Sonetot 145
Procura desmentir los elogios que a un retrato de la poetisa
inscribió la verdad, que llama pasión
by Sor Juana Inés de la CruzÉste que ves, engaño colorido,
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido;
éste, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,
es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:
es una necia diligencia errada
es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.
Sonnet 145
In which she attempts to refute the praises of a portrait of the poet,
signed by truth, which she calls passion
by Sor Juana Inés de la CruzThis thing you see, a bright-colored deceit,
displaying all the many charms of art,
with false syllogisms of tint and hue
is a cunning deception of the eye;
this thing in which sheer flattery has tried
to evade the stark horrors of the years
and, vanquishing the cruelties of time,
to triumph over age and oblivion,
is vanity, contrivance, artifice,
a delicate blossom stranded in the wind,
a failed defense against our common fate;
a fruitless enterprise, a great mistake,
a decrepit frenzy, and rightly viewed,
a corpse, some dust, a shadow, mere nothingness.
translated from Spanish by Edith Grossman