SHE TRIES TO REFUTE THE PRAISE INSCRIBED ON HER PORTRAIT BY TRUTH, WHICH SHE CALLS PASSION

(from the Spanish of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz O.H.S. 1651-1695)

What you see here is colourful illusion

flaunting all the artist’s subtle skill

with clever arguments of tone and hue—

it’s but a cunning trap to snare the will;

here where painted flattery has tried

to triumph over the horror of the years

and, conquering the ravages of time,

overcome oblivion and old age:

this is a careful artifice, though vain,

a fragile blossom battered by the wind,

a note of invitation sent to Fate;

a fool’s vocation that is doomed to fail

a will outmoded, and all things considered,

is corpse, is dust, is shadow, and is nothing.