Alonso de Ercilla - The Araucaniad

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 loves 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
Memorys 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 neer 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 Oceans sea and Chiles
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.

Pilots lack, or some such reason
Covered, though perhaps transcendent,
Caused this once-found secret roadstead
To remain from us fast hidden,
Whether through a draftsmans 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 wars point is sharpened
By fierce exercise and custom.
Love and Venus have no part here;
Only wrathful Mars is master.

At this districts 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 Ulmens obligation
To indoctrinate his subjects
In wars 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 passions 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.

Wars preminence 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 persons 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 inventions 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,
Neer 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 moments notice;
And another, if tis routed,
Spears ahead, whilst first recovers.
From the line they cannot falter
Till they see the others 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,