Todos los hombres matan lo que aman

Sábado, 25 de mayo de 1895: "Así, la sentencia de este Tribunal es que cada uno de vosotros sufra dos años de presidio, con trabajos forzados".

Oscar Wilde inicia una dura travesía por las cárceles inglesas (Pentonville, Wandsworth, Reading) que le dejó profundas marcas. La sensibilidad del preso C.3.3. (Wilde ocupaba la celda 3 del tercer rellano de la galería C) vibró como un diapasón al conocer el drama de Charles T. Woolridge, antiguo soldado de la Guardia Real de Caballería, condenado a muerte por haber matado a su mujer y ejecutado en la cárcel de Reading el 7 de julio de 1896.


Wilde compuso un estremecedor poema, "La balada de la cárcel de Reading", lleno de piedad y de esperanza en el amor de Cristo a los hombres. Conmueve su lectura en alguna de las buenas traducciones existentes, pero nada más impresionante que su lectura en inglés.

Como pequeña muestra, algunos fragmentos de la Balada

He did not wear his scarlet coat,
For blood and wine are red,
And blood and wine were on his hands
When they found him with the dead,
The poor dead woman whom he loved,
And murdered in her bed.

He walked amongst the Trial Men
In a suit of shabby grey;
A cricket cap was on his head,
And his step seemed light and gay;
But I never saw a man who looked
So wistfully at the day.

I never saw a man who looked
With such a wistful eye
Upon that little tent of blue
Which prisoners call the sky,
And at every drifting cloud that went
With sails of silver by.

I walked, with other souls in pain,
Within another ring,
And was wondering if the man had done
A great or little thing,
When a voice behind me whispered low,
"That fellows got to swing”
…
Yet each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.

Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.
…

In Reading gaol by Reading town
There is a pit of shame,
And in it lies a wretched man
Eaten by teeth of flame,
In a burning winding-sheet he lies,
And his grave has got no name.

And there, till Christ call forth the dead,
In silence let him lie:
No need to waste the foolish tear,
Or heave the windy sigh:
The man had killed the thing he loved,
And so he had to die.

And all men kill the thing they love,
By all let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!

C. 3. 3.


Nos despedimos con el fragmento de la Balada que se usó como epitafio en la tumba de Wilde

"And alien tears will fill for him
Pity's long-broken urn,
For his mourners be outcast men,
And outcasts always mourn."

(y lágrimas extrañas llenarán para él
esa urna de piedad tanto tiempo destrozada.
Quienes por él están desconsolados serán parias
y los parias jamás hallan consuelo)
Traducción de E. Caracciolo