The Crime was in Granada (Poem Summary)

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Poem Summary

I

The first part of Machado's poem "The Crime Was in Granada" is called "The Crime," and it describes, or imagines, the assassination of Lorca. The first line of the poem says that Lorca "was seen, surrounded by rifles." By saying that the writer is "seen," Machado reinforces his idea that what occurred was a hideous "crime," since Lorca's having been seen in this context is akin to a crime having been witnessed. Notably, also, this first line declines to humanize Lorca's murderers — they amount to no more than the "rifles" they are carrying: "He was seen, surrounded by rifles."

In the next three lines, the setting of Lorca's journey to his death is imagined and described: he is escorted outside of the city ("down a long street"), into the surrounding countryside, in the "chill before dawn, with the stars still out." This simple description of Lorca's last walk manages to conjure a sense of a vast universe — cold, impartial, and uninvolved — so that Lorca's death strikes the reader as a terribly sad and lonely affair, lending a somber, mournful mood to the poem.

The next two lines are ironic in effect, as Lorca is killed "at the first glint of daylight." That is, the sun's rising would seem to be an occasion for joy, being somehow a rebirth — the signaling of a new day. Yet this is the moment Lorca is killed, the moment that a death, and not a birth, occurs. Thus, there is the sense here that nature does not concern itself with or coincide with the wishes of humans. Still, in the following two lines, Lorca is elevated above his "assassins," even if he has not been elevated above nature. This is so because the structure of the four lines, even in the original Spanish, encourages the reader to equate the sun's first rays with Lorca's look, from which his murderers shrink:

They killed Federico

at the first glint of daylight.

The band of assassins

shrank from his glance.

The next line of the poem furthers this effect, as, in writing that the assassins "closed their eyes" as they shot, the idea of Lorca's visage, which is like a ray of the sun, underscores the murderers' moral puniness and blindness.

Lorca's death is next bluntly, simply described: "lead in his stomach, blood on his face." This simplicity, in its starkness, conveys the brutality of the writer's murder. The first part of the poem ends with an exclamation that Granada was "the scene of the crime," as if to say that no place would ever want to be known as the place that hosted such a shameful and horrible event. Certainly, in writing "poor Granada," Machado expresses his sympathy for the pain and shame Granadinos must feel.

Ii

The second section of the poem is called "The Poet and Death." In this section, Machado imagines Lorca in conversation with Death. Death is personified as an old woman. So, in place of Lorca's being seen walking down a "long street," in this section he is "seen with her [Death]," "un-afraid of her scythe." This indication of the poet's bravery in the face of death continues what is begun in the poem's first part, namely, Machado's paying homage to his fellow writer. Indeed, Machado writes that Lorca is "playing up to Death"; that is, he is in some way courting her and entertaining her. The suggestion is that Lorca is equal to Death — he is a man so extraordinary that a force as powerful as Death would be inclined to pass the time with him. To be sure, Death, says the poet, is "listening" to Lorca.

In the next lines' description of sunlight striking off towers and "hammers" pounding on "anvils," Machado conjures a tense, apocalyptic mood, commemorating the terribleness of the event. This reference to the "forges" where this ironwork is taking place also calls to mind strange, otherworldly places, places from which Death might emerge to make a claim. In the following lines, in which Machado imagines Lorca's conversation with Death, he calls to mind Lorca's own astonishing writing, often so full of elemental and startling imagery:

"The clack of your fleshless palms

was heard in my verse just yesterday, friend;

you put ice in my song, you gave my tragedy

the cutting edge of your silver scythe;

More specifically, Machado is calling to mind the series of rural tragedy plays that Lorca most recently had been working on before he was killed: Blood Wedding, Yerma, and The House of Bernarda Alba. In these lines and the immediately following lines of section II, Machado also emphasizes, again, Lorca's equality with Death, as Machado has Lorca calling Death "friend." The poet develops, in this part of the poem, the idea that Death and Lorca were always intimate — that Lorca was in some sense always in love with Death and even welcomes his death now that it has arrived. Hence, the following erotic flourish and Lorca's happiness at being finally alone with Death:

those red lips of yours that knew kisses once . . .

Now, as always, gypsy, my own death,

how good being alone with you,

in these breezes of Granada, my Granada!"

Section II's closing reference to Granada manages to convey, as do the references to the city in section I, a sense of general blame, as Lorca's loving evocation of his native city seems somewhat undeserved, considering that its inhabitants were unable to protect him.

Iii

Section III of Machado's poem is untitled, as if to suggest the poet's exhaustion at the contemplation of such a terrible event; words to describe the subject of his writing finally elude him. Indeed, in repeating the first section's opening, which then trails off with an ellipsis, this sense of tired exhaustion is underscored: "He was seen walking. . . ." The poet's exhaustion also undoubtedly pertains to the exhaustion of Spaniards in general, as both the armies of Franco and the opposition had already, by the time of the full-scale inception of the civil war, committed numerous acts of terrible brutality.

The second line of section III follows a blank space on the page, as if to conjure once again the crime — but a crime the poet, in his exhaustion, again cannot bring himself to describe further. This blank space on the page also signifies Lorca's death — his absence. The poem ends with a lament and an exhortation:

Friends, carve a monument

out of dream stone

for the poet in the Alhambra,

over a fountain where the grieving water

shall say forever:

The crime was in Granada, his Granada.

This shortest section of "The Crime Was in Granada" achieves a number of goals. First, it maintains that Lorca must be memorialized with a monument. Second, it insists on Lorca's greatness by proposing that a monument be placed in the Alhambra, an ancient, grand fortress and palace that is Granada's greatest edifice. Third, it suggests that this monument not only will memorialize Lorca but also will remind the world forever of the terribleness of the "crime" committed against him. Indeed, the crime is such an awful one that the Alhambra's fountain, personified like Death, will flow with "grieving water," crying "forever." Last, the closing of the poem reiterates Machado's sense that Spaniards, and Granadinos in particular, should feel shame for what happened to Lorca: he was betrayed and killed in the very town in which he grew up.