La quimera / José Antonio Ramos Sucre

The Chimera

     The virgin, seduced by the world’s entertainment and lost amid the idle pursuits of the imagination, has adopted the name Vivianne, and grasps her lute invoking the succor of the fairy. She imitates the assurances and ease of romance.

     She dreams of redeeming and conquering an enchanted prince, victim of the curse of envy, humiliated in the form of a toad and marked on his forehead with the image of a shining circle. A lagoon, with a poisonous breath, defends the gallery of her hiding place. The virgin manages to break the sortilege by staying on her knees, an entire night, amid some ruins, far from human help, and under threat of feral worms. The virgin resists the ghosts of darkness and her victorious canticle, the menace of some diabolical birds, marks the measure with dawn and flames of a devoted color.

     The virgin interrupts the voluble music, likeness of the course of its delirium and shuts away the lute in the ebony box, with a resonant cover.

     The virgin watches the appearance of a vessel and the assurance of a bird from her bridge, and goes with startled voice toward the uncertainty of the messenger.




Las formas del fuego (1929)




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