Lonjazos
Lonjazos (Lashes) is the title of a tango written by Jesús Fernández Blanco in 1932. De music was composed by Andrés Domenech. The gaucho returns disheartened and alone to his ranch after having left his dead beloved at the foot of a tree. Nature, with its wind that lashes like a whip, its songbirds and the old saddened horse, accompanies him in his grieving.
Contents
Recordings
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Lyrics
Bañao en los rayos del sol que se incendia
muriendo en la tarde detrás del ceibal,
va un gaucho al tranquito rumiando su pena,
camino del rancho que besa un sauzal...
Lonjazos del zonda castigan los cerros,
y allá por las peñas dispara un huemul,
y el alma del gaucho recoge las notas
de dulce tristeza que canta el cacuy.
Regresa triste del valle,
donde al lado de un ciprés,
dejó pa' siempre a la niña
que era todo su querer...
¿Por qué te fuiste, mi vida?,
dice lleno de dolor...
¡Tal vez por linda y por buena
Dios de envidia te llevó!
Envuelto en su poncho, guasqueao por el viento,
igual que un fantasma, llevando su cruz,
va el gaucho cruzando los campos dormidos,
camino del rancho sin alma y sin luz...
Pasó la tranquera y el pingo miraba,
tal vez extrañao de no verla más,
y el gaucho le dijo: ¡No mire, mi pingo,
que la patroncita ya no volverá!
Entró al ranchito en silencio
y dos velas encendió
al pie de la Virgencita
que sus rezos escuchó.
¡Decile que no me olvide,
Virgencita del Perdón,
decila que su gauchito
se ha quedao sin corazón!
Bathed in the rays of the sun that burns
and dies in the afternoon behind the ceibal,[1]
there goes a gaucho trotting, ruminating his sorrow,
on the way to the ranch kissed by a sauzal[2]...
Lashes from the zonda[3] punish the hills,
and over the crags a huemul[4] escapes,
and the gaucho’s soul picks up the notes
of sweet sadness sung by the cacuy[5].
He comes back sad from the valley
where, by a cypress,
he forever left the girl
who was his whole heart...
Why did you go away, my life?[6],
he asks full of grief...
Maybe for being pretty and good
God took you out of jealousy!
Wrapped in his poncho, flogged by the wind,
just as a ghost carrying its cross,
the gaucho traverses the sleeping fields,
towards the soulless ranch deprived of light...
He went past the gate and the horse stared,
maybe astonished from not seeing her too,
and the gaucho said to it: Don’t look, my good horse,
the lady of the house is not coming back!
He went into the ranch quietly
and lit two candles
at the foot of the small picture of the Virgin
that listened to his prayers.
Tell her not to forget me,
oh Virgin of Forgiveness,
tell her that her gauchito[7]
has been left without a heart!
References
- ↑ Ceibal: Area full of ceibos, a type of tree native to South America and very representative of the Argentinian countryside vegetation.
- ↑ Sauzal: Area with many sauces (weeping willow trees).
- ↑ Zonda: Warm and dry wind which enters the Argentinian territory descending from the Andes.
- ↑ Huemul: Southern Andean deer.
- ↑ Nyctibius griseus. Night bird, dark coloured, short-beaked, black-eyed and with yellow-ribbeted eyelids, native to Central and South America.
- ↑ Mi vida, lit. ’my life’, is a common term of endearment in Argentina and other Spanish-speaking countries.
- ↑ Gauchito: Diminutive form of gaucho. The diminutive form is often used for making words softer and even more affectionate.