miniaturadeimagen|250px|Escena inicial del poema «Tam o' Shanter» es una obra de narrativa poética escrita por el poeta escocés Robert Burns en 1790, mientras vivía en Dumfries. Publicado por primera vez en 1791, es uno de los poemas más largos de Burns.
Generalidades miniaturadeimagen|250px|Estatua en Halifax, Nueva Escocia que representa la huida de Tam de las criaturas que lo persiguen hasta el río El poema describe las costumbres de Tam, un granjero que a menudo se emborracha con sus amigos en un pub en la ciudad escocesa de Ayr, y su pensamiento irreflexivo, específicamente hacia su esposa, que lo espera en casa enojada. Al final de una de esas juergas nocturnas después de un día de mercado, Tam se dirige a casa en su caballo Meg mientras se acerca una tormenta. En el camino ve la iglesia de la localidad llena de brujas y hechiceros bailando y el Diablo tocando la gaita. Tam se fija en una bruja con un corto vestido y le grita. Inmediatamente, las luces se apagan, la música y el baile se detienen y muchas de las criaturas se abalanzan sobre Tam, quien huye despavorido hacia el río Doon, ya que supone que las criaturas no se atreven a cruzar un arroyo corriente. Cuando Tam se encuentra muy cerca del río, las criaturas le arrancan la cola a Meg pero son detenidas por el río.
Texto y traducción
El poema original
Tam O’Shanter
When chapmen billies leave the street,And drouthy neibors, neibors meet, As market days are wearing late,An’ folk begin to tak the gate; While we sit bousing at the nappy,And getting fou and unco happy, We think na on the lang Scots miles,The mosses, waters, slaps, and styles, That lie between us and our hame,Where sits our sulky sullen dame. Gathering her brows like gathering storm,Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
This truth fand honest Tam O’Shanter,As he frae Ayr ae night did canter, (Auld Ayr, wham ne’er a town surpassesFor honest men and bonie lasses.)
O Tam! had’st thou but been sae wise,As ta’en thy ain wife Kate’s advice! She tauld thee weel thou was a skellum,A blethering, blustering, drunken blellum; That frae November till October,Ae market-day thou was nae sober; That ilka melder, wi’ the miller,Thou sat as lang as thou had siller; That every naig was ca’d a shoe on,The smith and thee gat roaring fou on; That at the Lord’s house, even on Sunday,Thou drank wi’ Kirkton Jean till Monday. She prophesied that late or soon,Thou would be found deep drown’d in Doon; Or catch’d wi’ warlocks in the mirk,By Alloway’s auld haunted kirk.
Ah, gentle dames! it gars me greet,To think how mony counsels sweet, How mony lengthen’d, sage advices,The husband frae the wife despises!
But to our tale:-- Ae market-night,Tam had got planted unco right; Fast by an ingle, bleezing finely,Wi’ reaming swats, that drank divinely And at his elbow, Souter Johnny,His ancient, trusty, drouthy crony; Tam lo’ed him like a vera brither--They had been fou for weeks thegither! The night drave on wi’ sangs and clatterAnd ay the ale was growing better: The landlady and Tam grew gracious,wi’ favours secret,sweet and precious The Souter tauld his queerest stories;The landlord’s laugh was ready chorus: The storm without might rair and rustle,Tam did na mind the storm a whistle.
Care, mad to see a man sae happy,E’en drown’d himsel’ amang the nappy! As bees flee hame wi’ lades o’ treasure,The minutes wing’d their way wi’ pleasure: Kings may be blest, but Tam was glorious.O’er a’ the ills o’ life victorious!
But pleasures are like poppies spread,You seize the flower, its bloom is shed; Or like the snow falls in the river,A moment white--then melts for ever; Or like the borealis race,That flit ere you can point their place; Or like the rainbow’s lovely formEvanishing amid the storm.-- Nae man can tether time or tide;The hour approaches Tam maun ride; That hour, o’ night’s black arch the key-stane,That dreary hour he mounts his beast in; And sic a night he taks the road inAs ne’er poor sinner was abroad in.
The wind blew as ‘twad blawn its last;The rattling showers rose on the blast; The speedy gleams the darkness swallow’dLoud, deep, and lang, the thunder bellow’d: That night, a child might understand,The Deil had business on his hand.
Weel mounted on his gray mare, Meg--A better never lifted leg-- Tam skelpit on thro’ dub and mire;Despisin’ wind and rain and fire. Whiles holding fast his gude blue bonnet;Whiles crooning o’er some auld Scots sonnet; Whiles glowring round wi’ prudent cares,Lest bogles catch him unawares: Kirk-Alloway was drawing nigh,Whare ghaists and houlets nightly cry.
By this time, he was cross the ford,Whare, in the snaw, the chapman smoor’d; And past the birks and meikle stane,Whare drunken Chairlie brak ‘s neck-bane; And thro’ the whins, and by the cairn,Whare hunters fand the murder’d bairn; And near the thorn, aboon the well,Whare Mungo’s mither hang’d hersel’.-- Before him Doon pours all his floods;The doubling storm roars thro’ the woods; The lightnings flash from pole to pole;Near and more near the thunders roll: When, glimmering thro’ the groaning trees,Kirk-Alloway seem’d in a bleeze; Thro’ ilka bore the beams were glancing;And loud resounded mirth and dancing.
Inspiring bold John Barleycorn!What dangers thou canst make us scorn! Wi’ tippeny, we fear nae evil;Wi’ usquabae, we’ll face the devil!-- The swats sae ream’d in Tammie’s noddle,Fair play, he car’d na deils a boddle. But Maggie stood, right sair astonish’d,Till, by the heel and hand admonish’d, She ventured forward on the light;And, vow! Tam saw an unco sight
Warlocks and witches in a dance;Nae cotillion brent-new frae France, But hornpipes, jigs strathspeys, and reels,Put life and mettle in their heels. A winnock-bunker in the east,There sat auld Nick, in shape o’ beast; A towzie tyke, black, grim, and large,To gie them music was his charge: He scre’d the pipes and gart them skirl,Till roof and rafters a’ did dirl.-- Coffins stood round, like open presses,That shaw’d the dead in their last dresses; And by some develish cantraip slight,Each in its cauld hand held a light.-- By which heroic Tam was ableTo note upon the haly table, A murders’s banes in gibbet-airns;Twa span-lang, wee, unchristen’d bairns; A thief, new-cutted frae a rape,Wi’ his last gasp his gab did gape; Five tomahawks, wi blude red-rusted;Five scymitars, wi’ murder crusted; A garter, which a babe had strangled;A knife, a father’s throat had mangled, Whom his ain son o’ life bereft,The gray hairs yet stack to the heft; Wi’ mair o’ horrible and awfu’,Which even to name was be unlawfu’. Three lawyers’ tongues, turn’d inside out,Wi’ lies seam’d like a beggar’s clout; Three priests’ hearts, rotten, black as muck,Lay stinking, vile in every neuk.
As Tammie glowr’d, amaz’d, and curious,The mirth and fun grew fast and furious; The piper loud and louder blew;The dancers quick and quicker flew; They reel’d, they set, they cross’d, they cleekit,Till ilka carlin swat and reekit, And coost her duddies to the wark,And linket at it in her sark!
Now Tam, O Tam! had thae been queans,A’ plump and strapping in their teens, Their sarks, instead o’ creeshie flannen,Been snaw-white seventeen hunder linnen! Thir breeks o’ mine, my only pair,That ance were plush, o’ gude blue hair, I wad hae gi’en them off my hurdies,For ae blink o’ the bonie burdies!
But wither’d beldams, auld and droll,Rigwoodie hags wad spean a foal, Louping and flinging on a crummock,I wonder did na turn thy stomach!
But Tam kend what was what fu’ brawlie:There was ae winsome wench and waulie, That night enlisted in the core,Lang after ken’d on Carrick shore; (For mony a beast to dead she shot,And perish’d mony a bonie boat, And shook baith meikle corn and bear,And kept the country-side in fear.) Her cutty-sark, o’ Paisley harnThat while a lassie she had worn, In longitude tho’ sorely scanty,It was her best, and she was vauntie,- Ah! little ken’d thy reverend grannie,That sark she coft for he wee Nannie, Wi’ twa pund Scots, (‘twas a’ her riches),Wad ever grac’d a dance of witches!
But here my Muse her wing maun cour;Sic flights are far beyond her pow’r; To sing how Nannie lap and flang,(A souple jade she was, and strang), And how Tam stood, like ane bewitch’d,And thought his very een enrich’d; Even Satan glowr’d, and fidg’d fu’ fain,And hotch’d and blew wi’ might and main; Till first ae caper, syne anither,Tam tint his reason ‘ thegither, And roars out, "Weel done, Cutty-sark!"And in an instant all was dark: And scarcely had he Maggie rallied,When out the hellish legion sallied.
As bees bizz out wi’ angry fyke,When plundering herds assail their byke; As open pussie’s mortal foes,When, pop! she starts before their nose; As eager runs the market-crowd,When "Catch the thief!" resounds aloud; So Maggie runs, the witches follow,Wi’ mony an eldritch skriech and hollo.
Ah, Tam! ah, Tam! thou’ll get thy fairin’!In hell they’ll roast thee like a herrin’! In vain thy Kate awaits thy commin’!Kate soon will be a woefu’ woman! Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg,And win the key-stane o’ the brig; There at them thou thy tail may toss,A running stream they dare na cross. But ere the key-stane she could make,The fient a tail she had to shake! For Nannie, far before the rest,Hard upon noble Maggie prest, And flew at Tam wi’ furious ettle;But little wist she Maggie’s mettle - Ae spring brought off her master hale,But left behind her ain gray tail; The carlin claught her by the rump,And left poor Maggie scarce a stump.
No, wha this tale o’ truth shall read,Ilk man and mother’s son take heed; Whene’er to drink you are inclin’d,Or cutty-sarks run in your mind, Think! ye may buy joys o’er dear -Remember Tam O’Shanter’s mare.
|Traducción al español Esta traducción la ha realizado Tino Clandes (pseudónimo) y puede usarse libremente citando la fuente. Tam O’Shanter
Cuando no hay vendedores en las calles, y se juntan vecinos muy sedientos; cuando ya acaba el día de mercado, y comienzan las gentes a marcharse; mientras bebemos birra hasta las trancas y nos ponemos trompas y contentos, nos dan igual las millas escocesas, las charcas, los pantanos y los pasos que debamos andar para ir a casa, donde está la parienta cabreada, frunciendo el ceño igual que una tormenta, rumiando allí un cabreo de narices.
Así le sucedió al buen Tam O’Shanter, una noche cuando marchó de Ayr; (la vieja villa Ayr, insuperable en hombres buenos y zagalas lindas).
¡Ay, Tam, si hubieras sido tan sensato de hacerle caso a Kate, tu buena esposa! Muy bien te señaló que eras un vago, un fatuo, un fanfarrón y un borrachuzo, que a partir de noviembre y hasta octubre, no estabas sobrio en días de mercado; y si está el molinero en la molienda, os sentáis mientras tú tengas dinero, que por cada herradura que el herrero le pone a un penco, ciegos acabáis; que, hasta en domingo, en la taberna Lord’s House, con Juana Kirkton bebes hasta el lunes. Y te profetizó que pronto o tarde, en el Doon te hallarían bien ahogado, o atrapado por brujos en la noche en la iglesia encantada de Alloway.
¡Gentiles damas, casi rompo en llanto cuando pienso en tan dulces advertencias y cuánta sugerencia y buen aviso de la esposa el marido desatiende!
A lo nuestro: Una noche de mercado, Tam estaba muy bien acomodado junto a un fuego que daba calorcito, con cerveza estupenda y muy sabrosa, y a su lado, Juanito el Zapatero, su amigote leal de borracheras; Tam lo quería igual que a un buen hermano, ¡semanas han estado los dos trompas! La noche iba con cantos y con trápala y sabía mejor cada cerveza; la tabernera y Tam cotorreaban, con cuchicheos graciosos y secretos. Relató el zapatero historias raras que al tabernero hicieron mucha gracia. Aunque fuera rugiese la tormenta a Tam no le importaba ni un pimiento.
Care, loco por ver a un hombre alegre, se puso de cerveza hasta las cejas. Como abejas repletas de tesoros volaban los minutos de placer: Aunque un rey sea feliz, Tam es glorioso, ¡vencedor de los males de la vida!