Tormenta: Lost in the storm of my endless night...

"If infamy leads the way and love kills in your name that which you have blessed—God!...to obey you is to give quarter to evil, and to love you is to yield to it."

Tango Decoder's guest translator for Enrique Santos Discépolo's 1939 tango TORMENTA (Storm) is La Sonia, one of our good friends at Tango Lyrics & Translations. Secondary translation, "polishing," and notes by Tango Decoder. Thanks and un abrazo to La Sonia!

Tormenta (Storm)
tango 1939
Composer and lyricist: Enrique Santos Discépolo

Selected recordings: Di Sarli/Pomar (1954); Canaro/Famá and Lomuto/Omar (both 1939).
Song data at tango.info.

¡Aullando entre relámpagos, perdido en la tormenta de mi noche interminable, ¡Dios! busco tu nombre… No quiero que tu rayo me enceguezca entre el horror, porque preciso luz para seguir… ¿Lo que aprendí de tu mano no sirve para vivir? Yo siento que mi fe se tambalea, que la gente mala, vive ¡Dios! mejor que yo… Si la vida es el infierno y el honrao vive entre lágrimas, ¿cuál es el bien… del que lucha en nombre tuyo, limpio, puro?… ¿para qué?… Si hoy la infamia da el sendero y el amor mata en tu nombre, ¡Dios!, lo que has besao… El seguirte es dar ventaja y el amarte sucumbir al mal. No quiero abandonarte, yo, demuestra una vez sola que el traidor no vive impune, ¡Dios! para besarte… Enséñame una flor que haya nacido del esfuerzo de seguirte, ¡Dios! Para no odiar: al mundo que me desprecia, porque no aprendo a robar… Y entonces de rodillas, hecho sangre en los guijarros moriré con vos, ¡feliz, Señor!

Howling* between lightning flashes, lost in the storm  of my endless night, God! I'm searching for your name.... I hope your lightning won’t strike me blind amidst this horror, because I need a guiding light to carry on. What I’ve learned from your hand, does it not help me to live? I feel that my faith wavers  because evil people, God!—live better than I. If life is hell and the virtuous live in tears, what’s the good...? of one who fights in your name, clean and pure? What for...? If infamy leads the way and love kills, in your name, that which you have blessed*—God!....  To obey you is to give quarter to evil, and to love you is to yield to it. I don’t want to abandon you; show just one time that the betrayer doesn’t live with impunity, God!—so that I may adore* you... Show me a flower that has been born of the effort of following you, God!—So I won’t hate: a world that despises me for not learning to steal.... And then, on my knees, bleeding on the cobblestones I’ll die with you—happy, Lord!

NOTES:

*Howling: aullando, from aullar, "to howl," with a secondary meaning of "to cry out." An alternative version of this line might be: "Crying out between lightning flashes."

*blessed: besao, "kissed." (See following note.)

* to adore you: besarte, literally "to kiss you." This kind of paradoxical word-play is typical of Descepólo. In the previous stanza, the speaker accused God of "kissing" infamy, that is, blessing it. Here the speaker proposes to "kiss" God. But a mortal cannot bless God—for God is the source of all blessings. When a mortal "kisses" God, he is loving or adoring Him. Discépolo uses the same verb to denote two different actions, one divine, and one mortal. (See previous note.)

Fun fact: When this cry of torment was recorded by Francisco Lomuto with Jorge Omar, the B-side was the light-hearted foxtrot, "A-tisket a-tasket." Canaro's version with Enrique Famá on Odeon was backed by the romantic vals, "Noche de estrellas." That's balance, folks!—TD

Comments

[robin]

I like the questions, the lyrics. Thank you for decoding the song.