Miguel de Unamuno was from the Basque country in Spain.
He was born in Bilbao in 1864 and died in Salamanca in 1936, where he was serving as a professor of Greek and Classics.
He wrote essays, novels, poetry, plays and is one of Spain’s most famous philosophers.
What follows is Poema 753 and my translation, including a few comments and a semantic question.
Lo que pesan mis pesares! / lo que me pesa mi grito! / lo que me peso, Señor!
en Ti, el mar de mares, / al hondón del infinito / he de sepultar mi amor.
The weight of my pains! / The weight of my wail! / The weight of myself, O God!
in You, the ocean of oceans / at the depth of infinity / I have had to bury my love.
In the first three lines, Unamuno expresses his grief in reporting to, rather than calling upon, God.
In the last three lines he tells God that his grief is in losing his beloved to Him.
It is of note that in the fourth line, Unamuno creates a metaphor for God in the deepest of oceans based on His infinite nature.
The definitions of “sepultar” are as follows:
- bury the deceased
- cover something completely
- hide something
- become submerged in an an emotion such as melancholy
I wonder if this key term and its subsequent translation change what Unamuno is “losing” in the ocean that is God.
Is Unamuno’s loss physical or emotional?
A Reader's Story 
From the your translation, it is emotional.
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Thank you. I hoped to capture the beauty and elegance of Unamuno’s metaphor for God’s infinitude and the richness of his chosen word for burial.
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Are you saying he is burying his pain in God’s infinitude (grace)? I might read it as he has had to bury his love for God because he is in too much pain.
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I’m aiming for the first interpretation.
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