Sutileza / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Subtlety

I was listening to the speech of an intelligent and sensible woman. She had sat on a regal armchair, with a single leg. She adapted her arms to the chair and supported a face of imperturbable beauty on the back of her clasped hands. I reminded her of the similar posture used by Archimedes in a printed illustration.
     The woman preferred the comparison to Margarita de Navarra, in the act of imagining her free stories. Her words created the atmosphere of a courtesan drama, in which a polished gentleman fears the ingenuity of a festive lady and at the same time celebrates her in a few frivolous verses.
     I took advantage of that instant to underline a significant passage in which the queen feels in a visible manner the thoughts of Boccaccio and his Ciceronian style. I used in my service the eloquence of Fiammetta and his insinuating gesture and I suffered an indignant protest from my kind lady.
     At that moment I have arrived at a favorite superstition of the ancients. I have opened at random one of the books of my devotion and have found an example of my luck in the paraphrasis of a sonnet by Shakespeare.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




{ José Antonio Ramos Sucre, Obra completa, Caracas: Biblioteca Ayacucho, 1989 }