The Araucaniad
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The Araucaniad - Alonso de Ercilla Y Zuniga
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