Sor Juana Inés De la Cruz – searchable text

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Sonnet CXLV

Procura desmentir los elogios que a un retrato de la poetisa inscribió la verdad, que llama pasión

Este, que ves, engaño colorido,
que del arte ostentando los primores,
con falsos silogismos de colores
es cauteloso engaño del sentido;

este, en quien la lisonja ha pretendido
excusar de los años los horrores,
y venciendo del tiempo los rigores,
triunfar de la vejez y del olvido:

es un vano artificio del cuidado,
es una flor al viento delicada,
es un resguardo inútil para el hado:

es una necia diligencia errada,
es un afán caduco y, bien mirado,
es cadáver, es polvo, es sombra, es nada.

She attempts to minimize [desmentir = give the lie to] the praise occasioned by a portrait of herself inscribed by Truth, which she calls Ardor [passion]

This that you gaze on, colorful deceit,
That so immodestly displays art’s favors,
With its fallacious arguments of colors
Is to the senses cunning counterfeit,

This on which kindness [flattery] practiced to delete
From cruel years accumulated horrors,
Constraining time to mitigate its rigors,
And thus oblivion and age defeat,

Is but an artifice, a sop to vanity,
Is but a flower by the breezes bowed,
Is but a ploy to counter destiny,

Is but a foolish labor, ill-employed,
Is but a fancym and, as all may see,
Is but cadaver, ashes, shadow, void.

Source

Juana Inés de la Cruz, Sor (1997), Poems, Protest, and a Dream, trans. M. Sayers Peden, introd. I. Stavans (Harmondsworth, Penguin), 169.