II. Preciosa y el aire
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A book of Andalusian ballads for B2
Gypsy Ballads Romancero gitano
Federico García Lorca, 1928
Federico García Lorca’s book of verse from the 1928 first edition (Revista de Occidente), a complete original, not an adaptation. In the catalog it is B2: about 5,100 words and 12 words per sentence on average. 18 romances (ballads) about gypsies, the moon, the wind and the Guardia Civil; the hard part is not sentence length but imagery.
- B2
- 5 148 words
- 1 hour
Will this text hold?
B1
Earlier
At B1 the ballads will be slow going: short lines hide metaphors (a moon of parchment, a wind with a hot sword), and words like anfibio, sonsonete or enagua need a tap.
B1B2
This text
You can manage it at B2: the sentences are short and the words mostly everyday, so the images are the work; tap rare words and read each romance twice, once for the story and once for the pictures.
Check this passageC1
With room to spare
At C1 the ballads read freely; what is left is Lorca’s own symbolism, the moon, the wind and the colour green, and Andalusian references the text never explains.
Start readingThe average sentence has 12 words and about one word in eighteen has 9 letters or more, but in verse these numbers mislead: a sentence here is a whole group of stanzas between full stops, cut into short lines, and Lorca’s words are mostly plain. For comparison, the catalog’s verse drama Life Is a Dream (complete text) also has 11 words per sentence, Mist 13 and Martín Fierro, a narrative poem, 25. What makes the book B2 is the imagery: a moon of parchment, a wind with a hot sword, rare words like glorietas or enagua, and an Andalusian gypsy world that the poems never explain. The catalog does not place a complete original below B2. This is the catalog’s assessment, not a certificate.
- 5 148
- words
- 12
- words in an average sentence
- 1
- hour of reading
- 1928
- Revista de Occidente
Revista de Occidente, 1928. Project Gutenberg
What it is about, without the ending
Eighteen ballads set in an imagined Andalusia of gypsies, civil guards and archangels. The moon comes to a forge, where a boy stares at her; the girl Preciosa runs along the shore with her tambourine while the wind chases her; a gypsy tells how he took a married woman to the river; Antoñito el Camborio is arrested on the road to Seville; the Guardia Civil rides into a gypsy town; and the book closes with the biblical story of Thamár and Amnón. How each ballad ends is not revealed here.
Compare two places
Romancero gitano
VI. La casada infiel
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Choose an underlined word.
Word order and a moon of parchment
Read the first two lines as Preciosa viene tocando su luna de pergamino: in verse the object comes first. Her “moon” is a tambourine (the pandero that appears a few lines later). Anfibio sendero is a path half sand, half sea, and los gitanos del agua with their glorietas de caracolas are the sea itself, building arbours of shells. In Lorca nature is alive: silence runs away, and the night is full of fish.
A story that starts with “y que”
The poem opens with Y que, as if the story were already under way: “And so I took her to the river...”. In creyendo que era mozuela, pero tenía marido, llevé moves the story on while era and tenía give the background the narrator did not know then. In se apagaron los faroles and se encendieron los grillos, se makes things happen by themselves: the lamps go out and the crickets seem to light up in their place.
Chapters
- IRomance de la luna, luna
- IIPreciosa y el aire
- IIIReyerta
- IVRomance sonámbulo
- VLa monja gitana
- VILa casada infiel
- VIIRomance de la pena negra
- VIIISan Miguel (Granada)
- IXSan Rafael (Córdoba)
- XSan Gabriel (Sevilla)
- XIPrendimiento de Antoñito el Camborio en el camino de Sevilla
- XIIMuerte de Antoñito el Camborio
- XIIIMuerto de amor
- XIVEl emplazado
- XVRomance de la Guardia Civil española
- XVIMartirio de Santa Olalla
- XVIIBurla de don Pedro a caballo (Romance con lagunas)
- XVIIIThamár y Amnón
Translation while you read
The book stays free on every plan. Reader, €1 a month, removes the daily limit on words and sentences.
Reader
€1 a month
In Preciosa y el aire the line “¡Preciosa, corre, Preciosa, que te coge el viento verde!” (“Run, Preciosa, run, the green wind is catching you!”) is best taken whole: translating the whole sentence in Reader shows how the repeated name and the wind turned into a person make one breathless run.
ReaderIf this book is not the one
All books at this levelBefore you read
Is this the original or a learner adaptation?
It is the original, not a learner’s abridgement: Federico García Lorca’s complete book Romancero gitano, all 18 romances (ballads), taken from Project Gutenberg. The reader follows the 1928 first edition (Revista de Occidente, Madrid), whose title page reads Primer romancero gitano, 1924-1927.
Is there an audiobook?
Romancero gitano has no audio on MovaReader: the book is read on screen. The translation appears when you tap a word, and you will need it most for rare words such as sonsonete, glorietas or enagua.
Can I translate a whole sentence?
Yes, with the Reader plan. In verse it helps most where the word order is inverted, as in Su luna de pergamino Preciosa tocando viene, where translating the whole sentence shows who plays what. Without the plan, single words are translated up to the daily limit.
How many hours does it take?
The whole book takes about 1 hour at the catalog’s reading pace, which assumes translating new words; poetry is better read slowly and more than once, so plan on more. The 18 romances are short, from about 170 to about 590 words, so several make a sitting.
Where does the text get easier?
It is fairly even: the romances run on short lines, and the difficulty lies in the images, not in one stretch of the book. The shortest, Romance de la luna, luna, Reyerta and La monja gitana (about 170 words each), are the easiest way in; the longest, Romance de la Guardia Civil española, runs to about 590 words.
Will my place in the book be saved?
Yes. Once you sign in, the reader keeps your last place and the words you opened, so you can come back to the book where you left off. Any of the 18 romances also opens from the contents on this page.