hate to kill it and torture it,

Press it down on the daily trodden carpet,

Tear it to pieces in the evil clothes of barbed wire.

No: in the corridor, in the open space, at sea or on the road,

Who does not carry a dagger (like a flesh-colored poppy)

to defend his own blood? Hu Liela has made

the miserable market atmosphere of selling people dying,

so, from the height of the plum tree,

thousand years of dew is waiting. Its branches

left a transparent and crystal message, ah, heart,

ah, the forehead worn bare in the emptiness of autumn.

How many times, on a cold street in a city in winter,

on a bus, on a boat at dusk,

or in the heaviest loneliness Here, on the festive night,

with bells and shadows, people gather together happily,

I want to stop and look for the profound and eternal context,

That was once etched in stone or in the flash of light separated by a kiss.

(Inside the grain, there are small breasts like pregnancy

A golden story, endlessly repeating a number,

The outer skin of the germ , so tender, and

always the same, peeling out like ivory;

In the flowing water, there is the shining motherland,

from the lonely A field of white snow and blood-red waves)

I didn’t catch anything except a bunch of faces or false faces that fell down, like hollow gold rings.

Like the disheveled daughters of furious autumn,

They make the sad tree of a stately race tremble.

I have no place to rest my hand,

it flows like a chained spring,

or like a chunk of coal or crystal Firm,

My outstretched hand should be restored to heat or chill.

What is a person? In what part of his speech,

among the barns and catcalls, does life unfold?

Where in the movement of his metal is the immortal life alive?

III

Life is like corn, threshed out of the endless barn of past events

; out of tragic encounters,

From one to seven, to eight,

From not just one death, but countless deaths, come to everyone.

Every day, it is just a small death, just dust, just maggots,

It is a light extinguished in the mud in the suburbs, a small death with thick wings,

Piercing into everyone, like a short spear.

That is the man who is troubled by bread and daggers,

It is the shepherd, the son of the harbor, or the black leader who helps the plow,

or Rodents on crowded streets.

Everything is waiting for his death in a coma, his short

daily death.

His unlucky misery day and night,

was like a black cup held up and drank from with trembling hands.

The violent and powerful death has invited me many times,

It is like invisible salt in the waves,

spreading It has an invisible taste;

It seems to be half sinking and half rising;

It is like the huge structure of wind and glacier.

I came to the edge of iron; to

the canyon of air, the shroud of agriculture and stone;

to the empty constellation of the dead end;

Come to the dizzy winding road; but,

O death, endless sea, you do not come wave after wave

but It is like running on a clear night, like all the numbers of the night.

You never came, rummaging in my pocket;

Your visit cannot be without the red sacrificial robe,

Without the dawn surrounded by silence Carpet,

There is no legacy of soaring or burying tears.

I cannot love a life as much as I love a tree,

The crown of the tree (the death of millions of leaves) lasts a small autumn,

It is all hypocrisy Death, and

Resurrection without land or abyss.

I want to swim in a broader life,

in a wider river mouth,

When people gradually reject me,

Close the door that can be closed, and let my fountain hand

No longer touch the non-existent wound,

So I want, street by street, river by river,

City by city, bed by bed,

Let my salty bones walk through the desert,

In the last poor house, there is no Lamp, no fire,

No bread, no stones, no silence,

All alone, wandering and dying in my own death.

Dignified death, you are not a bird with iron feathers,

not the heir to that poor abode,

in a hurry In the diet, brought under the loose skin;

But something else, the petals of the suspended strings,

The atoms of the breast that do not face the battle,

It is the thick dewdrops falling on the forehead.

This small piece of death cannot be regenerated.

There is no peace and no land.

It is just a skeleton and a bell. People are in it. Die in it.

I lifted off the iodine bandage; stretched out my hands towards

the endless pain that kills death;

In the trauma, I only encountered a gust of cold wind ,

Blowing in from the vague cracks in the soul.

So, in the dense and tangled bushes, I climbed the ladder of the earth,

to you, Mark Chu ·Pickcho, let’s go.

You are a high city built of layers of stone,

ultimately inhabited by what the earth does not hide under

the sleeping garments.

In your place, it is like two parallel lines,

the cradle of lightning and the cradle of humanity,

twisted together in the thorny wind.

Mother of stones, foam of vultures.

The sublime embankment of humanity’s dawn.

The shovel forgotten in the first batch of sand.

This is the residence, this is the place;

Here, the plump corn kernels,

rise and fall like red hail.

Here, the golden fiber of the vicu?a

For lovers, for graves, for mothers, for kings,

for prayers, for warriors, woven clothes.

Here, human feet and eagle feet

rest together in the dangerous mountain caves,

stepping on the thin ground at dawn with thundering steps. The mist,

touches the earth and the stones,

until it is recognized in darkness or death.

I looked at the clothes and the hands;

at the traces of water in the roaring cave;

at the skin softened by the touch of a face The wall,

It looks at the lamp on the earth with my eyes,

It oils the disappearing wood with my hands,

Because everything Everything: clothes, skins, cups,

language, wine, bread,

are all gone and fell into the soil.

The air comes in, with the fingers of lemon blossoms,

and falls on all sleeping people;

The air of thousands of years, the air of countless months and weeks ,

The blue wind, the iron mountain air,

like the soft wind step by step,

polished the lonely surroundings of the rock.

VII

The dead in the single abyss, the shadows in sinking,

The degree of depth,

just like you So solemn and solemn.

The real, the most blazing death has arrived,

so from the riddled rock,

from the crimson capitals,

From the water pipes rising step by step,

You fall down, as if in autumn,

It seems that there is only a dead end.

Today, the empty air no longer cries,

It is no longer familiar with your clay feet,

It has forgotten those big jars of yours,

Filter the sky and let the dagger of light pierce;

The strong trees are swallowed up by the clouds,

cut down by the strong wind.

It withstood a hand that suddenly pressed down,

from high in the sky until the end of time.

You are no longer spider hands,

brittle threads, tangled fabrics;

How much you have lost: customs and habits,

Ancient syllables, brilliant masks.

However, the stones and the words remain firm and unchanged,

The city is like a cup raised in the hands of all people;

The living, the dead, the silent Man, enduring

so many deaths, is like a pile of walls; so many lives

all of a sudden become the petals of stone, the eternal purple rose,

It’s this Andean embankment of icy colonies.

Wait until the clay-colored hands turn into clay,

Wait until the small eyelids close,

filled with rough walls, filled with fortresses ,

When all the people have fallen into their caves,

then only this towering and precise building is left,

the sublimity of the dawn of mankind. Position,

The highest vessel filled with silence,

The life of a stone after so many lives.

VIII

Climb up with me, American love.

Kiss the secret stone with me.

Urobamba①The flowing silver,

raises pollen and flies into its yellow cup;

Flies in the tangled gaps of the vines,

Flying among stone plants, hard garlands,

Flying over the silence of mountain valleys.

Come on, tiny life, come to the soil

Between the two wings, at the same time - crystal clear and cold,

hit the air and split The tenacious green jade,

The violent water, the water from the white snow.

Love, love, even in the treacherous night,

From the flints of the Andes,

to the dawn of red knees,

They are always staring at this blind son of Bai Xue.

O Vilcamayo, who roars in vain, ②

Before your thunderous waters break into

white foam, like a wounded snow When,

when your strong south wind rushes down,

when you sing and make noise, waking up the sky,

you are bringing What language,

gives ears that have barely emerged from your Andean bubble?

Who grasped the cold flash,

locked it and kept it high,

divided it in the icy teardrops,

Flashed by the rapid sword light;

Slammed the strong stamen,

Leading to the warrior's bedside,

Frightened the ultimate rock ?

What did your expelled spark say?

The flash of your secret betrayal

Ever travel with words?

Who is breaking the frozen syllables,

Black language, golden flag,

Deep mouth, suppressed shouts,

In the veins of your delicate water?

Who is cutting open the eyelids of the flower that comes to see from the earth

Who is it, leaving behind a string of dead people,

descending from your aging hands,

into the geological coal seam

Charge the night they've got?

Who threw away the tangled branches?

Who reburied the words of farewell?

Love, love, don’t go to the edge,

Don’t worship the buried head;

Let time complete its statue in the hall where the fountain has dried up,

Then, between the fast flowing water and the high wall,

collect the air in the middle of the pass,

the juxtaposed flat plates of the wind,

The rushing rivers of the mountains,

The rough salute of the dew,

So, climbing up, in the jungle, one flower after another,

Step on the long snake that spirals down from a high place.

On the slopes, with rocks and trees,

Powder of green stars, bright forests,

Mantu ③ is boiling like a living lake ,

Like a new layer of silence.

Come into my own life, into my dawn,

To sublime solitude.

This dead kingdom is still alive and kicking.

On the face of this big clock, the blood shadow of a vulture

crossed like a black ship.

①Urobamba, a river in Peru.

②Vilcamayo, a river in Peru.

③Mantu, the name of the valley.

The eagle of the constellation, the grapes of the thick fog.

The lost bastion, the blind scimitar.

The broken belt, the solemn bread.

Rush-like steps, endless eyelids.

Triangular short coat, stone pollen.

Granite lamp, stone bread.

The snake of ore, the rose of stone.

The buried ship, the fountain of stones.

The horse of the moon, the light of the stone.

The ruler that divides day and night, the book of stones.

Drums in the storm.

The coral that sank in time.

The wall that was polished by the fingers.

Making feathers fight on the roof.

The branches of the mirror, the foundation of pain.

The throne overturned by the weeds.

A system of brutal claws.

Following the strong southerly wind on the slopes.

Turquoise motionless waterfall.

The Sleeper's ancestral bell.

The pillory of the dominated snow.

Iron lying on his own statue.

The inaccessible closed storm.

Puma's hand, bloody rock.

The tower looks like a hat, and the debate looks like snow.

The night rises on fingers and tree roots.

The misty windows, the strong doves.

Desolate plants, thundering statues.

Basic mountains, the roof of the ocean.

The architecture of the Lost Eagle.

The strings of heaven, the bees in the sky.

The horizontal line of blood, the stars of structure.

The foam of ore, the moon of quartz.

The snake of the Andes, the forehead of the clover.

The silent dome, the pure motherland.

The bride of the sea, the trees of the church.

Salt branches, black-winged cherries.

Snow's teeth, cold thunder.

The claw-like moon, the threatening stone.

The cool bun, the movement of air.

The volcano of hands, the dark waterfall.

Silver waves, the direction of time.

Stones upon stones; man, where are you?

Air after air; man, where are you?

Time is connected with time; people, where are you?

Are you also one of those fruitless people

The broken pieces are today

The empty eagle on the stone steps on the street,

Are they the dead autumn leaves that are trampled when the soul walks to the tomb?

Those poor hands and feet, that poor life...

Have the bright days dissipated on you

like rain

Falling on the festival banner,

Putting its dark food, petal by petal

into the empty mouth?

Hungry, you are the chorus of people

You are the secret plant, the root of the loggers;

Hungry, you are raising the reefs in your area. High,

until it becomes a forest of towering towers?

I interrogate you, salt on the roads,

Show me the spoon; buildings,

Let me chew the stones with a stick Rui,

Let me climb all the stone steps until there is nothing left,

Let me grasp the organs until I touch people.

Makchu Picchu, it was you who put stones on stones,

But the foundation is rags?

Pile coal seams on coal seams and fill the bottom with tears?

Put the gold on the fire, and there are still big drops of bright red blood trembling on it

Give me back the slave you buried!

Dig out the poor man's hard bread from the earth,

Show me the slave's clothes

and his window.

Tell me how he slept when he was alive.

Tell me if he snored

in his dream, with his mouth half open, as if he had dug a dark hole in the wall due to fatigue

Wall, wall! Is his dream being pressed by every layer of stones

and whether it falls under it together with the dream,

just like falling under the moon!

Ancient America, the sunken bride,

your fingers also stretch out from the forest,

pointing to the void high in the sky where the gods are. ,

Under the splendid wedding banner,

Mixed with the thunder of drums and spears.

Your fingers, too, are also

The hair drawn by roses, the lines of cold current,

are the blood-red breasts of Xingu,

Transformed into fabrics with bright materials and hard vessels,

Buried America, you are also at the bottom,

In the painful entrails, like an eagle, still Hungry?

Let my hand extend into the colorful brilliance,

Into the dark night of stones;

Let the forgotten The ancient heart,

beats in my body like a bird that has been imprisoned for thousands of years!

Let me forget now this happiness, which is wider than the sea,

for man is wider than the sea and its islands;

should fall into it as Go down the well, and emerge from the bottom,

With the help of secret waters and buried branches of truth.

Let me forget, broad slabs, mighty volumes,

Universal scales, cornerstones of the hive;

Let my hand now slip from the ruler To

the rough blood and the rough edges of the clothes.

The angry vulture, in flight,

like the hoof of a red elytra beetle, slammed into my forehead.

The murderous feathery wind swept up

the dark dust on the sloping stone steps.

I can’t see this flying bird, I can’t see the hooks of its claws,

I can only see the ancient people, the enslaved people, sleeping in the fields people.

I saw one body, a thousand bodies, one man, a thousand women,

In the rain and the dark, dark wind of the night,

With the heavy stone of the statue:

Huan the Stonemason, son of Viracochus,

Huan the Cold, son of the Green Star,

Barefoot Juan, grandson of turquoise rock,

Brother, come climb with me and be born.

① Juan represents ordinary people. Villacocho, the eighth Inca of Peru, reigned from 1379 to 1430.

XII

Brother, born by climbing with me.

Give me your hand, from your

deep pain-ridden area.

Don’t go back to the bottom of the rock,

Don’t go back to the underground time,

Don’t make your painful noise again,

Don't turn back your pierced eyes.

Look at me from the depths of the earth:

Silent farmer, weaver, shepherd,

Trainer of your llamas,

Masons on dangerous scaffolding,

water carriers of Andean tears,

jewelers with nimble fingers,

trembling on seeds small farmers,

potters in the filled clay,

bringing your buried ancient pain

into this cup of new life Come;

Show me your blood, your wounds.

Say to me: This is the punishment you receive,

because the jewelry is not dazzling, or

the earth does not contribute stones or grains in time.

Show me the stone that killed you, and the wood that killed you.

Light me up, the ancient flint,

The ancient lamp, look at how many centuries have passed

The heavy whip that has brought trauma

The bright bloodstained axe.

I come to speak for your dead mouths;

Gather on the earth

all the silent swollen lips.

Tell me from the bottom, this whole long night,

It is as if I am imprisoned with you;

Tell me everything , iron chains upon iron chains,

shackles upon shackles, footsteps upon footsteps;

sharpen the dagger you hide,

wear it on me on my chest, placed in my hands,

like a river of yellow light,

a river of tigers buried under the soil;

Let me Weep, hours, days, years,

The age of blindness, the century of stars.

Give me silence, give me water, give me hope.

Give me struggle, give me iron, give me volcanoes.

Support my blood, support my mouth.

Speak for my words, for my blood.