Francisco de Quevedo: The Immortal Flame of Spanish Love Poetry

Francisco de Quevedo: Beyond Satire and Mockery

Francisco de Quevedo is best known for his satirical and mocking poetry, his love poetry being little known. Yet, according to critics, this body of work reaches the highest levels of the Spanish lyric. This is certainly the case with “Amor constante más allá de la muerte” (Constant love beyond death), considered one of the most beautiful love sonnets ever written in Spanish.

Mythology and the Law of Forgetting

In just fourteen lines, Quevedo condenses part of Greek mythology concerning the afterlife. After death (“the final shadow I'll take the white day”), the soul separates from the body and must cross the sinister River Styx, led aboard the boat of Charon. The law of the underworld requires that when crossing the lagoon, the soul must leave all its memories on the banks of that shore, so that when it reaches its final destination, Hades, that soul will have no memory.

Defying the Underworld's Decree

However, the poet's love is so intense that he is willing to defy the law of the underworld:

“...but not in these other hand, in the bank, leave the memory, where it burned: my flame to swim the cold water, and lose respect for the law severe.”

The allusion to the “flame” is necessarily related to the popular metaphor that identifies love with an intense fire. This concept is simplified by referring only to the flame, in that conceptualism characteristic of Quevedo. The memory of that love cannot stay on the banks of the lagoon, watching the soul depart (“Soul to whom all prison has been a god”).

The love will be able to “swim the cold water,” chasing the troubled soul, leading to the description of a deep love, unforgettable even after death.

The Structure of the Climax

To properly understand the poem, one must make sense of the last six verses and place them correctly, because the poet has played with them to enhance the thrilling finale. In their logical order, they are as follows:

• “Soul to whom all prison has been a god, your body will not care.”
• “...to veins that have given so much fire, shall be ashes, but it makes sense.”
• “Marrow to gloriously burned, dust will be, but dust in love.”

Love That Gives Meaning to Death

That soul, which has been as a prison for that love, will leave the body, but the love itself will never cease to care. The veins through which the fire of that love has coursed will turn to ashes as a result of death, but they will still make sense. The marrow (the deepest part of the bone, noting that the term “core” was not used until the nineteenth century), which has gloriously burned—that is, a love that reached the depths of the bones—“will be dust, but dust in love.”

This final declaration gives meaning to the poet's entire existence. The poem, therefore, describes a love so deep that it is memorable even after death. Such is the intensity of that love that it not only gave meaning to the poet's life but also gives meaning to his death: “shall be ashes, but it makes sense, dust will be, but dust in love.”