# asomarse a sus ojos abiertos (Garcia Lorca)



## JB

In the poem La Sorpresa, one line reads : 
Era madrugada. Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos abiertos al duro aire. Que muerto se quedó en la calle, con un puñal el pecho, y no lo conocía nadie. 
I take this to mean: 
No one could approach / look into those / his eyes open to the harsh air.  

But a published translation reads : 
Nobody was able to glance wide-eyed out into the harsh night air.

Did I misunderstand, or is the other translator taking significant license?


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## k-in-sc

No one could brave that harsh air with (their) eyes open ...
''Asomarse'' of course being one of those hard-to-translate verbs we don't have in English!


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## turi

"No one could (was able to) peek at the open eyes of the harsh air".

That's the way I see it, so, there we go again, everyone to their ways and licenses.

Saludos, t.


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## k-in-sc

Errr, the air's eyes? Seriously?!


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## turi

k-in-sc said:


> Errr, the air's eyes? Seriously?!



"...a los ojos abiertos al duro aire".

Just had my guess...

Saludos, t.


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## Andoush

"Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos abiertos al duro aire" (Habla de un muerto que se quedó en la calle). 

Es decir que los ojos del muerto estaban abiertos y expuestos al duro aire: "his eyes open to the harsh air" como sugiere JB me parece correcto.


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## turi

Andoush said:


> "Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos abiertos al duro aire" (Habla de un muerto que se quedó en la calle).
> 
> Es decir que los ojos del muerto estaban abiertos y expuestos al duro aire: "his eyes open to the harsh air" como sugiere JB me parece correcto.



Sipi, ahora tiene más sentido.

Saludos, t.


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## JB

I just corrected a mistake: sus ojos, not los ojos. 
Does that change anything? 
I could have sworn the meaning was that nobody could look into the eyes of the stranger dead in the street, but so far it appears I had it wrong. 

Edit: Andoush posted while I was typing. I feel vindicated.


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## turi

It just confirms that Andoush got it right.

Saludos, t.


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## k-in-sc

Well, as far as I know ''asomarse" usually has the meaning of sticking all or part of yourself out, from indoors to outdoors.


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## turi

k-in-sc said:


> Well, as far as I know ''asomarse" usually has the meaning of sticking all or part of yourself out, from indoors to outdoors.



"asomarse a un pozo", "asomarse a un precipicio"...


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## k-in-sc

Oh yeah, good point, peek out of or over the edge of something ...


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## SydLexia

For me the picture is:

Not one eye was raised above the level of a window-sill.

syd


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## Andoush

SydLexia said:


> For me the picture is:
> 
> Not one eye was raised above the level of a window-sill.
> 
> syd


 
Hmm... 
The fellow was stabbed in the chest in the small hours of the morning. Nobody knew him and nobody dared take a peek into his eyes which were open to the harsh air (nobody dared look at him, perhaps).

Mr García Lorca, do forgive me! This is not a translation but my humble explanation !


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## k-in-sc

I do agree that it suggests more that the street was deserted than that the dead man had his eyes open. But I haven't read the whole thing.
Edit: Just reread it and I see what you are saying ...


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## k-in-sc

A blogger's attempt:
_Between the night and the morning
No one could look into his eyes
Open to the raw air_


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## SydLexia

Personally I don't buy the all night long bit. For me it's a dark night and a poem about not seeing and not looking.

The light calls as he dies but they do not look. His eyes are open, and see the cold wind.
They keep their heads down and they do not see. They think he might see them if they dare to look. 

Those who don't see do not see the main facts:

Que.....
que.....
y que.... 

syd


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## k-in-sc

Other published translations:

_No one Could look at his eyes Open to the harsh air. For he lay dead in the street With a knife in the heart  ...

No one could peer into his eyes opened on the harsh air. Dead he was left in the street with a dagger in his chest, ..._

Looks like you need a better version, JB!

Edit: I think "los ojos" instead of "sus ojos" got me off on the wrong track. The natives are clear that ''asomarse" here means "look into."


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## JB

> Edit: I think "los ojos" instead of "sus ojos" got me off on the wrong track. The natives are clear that ''asomarse" here means "look into."


 
Sorry about that.  Yes, I realized when I saw the (sloppy) mistake that los vs. sus could make all the difference in the world.

By the way, I had difficulty finding translations on the web, and only succeeded in finding one hard-cover edition locally.  Thanks for finding the others.

I suspect that Lorca is not always the easiest to interpret, even for native speakers.


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## k-in-sc

Well, I was with Syd in thinking it meant nobody would dare to even stick their heads outside. I never got the "peer" meaning of ''asomarse" until now.
Is the rest of your translation that iffy? And can you find the links to the other translations OK?


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## Jaguar7

"No one could peer into his eyes" was my guess before I noticed k-in-sc's translations. It implies being curious about who the man was.


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## MHCKA

I'm with Syd (again).

The sadness...

Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos... porque realmente nadie lo conoció.

¿Quién puede asomarse a los ojos de un perfecto desconocido?

Ya sea que no se le haya conocido, incluso por no haber querido tal cosa...


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## k-in-sc

Well, you Spanish natives obviously understand it better than we English speakers do.
I'm sure I also was influenced by the published translation, which now seems off the mark.


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## k-in-sc

SydLexia said:


> For me the picture is:
> Not one eye was raised above the level of a window-sill.





SydLexia said:


> ... They keep their heads down and they do not see. They think he might see them if they dare to look.


These seem like two different interpretations to me.


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## Jaguar7

Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos porque era de madrugada y estaba haciendo frío. Los curiosos no pudieron tratar de ver en sus ojos la clase de hombre que era. No me refiero a si lo conocían, sino a identificar quién era por dentro.


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## MHCKA

MHCKA said:


> porque realmente nadie lo conoció.
> 
> ¿Quién puede asomarse a los ojos de un perfecto desconocido?
> 
> Ya sea que no se le haya conocido, incluso por no haber querido tal cosa...


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## k-in-sc

Jaguar7 said:


> Nadie pudo asomarse a sus ojos porque era de madrugada y estaba haciendo frío. Los curiosos no pudieron tratar de ver en sus ojos la clase de hombre que era. No me refiero a si lo conocían, sino a identificar quién era por dentro.


So you're saying it means both "no one would venture out into the street" and "no one would venture (= dare) to look into his eyes"?


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## Jaguar7

No one _could_. People were sleeping or afraid to go out that early, without the crowd support. It would have been different at noon.

_Asomarse_ implies to lean out of the window of your house in order to _know_ (curiosity).


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## k-in-sc

(People _were_ ...)
Well, then, there seems to be a difference of opinion. I'm sure it was no accident that García Lorca used an ambiguous word ...


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## Jaguar7

It was no accident to use _asomarse. _And I don't think it is an ambiguous verb. At noon everybody would be _asomándose por las ventanas_. If no one could see, it is an indication of the man's loneliness.


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## k-in-sc

So you disagree with what everybody else said, that it doesn't mean look out their windows but look into the man's eyes? 
Obviously you can't look into the eyes of someone who's lying in the street unless you're standing next to him, not looking out the window.


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## Jaguar7

Nadie pudo acercarse al hombre para verlo a los ojos y tratar de descifrar la clase de hombre que era. Murió solo, en el frío, en un pueblo donde nadie lo conocía, sin siquiera tener a alguien que se preguntara quién era.

La gente no pudo acercarse a sus ojos como si fueran ventanas. No conozco el resto del poema, pero pareciera que _no importa la gente_ sino la soledad del muerto.


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## maidinbedlam

I agree that the key is "era de madrugada". It's not that they didn't dare; he simply died alone because the streets were deserted. And yes "asomarse a sus ojos" implies they would have got closer and looked into his eyes.


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