(With curiosity) What were they saying? Magdalena can embroider them. Bernarda How dare you powder your face? Adela And it suits me. La Poncia She’s the cleanest; she’s the most decent; she’s the loftiest of beings. Adela Is that why she followed the mourners and looked through the door. A whip and a mule for men. Bernarda Even if my mother’s crazy I have my five senses intact, and I know exactly what I’m doing. La Poncia (She enters eating bread and sausage) They’ve been making that row for more than two hours now. And those who went with her are sons of foreigners too. Bernarda There’s no one who can compare to them for miles around. 0000001116 00000 n You serve me, and I pay you. They scarcely oppose you. Would you have me give them up to any beggar who asks? (Imitating him) Ameeeen! Who said you could enter? I don’t want to see these single women, foaming at the mouth for marriage, their hearts turning to dust, and I want to go back to my village. Bernarda Women shouldn’t look at any man in church except the priest, and only because he wears a skirt. Ding, ding, dong. They enter slowly until they have filled the stage.). Made available as an individual, open-access work in the United Kingdom, 2007, via the Poetry in Translation website. (Indicating Angustias). So strict! We use cookies for social media and essential site functions. I don’t want to lose my bloom in these rooms! Except for Angustias, the eldest, who’s the first husband’s daughter and has some money, the rest of them have lots of fine lace, and linen camisoles, but their only inheritance is bread and water. (The crowd of women have now entered, and Bernarda appears with her five daughters.). I’ve been looking at the pictures grandmother embroidered, the little poodle and the Negro fighting a lion that we loved so much when we were children. Bernarda, I want a man to marry and be happy with! She’s five women on her hands, five ugly daughters. The Servant goes on cleaning.) Bernarda (Angrily) No, none of them has, and they don’t need them! �ϴ Last night they tied her husband to the manger, and carried her off on horseback to the heights of the olive grove. Yours will look better that way. Servant The street’s that way. 0000042420 00000 n A drama of women in the villages of Spain - 1936, ‘Camprodon, Spain’ La Poncia You should have moved to some other village. Servant The dogs are on their own too, but they survive. Anything but sit here day after day in this dark room. 0000012571 00000 n She doesn’t want them to see her in her stronghold! La Poncia They’ve already have theirs in the yard. Just like your aunts! All (Rising and chanting in Gregorian mode) ‘Et lux perpetua luceat eis’. Clean those pots: go on! They’re fine as they are. 0000042999 00000 n (She strikes the floor with her stick. La Poncia The old woman. Bernarda At your age you shouldn’t speak in front of your elders. Displaying La casa de Bernarda Alba Federico García Lorca.pdf. Magdalena You know more about it than I. She’s the youngest of us and full of illusions. The House of Bernarda Alba (Spanish: La casa de Bernarda Alba) is a play by the Spanish dramatist Federico García Lorca. Amelia and Martirio enter.). Bernarda But the male mourners should already have left! If Bernarda doesn’t find everything gleaming she’ll pull out the little hair I have left. Magdalena And what did the chickens say to it? Bernarda (To the Servant) She can let off steam in the yard. May God grant him forgiveness! La Poncia The final prayers. (She rubs the powder off vigorously with her handkerchief.) 0000020093 00000 n It xngfises me Bernarda (To the Servant) Why did you let her in here? Since Bernarda’s father died no one has set foot inside these walls. Out of respect! She misses her father so! You may accept or manage cookie usage at any time. Finished just two months before the author's murder on 18 August 1936 by a gang of Franco's supporters, The House of Bernarda Alba is now accepted as Lorca's great masterpiece of love and loathing. Please refer to our Privacy Policy. La Poncia Plenty. God has made me feeble and ugly and has always kept them away from me. Bernarda I never let anyone lecture me. If she looked like a broomstick with clothes on at twenty, what is she now at forty! Nothing more! Third woman You shall never want for a loaf of warm bread. Bernarda has recently announced to her five daughters that there will Martirio People invent things! Magdalena If he wanted Angustias for herself, for Angustias the woman, I’d be pleased, but he’s after the money. Servant I can feel the tolling of those bells right between my temples. Her father killed his first wife’s husband, in Cuba, in order to marry the wife. Martirio They’re afraid of mother. This is a translation of Lorca's trilogy and includes the plays Blood Wedding, Yerma and The House of Bernarda Alba. p�R��&�6=B��֕��n�פ���9�l�oČ���E��� Translated by A. S. Kline © Copyright, All Rights Reserved. After her husband's death, Bernarda Alba forces her five daughters into eight years of strict mourning. (The bells ring out again) Yes, yes, go on ringing! She’s the only one who knows the truth about Adelaida’s father and how he got his land. Servant That’s the only earth they’ll give us, who have nothing. Bernarda Nothing. La Poncia No, Bernarda, for a change…Of course anywhere else they’d be poor! I’d see them in the yard yoking the oxen and lifting the sacks of wheat, shouting and stamping, and I was always afraid of growing older and suddenly finding myself in their arms. i 1 jI I d.me to harard that "The Hutse of Bemard.a Alba" could be a fecund way, to dcepen what has been called Spanish reality. 227 0 obj <> endobj xref 227 41 0000000016 00000 n Tomorrow I’ll put on my green dress and I’ll go for a walk in the street! Today’s leavings are for me. The revolutionary genius of Spanish theatre, Lorca brought vivid and tragic-poetry to the stage with these powerful dramas. Permission to perform this version of the play, on stage or film, by amateur or professional companies, and for commercial purposes, should be requested from the translator. Amelia Don’t say such things! How dare you even wash it, on the day of your father’s funeral? Beggarwoman (Loudly with annoyance) Praise be to God! Ding, ding, dong. But I don’t envy her life, that’s for sure. 0000031801 00000 n Servant (To Adela) Aren’t you going with them? La Poncia What a lot of money for Angustias! John Singer Sargent (American, 1856 - 1925) Martirio It’s preferable never to see a man. Third woman (To the Servant) A tongue like a knife! Adela I’m so pleased with this dress. Bernarda With the key that opens all gates. Angustias is our sister but we’re family and know she’s ageing and unwell, and of us all she has always had the least to offer. Her fiancé won’t let her walk in the streets. Bernarda What were you gazing at, and whom? )� .�DrbQ�~�̐ܽ�����;>9�ofW�o~��ח{�����՛k��˗�����yq �%K%����|�_~4� ;|{�̇�8#�� Bernarda That’s what it is to be a woman. Bernarda Less wailing and more work. Adela (With suppressed emotion) Pepe el Romano! (At the back of the stage the Women Mourners enter in pairs. Not a button! It is summer. Thanks to this one you’ve inherited a fortune. Magdalena (Imitating her) Oh that! The men have just left. 0000003627 00000 n Then he abandoned her here, and went off with another woman who had a daughter, and then had an affair with the daughter, Adelaida’s mother, and married her when the second wife died insane. Bernarda No, not that…but if she’s there the neighbours can see her from their windows. They all leave.) The whole village was there. Angustias exits through the door leading to the courtyard.). ���;��Kk����/�)��6S ΄3��� |`.�Kb-Z�Z-Z�Z��1���ZX3KN�9���KΣ��$|b>��F��o���F�lăaFjQ��ܻ�m�i�c�#���w�x���W�! 0000046018 00000 n O_e�������=� R( Amelia You seem better since the new doctor arrived. She used to be happy: now she doesn’t even powder her face. May he wait long years for us. �L)�����H����6∛u!�T���%xs\�6��lu�ۨ޶LSCs�|���������ܨ�9����@Ԗ� q��r�����. First woman The poor have their sorrows too. The figures of "Bernardas" grew back into the cruel light of our day, like monsters that shatter lives. 0000002797 00000 n María Josefa No, I won’t be quiet. La Poncia (Shouting) She’s coming! She saw his mother. Curse her! Third woman The sun feels as heavy as lead. Magdalena The best she can do is pass it on to Angustias when she weds Pepe el Romano. I’d rather hump sacks to the mill. Servant She’s taken the rings and amethyst earrings from her box, and put them on, and she tells me she wants to get married. Amelia But Adelaida’s not to blame for all that. Cunning little hypocrite! Angustias must be over thirty by now. Now, go out! La Poncia She did it without thinking what she was doing, and that is was wrong of course. 0000003231 00000 n Rot then, Antonio María Benavides, stiff in your wool suit and your tall boots. You don’t need anything of mine, not my rings, and not my black moiré dress, because none of you will ever be married. Servant Poor child! His family detests her. Servant Ding, ding. Pepe el Romano is to marry Angustias. Servant (Entering) Don Arturo is here, he’s come to discuss the will. Consider the doors and windows as sealed with bricks. Bernarda Grant rest to your servant Antonio María Benavides, and the crown of your sacred glory. Bernarda, give me my pearl necklace! (She begins coughing), La Poncia I may have strained something else! 0000010600 00000 n Angustias has her father’s money, she’s the only wealthy one in this house and now that our father is dead and they’re sharing out his estate, they’re after her!