Love Opened a Mortal Wound

^{translated by Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique}

Love opened a mortal wound.
In agony, I worked the blade
to make it deeper. Please,
I begged, let death come quick.

Wild, distracted, sick,
I counted, counted
all the ways love hurt me.
One life, I thought—a thousand deaths.

Blow after blow, my heart
couldn’t survive this beating.
Then—how can I explain it?

I came to my senses. I said,
Why do I suffer? What lover
ever had so much pleasure?
 

Con el Dolor de la Mortal Herida

Con el dolor de la mortal herida,
de un agravio de amor me lamentaba;
y por ver si la muerte se llegaba,
procuraba que fuese más crecida.

Toda en el mal el alma divertida,
pena por pena su dolor sumaba,
y en cada circunstancia ponderaba
que sobrarban mil muertes a una vida.

Y cuando, al golpe de uno y otro tiro,
rendido el corazón daba penoso
señas de dar el último suspiro,

no sé con qué destino prodigioso
volví en mi acuerdo y dije:—¿Qué me admiro?
¿Quién en amor ha sido más dichoso?

From Sor Juana’s Love Poems, translated by Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted with permission of the University of Wisconsin Press. All rights reserved. Published in Poem-a-Day on October 4, 2020, by the Academy of American Poets. 

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“Love Opened a Mortal Wound” appeared in Sor Juana’s Love Poems, translated by Joan Larkin and Jaime Manrique (University of Wisconsin Press, 2003).

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