I'm not sure why, but "as hard as ore" doesen't seem as strong to me as "eran de acero" (Which has an even stronger resonance with a hard Castillian "th" sound, though Storni probably didn't actually pronounce it that way), perhaps use "They were pure iron" or "They were sheer steel" though I'm not sure how the rhyme would work there

In keeping with the original, if you want, you could use vowel-only rhymes. For example, my translation of Lorca's "Gacela de la terrible presencia": http://poemranker.com/poem-details.jsp?id=99783

Are you seeing the new Pixies tour? They should still be playing in one of those Northern territories - Chicago and Toronto in November, I think. I hear Frank Black is worse than ever.

okay. you got me on that one.

then you have no spine. who cares what they think? hear that everyone--i'm having creed's love child--and i'm only doing it to spite all the proper Xnrockers out there!! i think i'll name it, Christal Laine Creed.

Besides, what if Creed saw it and based their decision to make a new album solely on that joke. Then it would be my fault and I would have to kill myself for unleashing that upon the world.

I know.....but I thought about it and I can't have someone thinking that I like Creed....even if it ruins it...just can't have it.

argh. never explain a joke!

Notice I added rhymes.

Looking at it now, I don't know why I didn't go with a lot of easier (and at least decasyllabic) word-choices. These days I wouldn't really give a fuck except to convey something of the same feeling of meter. I did Alfonsina Storni's "Ancestral Burden (Peso ancestral)" like this: You’d always tell me: My father never wept; My grandfather, never, nor his father before; You told me, and so the men of our race have kept As hard as ore. So you would tell me, and your tear would fall Into my open mouth - A poison so deadly I never could have found in a vial so small, Or given so readily. Weak woman, fragile woman who bore it, The heaviness of Mankind, you taught me your hunger. Oh, but I feel this soul of mine can’t support Your burden much longer!

I personally like Sappho's original better

And drive away in an old 55.

And for those who didn't get it, I was being sarcastic about the Creed thing.....

Nice. But I bet that Tom Waits could beat up Don Henley in a New York minute. ;0)

about the translation of "Si los riesgos del mar considerara..." In the original it's in perfect Spanish hendecasyllabics. Your translation has hypermetric lines, which aren't a bad idea in and of themselves, but they don't seem like what Juana Inés de la Cruz would have written had she written in english. Also, there's nothing wrong with taking liberties in translation (in my opinion) but why does Apollo become "old?" I think just saying "...like Apollo you" would make the line flow better. Here's an oddity. Catullus did do that silly sort of thing. He translated Sappho's poem, the one that begins φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν ἔμμεν' ὤνηρ, with: Ille mi par esse deo videtur, ille, si fas est, superare divos, qui sedens adversus identidem te spectat et audit dulce ridentem, misero quod omnes eripit sensus mihi, nam simul te, Lesbia, aspexi, nihil est super mi <vocis in ore> lingua sed torpet, tenuis sub artus flamma demanat, sonitu suopte tinitant aures, gemina teguntur lumina nocte.