Page 69 - poesia y vino

libropvfinal.qxp 08/11/2006 15:00 PÆgina 67

ODE XXX.
TO MR GASPAR DE JOVELLANOS. (fragment)

Let us remove all care
From this sad life
With the golden wine
Which bubbles in our glass.
el dorado vino Sad worries with it,
Who cannot banish

And sing to father Bacus
And Venus Cipriota?

Let us crown our temples
With tendrils and roses;
Let us toast. And even if
Euro fights Bóreas,

Why care about his whistle
If with a happy heart we enjoy
The warmth of Baco,
And the glory of Venus?

La pieza manuscrita por el autor se encuentra en la Biblioteca Nacional (Ms. 19.603).
Rezuma sabor mediterráneo, perfume dionisiaco y formación clásica. Quiere Meléndez descorchar lo
sensitivo y exhalar el gozo que al espíritu presta el dorado vino para "quitar las zozobras de la vida".
Como buen filósofo conoce la brevedad del ser e invita al deleite inigualable del vino.
Es un prerromántico sin remedio, un acróbata literario que mezcla con su lira la reflexión existencial.
Feliciano Correa.
Académico de Número de la Real Academia de Extremadura
Permanent member of the Royal Academy of Extremadura

The author's manuscript work is in the National Library (Ms. 19.603).
It oozes Mediterranean flavour, Dionysian perfume and a classical tradition. Meléndez wants to uncork
sensitiveness and breathe the joy that golden wine gives to the spirit "to relieve the anxiety of life". As
a good philosopher, he knows the shortness of being and invites to the incomparable delight of wine.
He is a hopeless pre-Romantic, a literary acrobat who mixes the existential reflection with his lyre.
67