Érase un hombre a una nariz pegado;
érase una nariz superlativa;
érase una nariz sayón y escriba;
érase un pez espada muy barbado.
Era un reloj de sol mal encarado;
érase una alquitara pensativa;
érase un elefante boca arriba;
era Ovidio Nasón más naridado.
Érase el espolón de una galera;
érase una pirámide de Egipto;
las doce tribus de narices era.
Era un naricísimo infinito,
muchísima nariz, nariz tan fiera
que en la cara de Anás fuera delito.

Once there was a man stuck to a nose,
it was a nose more marvellous than weird,
it was a nearly living web of tubes,
it was a swordfish with an awful beard,
it was a sundial doomed to face the shade,
an elephant that looked up to the sky,
it was a nose of hangman and of scribe,
Ovidius Naso nostrilled all awry,
it was the bowsprit of a mighty ship,
like Egypt's pyramid it pierced the sky,
it was of noses all of the twelve tribes;
it was in noseness truly infinite,
an archnose shudder, and a frightening mask,
a monstrous chilblain, purpley and fried.
it was in noseness truly infinite,
an awful lot of nose, a nose so fierce
that on Annas's face would be a crime.

Translated by Alix Ingber