Thinking About The Immortality of The Crab - in Literature

In Literature

"What are you thinking about?"
"Nothing. On the immortality of the crab."

—¿En qué piensas?
—Nada, en la inmortalidad del cangrejo.

Anonymous, Mexican Self-portraits (1855)
The immortality of the crab

Of all the immortalities, I believe in
only yours, friend crab.
People break into your body,
plop you into boiling water,
flush you out of house and home.
But torture and affliction
Make no apparent end of you. No...

Not you, poor despicable crab -
brief tenant in this mortal carapace
of your individuality; fleeting creature
of flesh that quails between our teeth, not you -
but others of your vast species; infinite crab
takes over the strand.

Inmortalidad del cangrejo

Y de inmortalidades sólo creo
en la tuya, cangrejo amigo.
Te aplastan,
te echan en agua hirviendo,
inundan tu casa.
Pero la represión y la tortura
de nada sirven, de nada.

No tú, cangrejo ínfimo,
caparazón mortal de tu individuo, ser transitorio,
carne fugaz que en nuestros dientes se quiebra;
no tú sino tu especie eterna: los otros:
el cangrejo inmortal
toma la playa.

José Emilio Pacheco
The immortality of the crab

The deepest problem:
of the immortality of the crab,
is that a soul it has,
a little soul in fact ...

That if the crab dies
entirely in its totality
with it we all die
for all of eternity

Inmortalidad del cangrejo

El más profundo problema:
el de la inmortalidad
del cangrejo, que tiene alma,
Una almita de verdad ...

Que si el cangrejo se muere
todo en su totalidad
con él nos morimos todos
por toda la eternidad

Miguel de Unamuno

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