The Araucaniad

By Alonso de Ercilla Y Zuniga

Now back in print! The first English translation of this epic masterpiece of Chilean poetry.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Vanderbilt University Press
• Release date: Apr 30, 2021
• ISBN: 9780826503046

Book preview

THE ARAUCANIAD

PART ONE

CANTO I

Which declares the seat and description of the province of Chile and the state of Arauco, with the customs and methods of warfare that the natives observe, and which likewise deals with the entry and conquest of the Spaniards until Arauco grew rebellious.

Not of ladies, love, or graces

Do I sing, nor knights enamored,

Nor of gifts and shows of feeling,

Cares of love, or love’s affections;

But the valiant acts and prowess

Of those never-daunted Spaniards

Who with swords placed yokes of bond- age

On the necks of untamed Indians.

I shall dwell on deeds distinguished

Of a monarch-scorning people,

Feats of gallantry deserving

Memory’s shrine and celebration,

Rare accomplishments of merit

Crowning Spanish might with grandeur;

For the victor most is honored

By repute of vanquished hero.

I implore you, royal Philip,

That this work wear your approval.

Needing universal favor,

’Tis extolled by your acceptance.

Uncorrupted my narration,

Drawn from truth and cut to measure!

Do not scorn this gift, though humble.

Let your sanction speed my verses.

Pledged unto a lord so lofty

Be it bolstered by this boldness!

When its lustre thus is vouchsafed,

All who see it will esteem it.

If it still be deemed unworthy,

Let it halt and be confounded;

For I feel, to you directed,

It secretes some mystic essence.

Since my rearing in your household,

Credit elsewhere has enriched me,

Which may turn dull style delightful,

Lending art to crude disorder.

To the maw of Mars, the monstrous,

Flushed, I fling my quill new-quickened.

Lord, give ear to my recounting

Actions I have shared and witnessed.

Chile, fertile province, famous

In the vast Antarctic region, -

Known to far-flung mighty nations

For her queenly grace and courage,

Has produced a race so noble,

Dauntless, bellicose, and haughty,

That by king it ne’er was humbled

Nor to foreign sway submitted.

North to South, her long extension

Coast of Southern Seas is titled.

From the West to East her slimness

By a hundred miles encompassed,

Reaches ’neath the Antarctic Circle

To degrees full twenty-seven,

Where the Ocean’s sea and Chile’s

Merge in bosomed straits their waters.

Dual ocean floods, aspiring

To unite beyond their limits,

Lash the rocks with waves extended;

But their junction is impeded,

Till at last the land is riven,

And they there commune together.

Here Magellan drove a pathway,

First to find it, sire, and name it.

Pilot’s lack, or some such reason

Covered, though perhaps transcendent,

Caused this once-found secret roadstead

To remain from us fast hidden,

Whether through a draftsman’s error

Or because some isle transplanted,

By the stormy main and whirlwind

Blown aground, has choked its entrance.

Land runs North to South, a ribbon,

And the sea bathes western shoreline.

On the East in one direction

Stretch a thousand leagues of mountains.

In their midst war’s point is sharpened

By fierce exercise and custom.

Love and Venus have no part here;

Only wrathful Mars is master.

At this district’s demarcation,

Where ’tis broadest, lies the nation

Thirty-six degrees projected.

Costly to itself and aliens,

Toll it takes of strange usurpers,

Fetters Chile in strait shackles,

And with warfare undiluted,

With sheer grit outrocks the earthquake.

’Tis Arauco self-sufficient

That with stratagem and splendor

Holds the soil in far dominion

From the one Pole to the other,

Trapping Spaniards in crass meshes,

As my writing soon will picture.

Twenty leagues contain its landmarks.

Sixteen Toqui chiefs possess it.

Ten and six are lords and chieftains

Who control the haughty nation,

Those best versed in art of warfare,

Born of red barbaric mothers,

Bulwarks of the realm incarnate.

None who governs boasts preferment.

Other chiefs there are, but valor

Proves and crowns their choice commanders.

Only lords are here entitled

To their vassals’ privy service,

And they may when need arises,

Use constraint to force their fealty.

’Tis the Ulmen’s obligation

To indoctrinate his subjects

In war’s discipline and usage,

Till they master martial methods.

As for children, those of talent,

Those endowed with agile vigor

Run a marathon of manhood

Over slopes and stony hillocks,

And the winner is rewarded,

From the race at length returning.

Strong of lung and nimble-footed,

Deer they overtake, unwinded.

Elders, tending passion’s vineyard,

Teach them exercise from childhood.

Veterans drill them in adulthood

For a bellicose profession.

They disqualify the weaklings

From the military practice

And bestow on brilliant soldiers

Rank according to their rigor.

War’s preëminence and honor

Here are not supplied by frailty,

Not by birth nor social status,

By inheritance nor riches.

Excellence of arm, and virtue,

These set men apart from others;

These are oils to anele perfection

And to avouch the person’s value.

Warlords, all to war devoted,

Are immune from other service.

They, exempt from toil and spadework,

Are by baser folk supported;

But by law there is compulsion

That they be with arms provided,

Handling them with skilful knowledge

In their licit wars and battles.

Weapons used by them most often

Are comprised of pikes and halberds,

Lances, pointed arms long-handled

Of the shape and form of bodkins,

Hatchets, hammers, stout-ribbed bludgeons,

Darts and axes, sticks and arrows,

Rattan lassoes, thongs of osier,

Catapults, and throwing missiles.

Some of these are filched munitions,

Seized of late from Christians’ clutches.

Care and constant exercises

From each hour squeeze golden profit.

Others are by need invented.

Want is oft invention’s mother!

In all spheres a zealous labor

Is a shrewd, ingenious tutor.

They have corselets strong and

doubled,

Common gear for all the soldiers,

And like kilts their other armor,

Which is most employed, though modern.

Greaves and helmets, gorgets, brassards,

Made of tan hide, hard cured leather,

Ne’er by sharpest steel offended,

Link in sundry forms together.

Each brave has one weapon only

Which he skills himself to handle,

One on which since vernal nonage

He has hung his predilection.

He attempts with this one solely

To win mastery; the archer

Is untrammelled by the pikestaff;

Pikeman spurns the bow and arrows.

Camp they pitch, and in formation

Soon appear in separate squadrons,

Lined in rows a hundred soldiers.

Archers, spaced between the pikemen,

From afar attack, unhampered,

Under frontal pikes’ protection.

Side by side the pikemen hurtle

Till with points they prod opponents.

Should the first attacking squadron

Come perforce to be defeated,

Speeds another to its rescue,

Ceding not a moment’s notice;

And another, if ’tis routed,

Spears ahead, whilst first recovers.

From the line they cannot falter

Till they see the other’s progress.

To the noxious dread of horses

Through the swamps they swarm for safety,

Where at times they take their refuge,

If perchance they be retruded.

There they may reform, slime-shielded,

And attack without reprisals.

Slippery incommodious places

Ever bog our soldiers’ passage.

From the vanguard go advancing

Wild men extraordinary,

Brazen, scorning earth and heaven,

Eager to exert their prowess,

Dragging pikes by butts and handles,

Standing forth in varied postures,

Shrieking: "Let some Christian martyr

Straight step forth for single combat!"

Thirty, forty e’en in company,

Avid of acclaim and plaudits,

March with pride and gallant bearing

To accelerated drum-beats.

Arms in rivalry are tinted

With a splash of lavish colors.

Rich adornments, tufts of feathers

Wave above their leaping dances.

Forts they establish when persuaded

That the site is advantageous,

Or when primed to seize objectives,

Or distressed and pressed with peril.

There defense for them is scatheless

And provides for sudden sallies.

They repair to this, their stronghold,

Fabricated in such fashion:

Once the area is appointed,

They enclose the broad-squared plaza

With a mass of mighty tree-trunks

Hewn to stakes of firm endurance,

Blocking those without, preventing

Entrance and an open skirmish,

Since the few in walls protected

Can with ease combat the many.

In the fort they are accustomed

To construct their plank compartments,

Stacking limbs of trees in order,

Making fast the wall’s partitions

With four fortifying turrets

Set astride the first enclosure.

Walls are slit with tiny loopholes

For secure and fearless action.

Pits are dug around this plaza

In a dense, constricted circuit.

Some are long, some broad, some narrow;

Thus they are a snare unfailing

For the heedless lad excited,

Spurring on his clattering courser

After wily knaves deceitful,

Deft decoys to danger’s circle.

Delvers scoop out larger ditches,

Which they spike with sharpened faggots

And disguise with reeds and flowers

That careering may be reckless

Wheresoe’er unwary riders

With no milestone save the star-gleam

Plunge within, adread and helpless,

Fast impaled on pointed truncheons.

They maintain an ancient custom,

Sanctioned by accord of council,

To indulge in festive orgies

And to toast momentous hazard.

Thus the first to whom the tidings

Of some pregnant chance be carried

Straight dispatches emissaries

To all chiefs and lordly leaders.

These announce the need’s occasion,

Harbingers of happy meeting.

It behooves them all in lealty

To devise a hasty powwow,

And to weigh the problem’s merits,

Con the jeopardy impending.

When in one their minds are melted,

All who can must swell attendance.

Chiefs of senate, joined in conclave,

Have the case anew propounded,

Which reviewed by them, and studied,

Calls for ways and means convenient.

Once procedure is determined

And decreed, though one voice differ,

None may be exempt from duty,

For the major vote is followed.

Should no opposition grumble,

New decrees and declarations

Are conveyed to common rabble

Who, agog, await the war-news.

If a battle be commended,

Great, the noise that makes it public!

Screeching, rasping trumps and tabors

Advertise the mobsters’ heyday.

They decide a date and limit

For discussion of the question,

With three days for confirmation

Of their will, or will’s retraction.

After term of free election

Law forbids the fiat’s annulment.

So, fanatical, blind instinct

Preordains their new-planned movement.

Loveliest nook in woods is chosen

For the assembled council’s setting,

Where the countryside bewitches,

Garnished with a world of flora.

There by fresh and amorous breezes

Trees are rocked with pleasant rustling,

And a tranquil, limpid brooklet

Crosses many times the meadow.

There a grove of crisp, tall poplars

They array in graceful order

Round the plaza’s wide-rimmed orbit,

Fit to hold both feast and parley,

Rest inviting, and excluding

Noontide’s troublous heat pervasive.

There one hears melodious sweetness

Of the birds’ harmonious singing.

Godless, lawless, naught respecting

Save the One flung down from heaven,

Who in songs oft celebrated

Is their great and thunderous prophet,

They invoke His false-famed fury,

Chant to Him in every action,

Holding all He says as certain,

Words of dire portent and promise.

On the eve of dawn embattled,

They adjure Him in their ritual.

Mute, they abstain, if long unanswered,

Though the hounds of lust be howling.

No contingency or crisis

Bans this cursed one’s invocation.

Zealots call him Eponamon;

Tis the common badge of courage.

Using fraud of seers’ high office,

Science to which they lean by nature,

Auguries they scan, and omens,

Which determine their behavior,

Venerating stupid wizards,

Who divine the morrow’s mysteries.

Oracles increase their bravery

And infuse the fears that cow them.

Some of these are gifted preachers,

Held in sacred awe and reverence,

Who subsist alone on paeans,

Leading narrow lives abstemious.

These confuse the common cretins

And confirm them in their errors,

Who consider true their folly,

E’en as we heed Scripture’s Gospel.

Those of somewhat strict observance,

Free of law or god, are stainless;

But that way of life is only

Good for learnèd reputations.

Other men regard as better

Lance and sword, and bow and arrow,

Saying portents, sad or cheerful,

Are on fortitude dependent.

This land’s watchword, as its climate,

From the stars’ prognostication

Is, in fine, contentious fury;

Discord, strife, its sole ambition.

Thence stem all their good and evil.

They are men of sudden anger,

Fierce of temper, and impatient,

Fond of quelling foreign varlets.

Beardless men, robust of gesture,

Theirs are full-grown, shapely bodies,

Lofty chests and massive shoulders,

Stalwart limbs and steely sinews;

They are confident, emboldened,

Dauntless, gallant, and audacious,

Firm inured to toil, and suffering

Mortal cold and heat and hunger.

Never has a king subjected

Such fierce people proud of freedom,

Nor has alien nation boasted

E‘er of having trod their borders;

Ne’er has dared a neighboring country

Raise the sword and move against them;

Always were they feared, unshackled,

Free of laws, with necks unbending.

Incas’ potent king excelling

Throughout all Antarctic regions,

Was a lord extremely eager

To behold and crush new nations.

He, by state’s renown enkindled,

Sent his big-eared lords to Chile,

Though the Chileans’ reputation

Stilled their blood and froze their fervor.

Yet the doughty, Incan princes

Broke through wilderness and hardships,

And in Chile, warlike peoples

Forced on them the yoke of slavery,

Where laborious laws and edicts

With a weaponed hand they pounded,

Making them with wicked statutes

Pay great subsidies and tributes.

Settled in the land, and warlines

Formed anew with pushing armies,

Grasping at the wished-for kingdom,

Onward with their hosts they straggled.

Many miles they had not ventured

Ere they learned that hardy valor

Matched the sword-won aggrandizement

Of the Araucanian savage.

When the Maulian Promaucanians

Learned vain Incas’ vainest purpose,

Out they rushed for fierce encounter,

No less orderly than briskly,

And events in such wise happened

That in closely tangled conflict

Died there countless big-eared nobles,

Losing field and all their pennons.

Such, the tribe of Promaucanians,

Five score miles beyond the province,

Brave, o’erweening, fell and prosperous,

That the Spaniards sacked and pillaged!

But withal, this tribe is different

From that waspish, bristling nation,

Which in feats of arms contrasted

Has surpassing great advantage.

Incas, cognizant of power

Sealed in that unruly province,

Knew how little strife would profit,

If the war were consummated;

Seeing their misled intentions,

Leaving conquests unprotected,

Straight they turned to towns abandoned,

Where some while they courted leisure.

Then Don Diego le A magro,

Governor of myriad conquests,

Wise by every one reputed,

Well beloved for loyal courage,

Resolutely fared toward Chile,

That the faith of Christ might burgeon;

But at journey’s termination,

Prompt return he found convenient.

Victory was with rightful reason

Only to Valdivia granted;

And ’tis well to praise his memory,

Since his sword has hewn such progress.

In Arauco was encompassed

Glory hitherto unequalled.

Proud, the race he yoked in bondage,

Shrouding freedom with oppression!

With the sword and mantle only,

Aided by his own acuteness,

Shortly he arrayed a bulky

And illustrious horde of fighters.

With design and soul volcanic,

Rathe he took his way to Chile,

Firm resolved that this adventure

Terminate his life or mission.

On the long road, rough, encumbered,

Thirst he bore, and cold and hunger,

But with constancy’s endeavor

Set his ardent breast to labor.

Prosperous destiny right-handed

Led him on to Chile, spiting

All who tried to block his pathway

Or who raised their arms to harm him.

As he entered, with those people

He assumed the risk of conflicts,

Fought at sundry hours and places

Wherein dubious were the issues;

Finally, the dogged Spaniards,

Through the strength of arms empowered,

Sternly bearding war’s light chances,

Occupied the land’s main portion.

Not without great risks and