Rima XI (Yo soy ardiente, yo soy morena)

Rimas, 1871

Yo soy ardiente, yo soy morena,Yo soy el símbolo de la pasión;De ansia de goces mi alma está llena.— ¿A mí me buscas? — No es á tí; no.

—Mi frente es pálida; mis trenzas de oro:Puedo brindarte dichas sin fin;Yo de ternura guardo un tesoro.—¿A mí me llamas?—No; no es á tí.

—Yo soy un sueño, un imposible,Vano fantasma de niebla y luz;Soy incorpórea, soy intangible;No puedo amarte.—¡Oh, ven; ven tú!

The complete Rima XI from the Obras (volume III, 1885), taken from the Spanish Wikisource transcription. No emendation was made.

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About the poem

Three stanzas, three women. The first is dark and passionate, and offers pleasure; the second, pale and gold-braided, offers tenderness and happiness. To both he answers no. The third is not of flesh: she is «a dream, an impossibility, a vain phantom of mist and light».

And to her, the one who cannot be had, he says: «Oh, come; come, you!». In twelve lines Bécquer sums up his whole poetics: against real pleasure and real happiness, the poet chooses the unreachable, because it is precisely the impossible that kindles desire.

The verse is kept in Spanish. Translating it in passing would replace the work with a paraphrase of it.