fertility or birth idiom
In English there is an idiom "the fruit of my loins" which basically refers to someone's children or offspring. Is there a similar idiom in Spanish that compare babies to fruit, or the act of having babies as producing fruit?
I am trying to better understand the Lorca poem Cancion del Naranjo Seco, in it there is a line that says "Free me from the torment / of seeing myself without fruit" and I wonder if this could refer to the fact that Lorca was childless and would remain childless because of his sexual orientation? It does have this implication when translated to English, but I wonder if it holds the same implication in Spanish.
Thank you!
2 Answers
I think that there are several ideas that are similar in both Spanish and English regarding fruit. For example,
Dar/Rendir frutos - to bear fruit
el fruto de su trabajo - The fruits of his labor
Moreover, the word fruit (much as in English) can be used to convey a return or yield from something (such as with fruits of his labor) that extends to many different ideas:
fruto de su imaginación - figment (product) of his imagination
fruto de la casualidad - chance occurrence (produced or yielded by pure chance/luck).
I imagine that the idea of fruitless, depending on the context, could also be referring to remaining childless (I have not read the poem in its entirety so I will leave it up to you to decide), but it could also possibly be a sentiment that refers to him living a useless/meaningless life or existence especially if the tone of the verse is one of melancholy (as I said though, I will leave the interpretation up to you).
That's a great answer! It gives me even more ways to look at the poem than I initially considered. It seems that the idea of "fruit" as a product of a variety of activities is more prevalent in Spanish than in English, and so now I have more options as to how I will interpret that line. Thanks so much!
