The wounds were burning like suns at five in the afternoon, and the crowd broke the windows At five in the afternoon. Ah, that fatal five in the afternoon! It was five by all the clocks! It was five in the shade of the afternoon!
There is nothing more poetic and terrible than the skyscrapers' battle with the heavens that cover them. Snow, rain, and mist highlight, drench, or conceal the vast towers, but those towers, hostile to mystery and blind to any sort of play, shear off the rain's tresses and shine their three thousand swords through the soft swan of the fog.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote reflects on the striking contrast between human-made skyscrapers and the natural elements that surround them.
Federico Garcia Lorca presents a vivid and dynamic image of skyscrapers as they interact with the natural world. He describes how these towering structures not only dominate the landscape but also engage in a 'battle' with weather elements like snow and rain, which play both a decorative and obstructive role in this relationship. The quote evokes a sense of tension between human ambition represented by the skyscrapers and the elusive, mysterious qualities of nature that surround them.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used in a discussion about the impact of urban architecture on natural landscapes.
More from Federico Garcia Lorca
All quotes →The poem, the song, the picture, is only water drawn from the well of the people, and it should be given back to them in a cup of beauty so that they may drink - and in drinking understand themselves.
Death laid its eggs in the wound
The two elements the traveler first captures in the big city are extra human architecture and furious rhythm. Geometry and anguish.
New York is something awful, something monstrous. I like to walk the streets, lost, but I recognize that New York is the world's greatest lie. New York is Senegal with machines.
Woodcutter. Cut my shadow from me. Free me from the torment of being without fruit. Why was I born among mirrors? Day goes round and round me. The night copies me in all its stars. I want to live without my reflection. And then let me dream that ants and thistledown are my leaves and my parrots.
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