Oaxaca Masks

The masks are from Oaxaca, Mexico. I collected them over the years. The song is Grito written by Alvaro Carillo and sung by Dueto Pinotepa, all from Oaxaca.

I love Oaxaca. One day I would like some of my ashes spread there. Speaking of ashes, what follows is a sonnet by Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz translated by Samuel Beckett. I want to do a translation myself, but till then:

A SU RETRATO

Este, que ves, engaño colorido,
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido:

éste, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores,
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido,

es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:

es una necia diligencia errada,
es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

—Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

TO HER PORTRAIT

This coloured counterfeit that thou beholdest,
vainglorious with excellencies of art,
is, in fallacious syllogisms of colour,
nought but a cunning dupery of sense;

this in which flattery has undertaken
to extenuate the hideousness of years,
and, vanquishing the outrages of time,
to triumph o’er oblivion and old age,

is an empty artifice of care,
is a fragile flower in the wind,
is a paltry sanctuary from fate,

is a foolish sorry labour lost,
is conquest doomed to perish and, well taken,
is corpse and dust, shadow and nothingness.

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