A la orilla parada de las tumbas

[chopin7]

Hola

I am trying to learn Spanish.
Reading some verses from Raphael Alberti.
Paraiso Perduto.

"Hombresfijos, de pie, a la orilla
parada de las tumbas,me ignoran".

I don't understand "a la orilla parada de las tumbas".
Parada seems an adjective here?
The most I could make of it is "at the elevated edge of the tombs"
but it doesn't feel right. Could you tell me what's the exact meaning here?

Gracias

[poli]

Originally Posted by chopin7

Hola

I am trying to learn Spanish.
Reading some verses from Raphael Alberti.
Paraiso Perduto.

"Hombresfijos, de pie, a la orilla
parada de las tumbas,me ignoran".

I don't understand "a la orilla parada de las tumbas".
Parada seems an adjective here?
The most I could make of it is "at the elevated edge of the tombs"
but it doesn't feel right. Could you tell me what's the exact meaning here?

Gracias

Context is needed here, but the sentence refers to a group of men standing at the edge (of a open pit of a mass grave perhaps) stopped by the tombs.

[aleCcowaN]

It suggests to me the vertical side of an excavation for a burial.

"Parado" is a way to mean "vertical" used by little kids, uneducated folks, average folks who are bilingual to some indigenous languages and educated folks with pretty advanced arteriosclerosis.

[chopin7]

Thank you, Poli and aleccowan.
I could give some verses that precede it, but I don't know if it's much of a context.

"¿Adónde el Paraíso,
sombra, tú que has estado?
Pregunta con silencio.

Ciudades sin respuesta,
ríos sin habla, cumbres
sin ecos, mares mudos.

Nadie lo sabe. Hombres
fijos, de pie, a la orilla
parada de las tumbas,

me ignoran. Aves tristes,
cantos petrificados
en éxtasis el rumbo, ciegas

[poli]

Now it I think it refers to the massive terracotta soldiers unearthed in China.

Certainly as Alec stated parado may mean a pie, and it is very commonly used in Caribbean Spanish.

[aleCcowaN]

The whole poem -not only the verses given- suggests me the lost of religious faith (that's the lost paradise), and not even people standing near the casket in a burial can provide any answer: spirituality has momentarily become meaningless and life purposeless in this gloomy text.

[chopin7]

So that's it, Alec?
"Near the casket in a burial"?
The translation of "a la orilla parada de las tumbas"?

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

I agree with Alec that "parada" is an adjective for a vertical tall wall. The men who don't (or can't) talk are standing at the edge of such wall.

[chopin7]

Thank you, Angelica.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by chopin7

So that's it, Alec?
"Near the casket in a burial"?
The translation of "a la orilla parada de las tumbas"?

I don't know how to reply to your request. How would you translate a poem by Oliverio Girondo? There are words that are not meant literally but for the images they elicit and this poem seems to belong to such kind. If you just need to be literal translate "parada" as "vertical" and that's it.

[poli]

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=...=0&FORM=IARRTH

something like this

[aleCcowaN]

Certainly not the origin of the text. They were discovered after the poem was written.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Poli: It's hard to imagine statues from the poem... it feels rather like some kind of ghosts.

[chopin7]

That's the beauty of it.
Thanks again.

[poli]

I just thought that images of men standing in a tomb was creepily reminiscent of the image the poem evokes.---but it's poetry not photo journalism and it's up to interpretation.

[chopin7]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

I don't know how to reply to your request. How would you translate a poem by Oliverio Girondo? There are words that are not meant literally but for the images they elicit and this poem seems to belong to such kind. If you just need to be literal translate "parada" as "vertical" and that's it.

That's the beauty of it.
Thanks again, Alec.