Soria fria soria pura antonio machado biography

“Soria” by Antonio Machado, Spanish poet, 1875-1939
From “Campos de Castilla,” Antonio Machado, Biblioteca Anaya, Edición de José Luis Cano, 1964.

(English translation by James Mansfield Nichols)

The shield of Soria has the following heraldic description: [3]
In a field of gules (red), a castle, of argent, crenellated with three battlements, lined up and marbled with sabre, rinsed with azure (blue) and a king’s bust crowned with gold and with its attributes coming out of his homage, in its colour; silver embroidery loaded with the following legend: “Soria Pura Cabeza de Estremadura”, written in saber letters. (Wikipedia)

The poem “Soria” is a sequence of exclamations.

(I reproduce the punctuation of my printed text.) The speaker evokes the somber beauty on a cold, moonlit night of an ancient provincial city fallen from its former glory. The details he describes aren’t beautiful in themselves — indeed, they depict decrepitude, decay and impoveris