Canto General

Canto General (General Song) is Pablo Neruda's tenth book of poems. It was first published in Mexico in 1950, by Talleres Gráficos de la Nación. Neruda began to compose it in 1938. It consists of 15 sections, 231 poems, and more than 15,000 lines. This work attempts to be a history or encyclopedia of the whole continent of Hispanic America. Quotes Unless otherwise noted, all quotes translated by Jack Schmitt Canto I: A Lamp on Earth No one couldremember them afterward: the windforgot them, the language of waterwas buried, the keys were lostor flooded with silence or blood.Life was not lost, pastoral brothers.But like a wild rosea red rop fell into the dense growth, and a lamp of earth was extinguished. Amor America (1400), st. 3-4 To the lands without nameor numbers,the wind blew down from other domains,the rain brought celestial threads,and the god of the impregnated altarsrestored flowers and lives. Vegetation, st. 1 It was the twilight of the iguana. Some Beasts, st. 1 Canto II: Las Alturas de Macchu Picchu (The Heights of Macchu Picchu) I put my brow amid the deep waves,descended like a drop amid the sulphurous peace,and, like a blind man, returned to the jasmineof spent human springtime. I, st. 4 How many times in the wintry streetsof a city or ina bus or a boat at dusk, or in the deepestloneliness, a night or revelry beneath the soundof shadows and bells, in the very grotto of human pleasureI've tried to stop and seek the eternal unfathomable lodethat I touched before on stone or in the lightning unleashed by a kiss. II, st. 3 Mighty death invited me many times:it was like the invisible salt in the waves,and what its invisible taste disseminatedwas like halves of sinking and risingor vast structures of wind and glacier. IV, st. 1 I want to know, salt of the roads,show me the spoon - architecture, let mescratch at the stamens of stone with a little stick,ascend the rungs of the air up to the void,scrape the innards until I touch mankind. X, st. 2 Through the hazy splendor,through the stone night, let me plunge my hand,and let the aged heart of the forsaken beat in melike a bird captive for a thousand years! XI, st. 1 Rise up to be born with me, my brother. XII, st. 1 Give me silence, water, hope.Give me struggle, iron, volcanoes.Cling to my body like magnets.Hasten to my veins and to my mouth.Speak through my words and my blood. XII, st. 3 Canto III: The Conquistadors In Cholula the youths weartheir finest cloth, gold, and plumes.Aorned for the festival,they question the invader.Death has answered them. Cholula, st. 1 Everything abounded with deathand over the bottomless agonyof their ill-starred children,in the territory (gnawedto the bone by rats),they clutched their entrailsbefore killing and being killed. The Wars, st. 2 Sphere that slowly destroys the night, water, ice,extension assailed by weather and time,with their violent mark, with the blue endof the wild rainbow,my country's feet sink in your shadowand the crushed rose shrieks its dying breath. Only Destruction Prevails Canto IV: The Liberators Here comes the tree, thr treeof the storm, the tree of the people.Its heroes rise up from the earthas leaves from the sap,and the wind spangles the whisperingmultitude's foliage,until the seed fallsagain from the bread to the earth. The Liberators, st. 1 Aprendió el alfabeto del relámpago. He learned the alphabet of the lightning Educación del Cacique (Education of a Chieftain), st. 3, trans. Anthony Kerrigan in Selected Poems by Pablo Neruda [Houghton Mifflin, 1990, 0-395-54418-1] (p. 215) Our land - wide land, wilderness -was filled with murmurs, arms, mouths.A mute syllable kept burning,congregating the clandestine rose,until the meadows shook,trampled by metals and gallops.Truth was as hard as a ploughshare.It broke the earth, established desire,sank in its germinal propaganda,and was born in the secret springtime. Insurgent America (1800) Hunger and pain were the silicaof your ancestral sandsand a muted tumult, entwinedto your peoples' roots,gave the world's freedoman eternity of lightning,of dongs and warriors. Mina (1817), st. 6, regarding Martín Javier Mina y Larrea In our struggle, in our landhis crystal was bled,fighting for freedom<br indivisible and banished.In Mexico they impounded the waterof the Spanish headsprings.And his abundant transparencyremained motionless and mute. Mina (1817), st. 10-11 You were the first to say Freedom,when the whisper passed from stone to stone,hidden in the patios, humiliated.You were the first to say Freedom.You freed the slave's child.The merchantsmoved like shadowsselling blood from foreign seas.You freed the slave's child. José Miguel Carrera (1810), st. 1-2 External links Category:Poetry