The gaucho Martín Fierro
The Second Canto
English versión of José Hernández’s poem —
José Hernández’s “El gaucho Martín Fierro” is a classic epic poem, divided into two parts, published in 1872 and 1879. It tells the story of Martín Fierro, a rural Argentine man, who is forced to flee his home and live as a fugitive due to a draft(forced recruitment for war) it describes the injustice and mistreatment of the gauchos by society and government, and also it celebrates their way of life and values. This poem is widely considered one of the most significant literary works in Argentina and is deeply ingrained in the country’s cultural heritage.
In this presentation, I will be providing a detailed explanation of the first part of the poem, referred to as “The departure of Martín Fierro.” The complete poem can be accessed through the following link:
The departure of Martín Fierro
The second canto completes the sense of the narrative that Fierro will make of his life. It is not about singing, as in the case of “the lonely bird,” only to seek consolation, but also to transmit knowledge.
Fierro has a much more elemental wisdom than that of any literate man, it is the wisdom of one who has suffered, because, “nothing teaches as much as suffering and crying.”
Almost all of the stanzas of this canto confront the memory of an idyllic past, in which the gaucho had work, a small farm and family, with the present of enunciation in which the poor man spends his life running from authority, as we read in one of his verses.”
There was a time when I knew this land
As the gaucho’s own domain;
With children and wife, he had joy in life,
And law was kept by the ready knife
Far better than now; alas, no more
That time shall come again.
In the penultimate stanza, the way in which Fierro’s personal misfortune is linked to that of the rest of the peasants is announced. It all starts with the draft or forced recruitment for war:
And there God knows, your share of woes
With a vengeance you begin;
In a cell you’ll stay for many a day,
Till your turn comes round, and yea, or nay,
They draft you off to a frontier post, —
Thank God you’ve saved your skin!
And in the last stanza we read:
It was there, I own, that I learned to groan,
And thus my griefs began,
In other songs, if you’ll bear with me,
I’ll tell you the tale of my misery;
From the law’s grim trap not the Saints of heaven
Have ever saved a man.
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