Rapsodia / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

Rhapsody

Juno releases, from celestial heights, the deformed son, opprobrium of divine beauty.
     The fog hurries to the infant’s rescue and lays him down on the elastic surface of the ocean, moderating the impetus of the fall.
     The child descends in a nacre carriage, prepared by sirens, to an apparent home, fantasy of the artists of the abyss, situated at the end of a vegetation of corals and madrepores. The shameful light of the depths circulates through the lodgings.
     The infant conceives the love of beauty, proven eventually in the forging and in the engraving of resplendent jewels, in his dealings with the sunken beings, in a capricious manner. He admires the presumptuous medusa and her mane accumulated under the disc of her applied parasol.
     He owes, likewise, the agreeable nature and peaceful habits, which distinguish him from his companions in immortality, to the teachings of defenseless creatures. He listens to the advice of the versatile eel, of the sedentary sponge, of the orbicular fish with a comic physiognomy.
     Vulcan’s elegance smooths the afflicted face and mitigates the resounding voice of tragedy.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




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