Material
Lieders
Detalle
Oh, I refuse to be bound by the rules of art! My thoughts run free, my imagination wanders, and my soul only finds satisfaction in ideas.My soul has never been ruled by the hope of glory, and never have I dreamed of having laurels grace my brow. My lips have only uttered songs of independence and freedom, even though while still in the cradle I might have been aware of the sound of the chains that would forever imprison me, because the shackles of slavery are the patrimony of women.
Nevertheless, I am free, free as the birds, free as the breeze, like trees growing in the desert and the pirate who sails the sea.
My heart is free, my soul is free, and my mind soars heavenward then descends once more to the earth, as haughty as Lucifer and as gentle as hope.
When the rulers of the world threaten me with a glance or try to brand my countenance with the taint of disgrace, I laugh the same way they laugh and – it would certainly seem – create an iniquity of my own which is greater than their iniquity. Yet my heart is essentially kind, although I do not obey the orders of my peers and I must believe they are made of the same stuff as I, that their flesh is the same as my flesh.
I am free. Nothing can detain the forward march of my thoughts, and they are the law that determines my destiny.
*
Oh woman! Why, when you are so pure, must the hideous shadows of the world’s evils come forth, casting a pall over the pure light that shines from your eyes? Why do men defile you, dirtying you with the filth of their excesses, scorning and later despising their own horrible disarray and feverish delirium while you lie exhausted, near death?
All the thick, dark matter that settles in your eyes after the first spark of your innocent youth, all of this stains the garments of purity in which the earliest moments of your childhood clad you and it all extinguishes your fragrant scent and erases the images of virtue from your thoughts, all these are what infected you with this, all of this… and still they would condemn you.
*
Remorse is the inheritance of weak women. It corrupts their existence with the remembrance of pleasures that were bought today at the expense of happiness and tomorrow will weigh upon their souls like molten lead.
Sleeping specters that lie limply in a lap prepared to receive an object that is not the one they offer us, and embraces that receive other embraces – ones we have sworn never to accept.
Sharp, wrenching pains caused by what is no more, fleeting changes, eternal affirmations of guilt, useless repenting, and a desire to be virtuous in the future, to have an honorable, unsullied name that can be surrendered to the man who makes us a sincere offer of a life bereft of wealth, yet rich in kindness and new sensations.
These are the struggles, always provoked by the remorse that keeps vigil over our sleep, our hopes, our ambitions.
And all of this is caused by just one weakness!
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