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Home Classes Lyrics ESSAYS Links About	E S S A Y S Measures of masculinity: On the lyrics and recordings of "Humillación" Essay and translations by Jake Spatz Humillación by Carlos Bahr "Aspasia" by Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837) << PART 1 >>        Part 2 Carlos Bahr's text for "Humillación" (Shame) belongs to a minor tradition of European poetry I consider the "break-up" lyric—the poem about a man who's fallen out of love. The tradition seems minor because very few pieces belong to it, and also because those pieces stand in the deep shadow cast by other love-themed verses—the songs of enticement, the songs of unrequited ardor, the songs of mutual failure, or those of hope, those projecting a return, those mourning a loss. All of these are essentially sentimental. In keeping with the Petrarchan conventions that established them as mainstays of Western verse, they tend to soften any male character present, especially if he's the speaker of the lines. The break-up poem, by contrast, comes off ferocious, rhetorical, and vengeful; the piece belongs not to the dream or the wish, not to the meditation or even to memory, but to the armored intellect. Back-handed apologies, like this one from "Humillación," come standard:   No te reprocho si tu amor que fue inconstante, puso en mi existencia, sombras de abandono; ni tienes culpa si maldigo a cada instante, lo que fue flaqueza de mi corazón. I don't reproach your love for being so inconstant as to cast on my existence shadows of desertion; nor do I blame you that I curse at every moment what was my own weakness here in my own heart. This gives only to take away: the once-beloved is to get no credit even for the pain she caused. The above verse isn't sung in either the D'Arienzo or the Biagi recording, but no matter: it's definitive of the subgenre. We find a similar gesture in these lines written by Italian poet Giacomo Leopardi (1798-1837), from his poem "Aspasia":   Or ti vanta, che il puoi. Narra che sola sei del tuo sesso a cui piegar sostenni l'altero capo, a cui spontaneo porsi l'indomito mio cor. Narra che prima, e spero ultima certo, il ciglio mio supplichevol vedesti...    (vv. 89-94) Now boast, you've earned it: tell how it was you alone among your sex to whom I kept bowing this head I hold so high, and to whom I readily offered my stubborn heart. Tell how you became the first, and I certainly hope the last, to watch my lashes plead...    (tr. Jake Spatz) To not read invective in such lines is to miss the point entirely. "Self-reproach" of this cut is mere posturing: the purpose is to tender a return blow for injuries already received, and to fortify the self in the process. AGAINST THE REINS "Humillación" and "Aspasia" both refer disparagingly to the yoke, a standard literary symbol of wedlock. To invoke it at all is a mark of exaggeration; the speaker is declaring his (former) attraction to have been completely out of proportion. Leopardi mentions it thus:   [...] Cadde l'incanto, e spezzato con esso, a terra sparso il giogo: onde m'allegro.    (vv. 101-103) [...] The spell was broken, and with it the yoke fell severed at my feet, whence my gladness.    (tr. Jake Spatz) Carlos Bahr likewise deploys the image to connote not labor, not joint effort, not pastoral scenery, but mere subjugation:   Ansia torpe que me arrodilló bajo el yugo de tu pretensión... That buffle-headed want that got me on my knees, bearing up the yoke of your demands on me... That both poems dust off this old prop leads me to suspect there's a classical model involved, possibly something in Horace. The refrain in "Humillación" already hearkens to Catullus' famous odi et amo dictum ("Odio este amor," lit., "I hate that love"). Even in the absence of a common source-text, however, the texts complement each other nicely, and provide two examples of an assertive masculine voice in (anti-)love poetry. I'd like to reiterate what I consider to be the most significant aspect of the subgenre—the self-vindication of the male voice. To me, these four lines from "Humillación" frame the matter unambiguously; the first two are the song's opening lines, the latter two the closing lines of the chorus:   Yo no sabía del amor que se arrodilla, balbuceando ruegos, manso de altiveces. [...] odio este amor que al doblegar mi entereza me rebajó a mendigar tu calor. I never knew about the love gets you kneeling, stammering petitions, a sheep of self-assertion. [...] fie upon that love that bent my fortitude and bowed me, and brought me down to begging you for warmth. The subject-matter of the portrait here is the speaker's (former) weakness. But the portrait is only possible because of the opposite: his present newfound strength, his independence, his shattering of the yoke. To me this is the salient point. It's also the profound difference between the two well-known recordings of the song, that of Juan D'Arienzo and that of his one-time pianist Rodolfo Biagi. << PART 1 >>        Part 2 Questions? Comments? Requests? Email the Editor.
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